Faith in God's Dreams

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, January 10, 2016.  The Bible verses are Genesis 37:2-11.

            We’re in the second week of our sermon series, “Dream On”.  We’re looking at dreams and dreamers in the Bible and how their stories can inform the dreams we have for ourselves and for our church.  And no sermon series on dreams and dreamers would be complete without looking at Joseph.

            Now, understand, this is the Joseph of the Old Testament.  The Joseph of the New Testament, Mary’s husband and Jesus’ earthly father, had some dreams, too, and we may look at those later.  But today, we’re talking about the Joseph of the Old Testament.  He was the son of Jacob, who we talked about last week.

            This Joseph is probably the most famous dreamer of the Bible.  We could probably do an entire sermon series on Joseph and dreams, both his own and the dreams of others around him.  But today, we’re focusing on the dreams Joseph had.

            At this point, when he had these dreams, Joseph was nobody in particular.  Yes, he was Jacob’s son, and that probably gave him a certain amount of respect.  But Joseph had eleven brothers, and ten of them were older than he was.  As the eleventh one in line, Joseph was not considered all that special.

            And then, too, Joseph was only seventeen years old when he had these dreams.  Now, granted, when you were seventeen back then you probably were considered a lot more of an adult than seventeen-year-olds are today.  But still, he was not a full-grown man yet, and he had a bunch of older brothers who were.  The chances are those older brothers had gotten pretty used to bossing Joseph around.  They’d have thought they had the right to tell Joseph what to do, and probably Joseph would’ve thought so, too.  That was just the way things were back then.

             And Jacob probably did not make things any easier by appearing to favor Joseph over his brothers.  Joseph’s brothers resented that, as we might expect.  And so, when Jacob was not around to protect him, his brothers would’ve been even harder on Joseph than they would’ve been otherwise.

            So here’s Joseph, still a kid in a lot of ways, out tending the flocks with his brothers.  And he has this dream.  It’s actually two dreams that are pretty similar.  In each one, all of his brothers are symbolically bowing down to him.  And in the second dream, Joseph’s mother and father are bowing down to him, too.

            Now of course, Joseph’s brothers don’t like hearing that.  They get even more upset with Joseph.  And if you know the story, you know that Joseph’s brothers come to hate him so much that they sell him into slavery in Egypt.        

But the point of this sermon series is to have the dreams and dreamers we’re talking about inform our own process of dreaming, for ourselves and for the church.  So what do we learn from the story of Joseph and his dreams?

            Well, I think there are a few things we can learn.  One of them reiterates a point we talked about last week.  This was not Joseph’s dream for himself.  This was God’s dream for Joseph.  Joseph would’ve had no reason whatsoever to think he was going to grow up and have his brothers and even his parents bowing down to him.  That was probably not something that even would’ve occurred to him.  Just like we talked about last week, God’s dreams for us are often way beyond anything that we would ever dream for ourselves.  Joseph’s dream certainly was.

            Another thing we can learn is that, when God gives us a big dream, we should not be scared of it.  Joseph was not.  Joseph went ahead and told people what his dream was, regardless of the consequences.  Joseph had to know his brothers were not going to like it when he told them his dream.  He may not have known they’d go so far as to sell him in to slavery, but he must have known they’d be upset with him.  But it did not matter.  He was not going to be scared of telling people God’s dream for him.  He had faith that, since it was God’s dream, he did not have to worry no matter what might happen.  He had faith that God’s dreams always come true.

            And Joseph continued to have that faith even when things went against him.  And maybe that’s the most important lesson of all, because you know, we tend to want things to happen right away.  I do.  When I want something to happen, I want it to happen right now.  Most of us are like that.  And when we get a dream from God, when God tells us that something is going to happen, well, it’s just natural to expect it to happen right away.  But sometimes it does not.  In fact, sometimes it looks like things are going in the exact opposite direction and we cannot see how that dream we got from God can possibly come true the way things are going now.

            That’s pretty much what happened to Joseph.  He had a lot of times in his life when it looked like everything had gone wrong.  First, he got sold into slavery.  Then, later on, he was put in jail on a trumped-up charge and left there for years.

            When Joseph was sold into slavery, he must have wondered what was going on.  He must have wondered how this dream he’d been given from God could possibly come true.  Then he got knocked down again, even lower than he’d been before.  He was in jail with no real reason to think he’d ever get out.  How in the world would anyone, let alone his brothers, ever bow down to him when he was in prison?

            And yet, Joseph stayed faithful.  Joseph remembered the dream God had given him and Joseph continued to believe that dream would come true.  No matter how bad things got for Joseph, he never lost faith.  He just kept doing his best, he kept trusting in God, and he never gave up.

            When Joseph was sold into slavery, he stayed faithful to God and was the best slave he could be.  People saw that, and he was put in charge of the affairs of a wealthy man.  When he was in jail, he stayed faithful to God and was the best prisoner he could be.  People saw that, and he was put in charge of the affairs of all the prisoners.  Finally, when he got a chance, he proved his worth to Pharaoh himself, and was put in charge of all the affairs of Egypt, with only the Pharaoh himself above him.  And ultimately, when a drought forced his brothers to come to Egypt to try to get food, his brothers did bow down to him, just like God had said.

            When God gives us a dream, God does not promise that it will happen in a nice, straight, smooth, easy way.  God certainly sent Joseph the long way around.  God sends us the long way around sometimes, too.  Why?  There could be a lot of reasons, but the thing is that, while we’re going the long way around, it can be easy to get discouraged.  It can be easy to doubt.  It can be easy to think, well, maybe I misunderstood what God was telling me.  Maybe this dream did not come from God at all.  Maybe I was just fooling myself, thinking this was God’s dream for me.  Maybe it’s not actually going to happen, because I sure don’t see anything happening right now.

            It’s interesting, I think, that after Joseph had those two initial dreams, we’re not told of him ever having another one.  We’re not told that God ever gave Joseph another dream to confirm those first two.  While Joseph was a slave, while he was in prison, God did not give Joseph any special divine message to say, “Hang in there.  Remember what I told you.  It’s still going to happen.  Don’t give up.”  It was up to Joseph to remember, and to trust, and to not doubt.

            I think that’s a lesson for us, too.  Because that seems to be the way it always is in the Bible when someone gets a dream from God.  Once God gives us a dream, it’s up to us to stay faithful.  God’s not likely to keep reassuring us.  God’s not likely to come back to us and say, “Remember what I said?  I really meant that.  It’s really going to happen.”  God gives us the message, God gives us the dream, once.  And then God leaves it up to us to stay faithful to God and to the dream God has given us.

            So as we think about our individual futures, and as we think about the future of the church, let’s remember the example of Joseph.  We need to do what we can to follow God’s dream for us.  We need to not be scared of it, even if it’s a big dream.  We need to not worry about what other people may think of our dream.  We need to continue to do our best and have faith in God’s dream for us even when things seem to be going against us.  We need to keep trusting God and never give up no matter what happens.  And we need to not demand that God confirm the dream, because God tends not to do that.  God gives us the dream and then leaves it up to us to stay faithful.

            God has a big dream for each of us and God has a big dream for this church.  Let’s follow God’s dream without fear, even if it’s a big dream.  Because we know that God’s dreams always come true, and no word from God will ever fail.