This is the
last Sunday of our sermon series, “Dream On”, looking at dreams and dreamers in
the Bible and trying to see how their stories help us find God’s dreams for us,
both as individuals and as a church. And
you may be wondering what’s left to say.
We’ve gone through several examples of God’s dreams. We’ve looked at what God’s dreams are and
what they are not. We’ve even come up
with a checklist to help us figure out whether a dream actually is God’s dream
or not. So what’s left?
Well, what’s left is actually following God’s dream. And sometimes that can be trickiest thing of
all. That’s what Joseph found out in our
Bible reading for today.
We’ve already talked about Joseph’s story in various
contexts. We talk about it pretty much
every year at Christmas. But what I want
to focus on specifically today is Joseph’s dreams. As you heard, Joseph had three specific
dreams that we’re told about in Matthew.
Each of these dreams came at an important time in Joseph’s life, as well
as in the lives of Mary and Jesus. And
each time, the dream told Joseph something he should do.
Just to recap what the three dreams were, the first one
was that Joseph should go ahead and take Mary to be his wife because Mary had
not been unfaithful to him. Rather, the
child she was going to have was from the Holy Spirit. The second one came while they were in
Bethlehem, when Joseph was told to take his family to Egypt because Herod was
going to try to kill Jesus. And the
third one came while they were in Egypt, when Joseph was told to go back to
Nazareth because it was now safe for them to go there.
These were probably the three most important decisions of
Joseph’s life. We don’t know that for
sure, because we don’t know much about Joseph other than these events, but if
they’re not the most important they’re certainly among them. And I think we should note that they fit the
checklist we put together last week pretty well. They were things that were beyond what Joseph
had planned for himself. They were
things that were pretty big, and did not result in things going on a nice,
smooth straight path. They were things
Joseph knew he could not do on his own.
And they were things that happened in God’s way and at God’s time.
But here’s what I want you to notice. In each of these cases, all Joseph was told
was “Here’s what you’re supposed to do now.”
He was never told more than the immediate next step. He was never told “Do this and then do that
and then do something else.” He was
never told, “Do this and here’s what’s going to happen.” He was never told, “Do this for a few years
and then you’ll be told to do something else for a few more years.” All he was told was, “Here’s what you’re
supposed to do now.”
We’re not told, but I suspect Joseph would’ve appreciated
more information. He never complained,
at least as far as the Bible tells us, but I have to think he’d have liked to
know where all this was leading. But that
was not the way it worked. The
information just came to Joseph one step at a time.
As we look at God’s dreams for us, and at God’s dreams
for the church, that’s pretty much the way it works for us, too. God does not tell us all of God’s dream for
us. The most God ever tells us is
“Here’s what you’re supposed to do now.”
It’s pretty rare when God tells us “Do this and then do that and then do
something else.” It’s also pretty rare
when God says, “Do this and here’s what’s going to happen.” It seems like the most we’re ever told is,
“Here’s what you’re supposed to do now.”
Do you ever wonder why God does it this way? I do.
I suspect Joseph did, too. Maybe
not so much after the first dream, but certainly after the second. I mean, think about this. When Mary and Joseph left for Bethlehem to be
counted in the census, I’m sure they assumed that when it was done they’d go
home. They left their house behind. I don’t what people had for household stuff
back then, but whatever it was they’d have left it behind. They probably left all of Joseph’s
carpenter’s tools behind, too. Why
not? When the census was done, they were
coming back home.
And then, all of a sudden, probably not long before they
were getting ready to leave, they find out no.
No, you’re not going home. Not
only are you not going home, you’re going to a foreign country. You’re going to Egypt.
I don’t know Joseph’s reaction, but I know what mine
would’ve been. “What? We’re going where? What are we supposed to do there? I don’t know anything about Egypt. I don’t even speak the language. And why did you not tell me this before we
left? We could’ve packed more
stuff. We could’ve brought my
carpenter’s tools. After all, a good
carpenter is always in demand, even in a foreign country. If you’d only told us, we could’ve been
ready. Now, thanks to you, we’ve got to
go with nothing. Why did you not tells
us what was in store for us?”
And I’d have had the same reaction after the dream saying
we could go back to Nazareth. I mean,
yes, it’s good news, but still. Joseph
and Mary had been in Egypt for a while. They’d started to make a new life for
themselves and for Jesus. Now they have
to pack up and leave. Again, I don’t
know what Joseph thought, but I’d have thought, “Why did you not tell us that
before? I spent all this time making a
life for us in Egypt. I’ve invested all
this time into trying to build a carpenter business. We’ve bought a place to live and bought some
stuff. Things are just starting to look
like they’re going to work out, and now you tell me it’s time to leave
again? If you’d told me how long we were
going to be here to start with, I would not have had to waste all this time and
money.
I’m sure many of you can think of times in your life when
things like this have happened, where you really wish God had told you what the
road ahead was going to be like before you started down it. I can, too.
But that does not seem to be the way God does things.
Why? Well, look at
what we’ve said about God’s dreams. We
said, in talking about Jacob, that God’s dreams tend to be beyond what we’d dream
for ourselves. So if we knew the whole
road ahead of time, we might think “That’s impossible. There’s no way.” And so we’d quit before we started.
We said, in talking about the Joseph of the Old
Testament, that God’s dreams take us on a long and winding road. If we saw all those twists and turns in the
road ahead of time, we might get discouraged.
We might decide it was going to be too hard. And again, we’d quit before we started.
We said, in talking about Gideon, that God’s dreams have
to come about in God’s way and in God’s time.
If we knew the whole road ahead, we might try to short-circuit the
process. We might be tempted to take
short-cuts, or try to move faster than we’re supposed to. We’d try to do it our way and in our time
rather than in God’s way and in God’s time.
And we said, in talking about Solomon, that God’s dream
is not something that benefits us, at least not just us. If we knew the whole road ahead, and we could
not see what we were going to get out of it, we might be tempted to just chuck
the whole thing.
There could be other reasons, too, of course. But whatever they are, it’s clear that, at
least a lot of the time, God does not show us the whole road ahead. God just tells us, as God told Joseph,
“Here’s what you’re supposed to do now.”
And as we’ve said, that can be frustrating.
But you know, it can also be kind of freeing. There’s a freedom in not knowing the whole
road ahead. What I mean is that, if we
don’t know the whole road ahead, if we don’t know the destination, then we’re
not responsible for seeing that we get there.
All we’re responsible for is what we’re supposed to do right now. We can leave the rest up to God.
Imagine if Joseph had known all the stuff that was going
to happen. Even if he’d gone through
with it, he’d have been a nervous wreck, right?
He’d have been thinking, “Okay, what do we have to bring with us so we
can get to Egypt? When are we supposed
to leave? What can I do to get
ready? Maybe I’d better learn the
language. Maybe I better get some
different clothes, so we can fit in.”
There’d have been a thousand details he’d have had to worry about,
because he’d have been thinking he needed to make all this happen at the right
time.
God frees us from all that. God says, just do what you’re supposed to do
now. When you’re supposed to do
something else, I’ll let you know. Don’t
worry about it. Just do your best in the
situation you’re in. Just do what I want
you to do and go where I want you to go.
Let me handle the rest of it.
I think that’s an awesome thought. God has the future handled. We don’t need to worry about it. Our job is just to do the best we can to
follow God’s dream and do what God wants us to do right now. And when there’s something else we need to do
to follow God’s dream, God will let us know.
So let’s do that.
Let’s follow God’s dreams both for us and for our church by doing what
we’re supposed to do now. Let’s not
worry about what’s going to happen next.
God has that handled. Let’s just
do the best we can to follow God’s dream now, and let God take care of the
rest.
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