When you go to sleep at night,
do you dream? I suppose you do—pretty
much everybody dreams, at least some of the time. Sometimes our dreams are really happy—we have
good times with friends, we go to far away places, lots of things go
right. Other times our dreams are
bad—people are upset with us, we lose someone close to us, that sort of
thing. And other times our dreams are
really scary—we dream of falling from great heights, or people chasing us,
attacking us, whatever.
But if I’m honest, the most common thing for me, when I
dream, is to have the dream not really make a whole lot of sense. Do you have those? I’m in one place, doing one thing, and then
all at once the scene suddenly changes, and there’s something entirely
different going on, sometimes in an entirely different place with entirely
different people. And while I’m dreaming
it, this all somehow makes sense, but then I wake up and try to reconstruct it,
and I go, “Huh? What was that all
about?”
It can be really strange.
Maybe that’s why so many people are interested in the interpretation of
dreams. If you go online you can find
all kinds of stuff about the interpretation of dreams. There’s even a “dream dictionary” where you
can find out what different things in your dream symbolize. But the thing is, they make these things so
vague that you can believe they mean whatever you want them to mean. For instance, if you dream about a cat, that’s
supposed to symbolize an independent spirit, creativity, and power. But it can also symbolize misfortune and bad
luck. Or, the cat could be a symbol of
someone who’s being deceitful or treacherous toward you. And depending on the type of cat and what it
looks like, there are all sorts of other things it could mean, too.
It’s hard for us to know what our dreams mean, or even if
they mean anything. Yet a lot of us
would really like to believe they mean something and would like to know what. In our Bible reading for today, Pharaoh
wanted to know what his dreams meant.
And in case you were wondering how this ties into our sermon series
“Let’s Go to the River”, Pharaoh dreamed about something that happened at the
Nile River.
Pharaoh had two dreams.
First, there were seven sleek, fat cows that came out of the river, and
they got swallowed up by seven thin, gaunt cows. Then, seven good healthy heads of grain were
growing, and they go swallowed up by seven thin, scorched heads of grain.
Pharaoh had no idea what those dreams meant, and you and
I probably would not, either. But the
thing is that you and I would probably just shake our heads, say “Boy, that was
a strange dream”, and get up and go about our business. Pharaoh, though, was convinced that these
dreams meant something. So he called all
his magicians and wise men to tell him what it was these dreams meant. And none of them could tell him.
And then the king’s cupbearer remembers something. And you know, this job of being a cupbearer
is something we don’t usually think about, but it was a really important
position back in the day. We think of
“cupbearer” and we think, “What’s he do all day? Stand around holding a cup? How hard could that be?” But the thing is that the cupbearer was the
one in charge of making sure that anything the king drank was not
poisoned. And back then, poisoning the
king was a real danger—it was not all that uncommon. So the cupbearer had to do a good job of
guarding that cup. And if there was any
question about the king’s drink being poisoned, the cupbearer had to drink some
of it first, to make sure that it was not.
So “cupbearer” was actually a very important, responsible position.
So the cupbearer tells the king, remember that time a
couple of years ago when you had me thrown in jail? While I was there, me and another guy had
these really strange dreams, and there was a guy named Joseph there, a Hebrew
guy. He interpreted our dreams, and he
was right both times. So, Pharaoh sends
for Joseph.
Now, we need to remember who Joseph was and all he’d been
through. Some of you know this, some of
you don’t, but Joseph was one of the sons of Jacob. He had eleven brothers, and they got mad at
him. They were going to kill him, but
then they realized they could make some money, and not have to have murder on
their consciences, if they just sold him to slavery in Egypt. They did, and he got sold to a man called
Potiphar, who was rich. He did a good
job for Potiphar and eventually got put in charge of all of Potiphar’s
property. But then he Potiphar’s wife
got mad at him and Joseph got thrown in jail on a trumped-up charge. That’s where he was when he met the king’s
cupbearer in jail.
Now that’s about a half-dozen sentences to tell a story
that takes up four chapters of Genesis, but you can see that Joseph had a lot
of bad stuff happen to him, and not much of it was his fault. What got Joseph’s brothers mad at him is that
he told them about some dreams God had given him. Potiphar’s wife got mad at Joseph because he
turned down her advances, which of course was what he should’ve done.
So here’s Joseph.
He’s in a foreign country. He’s
in jail. He really has no reason to
think he’ll ever get out. In fact, when
Joseph interpreted the cupbearer’s dream, the cupbearer promised to be sure to
tell Pharaoh about him, and of course when the cupbearer got out he completely
forgot about Joseph. Until now. Now Joseph gets his big chance. God tells Joseph the meaning of Pharaoh’s
dreams, Joseph tells Pharaoh what he should do because of what the dreams mean,
and ultimately Joseph gets put in charge of everything in Egypt.
And at this point you’re saying, “Okay, this is all kind
of interesting, I guess, but what’s the point?
What am I supposed to get out of all this?”
Well, we could probably get a lot of things out of it,
but here’s what I want to focus on today.
Joseph had a lot of ups and downs in his life. He had times where it looked like everything
was going right and it always would. He
had times when it looked like everything was going wrong and it always would.
And yet,
through all of it, God was there. God
was there, and God had a plan. God used
Joseph’s brothers, who hated him, to get him to Egypt, where God wanted him to
be. God used Potiphar’s wife, who was
spurned by him, to get Joseph in jail, where he could meet the king’s
cupbearer. God used the cupbearer to get
Joseph into a position where he could win Pharaoh’s favor. God used Pharaoh to put Joseph into a position
where he was in charge of the affairs of Egypt.
And if you know the rest of the story, you know that Joseph used that
position to save his family and the nation of Israel from a famine.
God was with Joseph through all of that. God had a plan through all of it. All of the things that happened to Joseph
were God’s way of getting him where he needed to be to save his family and to save
his people. It took years, but God’s
plan eventually worked out, not just for Joseph but for everyone.
So think of your own life. You’ve had times when it looked like
everything was going right and it always would.
And you’ve had times when it looked like everything was going wrong and
it always would. Maybe you’re going through
one of those times now.
In all of those times, God is there with you. And God has a plan. That plan may involve a lot of ups and
downs. It may involve a lot of twists
and turns. It may involve a lot of times
when you don’t really understand what’s going on or why. But God is still there through all of
it. And God has a plan through all of
it. And it may be that all these things
that happen are God’s way of getting you to where you need to be, when you need
to be there, to do what God wants you to do.
And that’s true even if it takes years for it all to happen.
We’re not told how Joseph felt through all of this. We’re not told if he got upset with God, if
he questioned God, if he had doubts, or if he stayed faithful and trusted God
through all of it. I would think that,
even if he did keep trusting God, there had to be times when he at least
wondered what the plan was, why God had allowed all these things to happen, and
why years were going by with nothing changing.
He’d hardly be human if he hadn’t.
Maybe you’ve had times when you got upset with God, when
you questioned God, when you’ve had doubts.
Even if you’ve not had those times, there were probably times when you
wondered what the plan was, why God has allowed all these things to happen, and
why so much time is going by with nothing changing. It’s a natural, human thing to do.
If you’re going through that now, or when you do in the
future, remember this: God is with
you. God has a plan. The plan may not make sense now. The plan probably did not make sense to
Joseph when he was sitting in jail, either.
But God has a plan. That plan
will get you where you need to be, when you need to be there, to do what God
wants you to do.
That’s what I hope you’ll get out of all this. No matter how bad things look, hang in
there. Stay faithful. Trust God.
God is there with you. And God
has a plan. And eventually, when the
time is right, you just may see that God was getting you where you needed to
be, when you needed to be there, to do what God wants you to do.
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