Sermon

Before I get into my message today, I want you to pick a number, any number. Did you pick a number larger than a million? If not, then why didn't you? In 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin picked the number one followed by 100 zeroes while they were still graduate students at Stanford University. That number, in mathematical terms, is called a googol, and that became the name of their new enterprise. Today, Google operates the largest search engine in the world.

The chief operations engineer of Google, Jim, says this about Brin and Page: “It takes a lot of confidence and courage to go ahead and do that. But it's rare to find people who think on such a grand scale and are still able to create a great product at the same time.”

Google’s founders were dreamers, and that’s what it takes to accomplish great things. It takes a great dream to do great things, and that’s true not only in business but also in the ministry to which God has called us. Before Jesus ascended into heaven, He told his followers, “Go and make disciples of ALL nations” (Matthew 28:19). That was a big dream especially when there were only 11 disciples to start with, and that’s still Christ’s dream for every church, because Jesus promised to be with us in that task “until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

The question for us is: How do we accomplish the vision Jesus gave us 2,000 years ago? How do we do great things with the great dream Jesus has presented to us? How do we fulfil this big, God-given dream right here in Kogarah? From today’s passage, Genesis 37, we’ll learn some lessons from the life of Joseph.

In the Bible, altogether, Joseph had six dreams. And there are two dreams we’re going to look at today. And by examining how Joseph coped with the visions God gave him, we might better understand God’s workings in such matters in our own lives. Now, let’s bring ourselves into the picture as Moses, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, is laying this all out for us so that we can understand what’s going on.

I. The Favoured Life with God’s Dream Genesis 37:1-11

From the time of Joseph’s birth, he was his father’s favourite. Joseph was the firstborn of Jacob’s favourite wife, Rachel, whom Jacob dearly loved. This was the Rachel for whom Jacob had worked 14 years. Not only did Jacob love Joseph most, but Jacob also unwisely showed him great favouritism. In verse 3, we see that Jacob made a long-sleeved robe for Joseph. That robe was really a long-sleeved tunic which extended to the ankles. You can’t work very well in a garment big like that, especially if it’s an expensive one. It would be like a construction worker showing up in an Armani suit. So, by giving Joseph this elaborate garment, his father was implying, “Joseph, you won’t have to work hard like your brothers.” And more importantly, such a full-length garment, in Joseph’s Day, was worn by only two people in the tribe. It was worn by the head of the tribe and his designated heir.

And the Bible also says in verse 2 that Joseph brought a bad report about his brothers to Jacob, and that just made him more unpopular. As a result of these, this God-fearing family became dysfunctional. In fact, beginning with Adam and Eve and their children, we have seen deceit, jealousy and murder. In the story of Jacob and Esau, we have the story of parental favouritism, deception, sibling rivalry and estrangement. King David was much the same. He may have been a man after God’s own heart and a great king, but he managed to raise a world-class dysfunctional family. Some might say, “the bible consistently portrays the family as a series of broken relationships in need of redemption.” So, Joseph’s family was filled with angry, jealous and deceitful people. Within that toxic environment, Joseph’s brothers’ jealousy had turned into resentment and hatred. From verse 4, we see that the brothers could not say “shalom” to Joseph – the common greeting of the day. Because they were so angry with him, they couldn’t even say “hello” to their brother, Joseph.

Adding insult to injury, Joseph was a dreamer. Verse 5 tells us that Joseph had a dream in which he saw his sheaves of grain standing up, and the other sheaves bowing down to them. And we see Joseph doesn’t interpret his own dream. In verse 8, we see it’s his brothers who interpret the dream for us. “Are you really going to reign over us?” his brothers asked him. “Are you really going to rule us?” So, they hated him even more because of his dream and what he had said. Obviously, they saw that not only had their father elevated Joseph to a high status in the tribe, but God Himself seemed to be elevating Joseph as well.

Then Joseph had another dream in verse 9. This time, the dream indicated that Joseph’s whole family would one day bow down to him: the sun and moon representing his father and mother, and the eleven stars representing his eleven brothers. This is a cosmic dream. This is NOT just about food and sheaves of grain. This is something really big that’s taking place.

And we notice that verse 11 says: “… His brothers were jealous of him, but his father Jacob kept the matter in mind.” This gives the impression that Jacob thought about it for a while. I think it’s because Jacob had this picture of God being big. He knew that God could do all kinds of things. Because Jacob, himself, had a dream when he left his family: he put his head down on a pillow (which was a rock) and had the dream, with a picture of God or angels ascending and descending. That was the picture of connecting with God. So, Jacob had an experience with God in a dream. And now his son is having these kinds of dreams. So, it says Jacob pondered these things.

As the followers of Jesus, we need to expect big things from God, but we also need to maintain the wonder of life. The wonder of God at work in our lives. What is God doing here? Do you ever ask that question of yourself? We need to do that. When life starts to unfold before us, we need to maintain the wonder of God at work in our lives. What is God doing in the midst of all these things? I’m often asking the question, like “God, what are you doing here? What do you want me to do? How should I respond in this situation?”

So, the first thing I see in this passage is that we should expect big things from God. I think that what’s happening in the passage is that the experience that Joseph has in this dream is so big. Friends, there's this grandeur about God’s word in our lives. I think we need to enlarge our box. Unfortunately, many times, we put God in a box, but God is so big that we need to recognise how big He is and what He wants us to do.

II. The Setbacks to Fulfilling the Dream Genesis 37:12-36

As we move through chapter 37, we see problems arise. Verse 12-13 says that the brothers of Joseph had been sent off with some of their father’s flock. After a while, they didn’t return, so Jacob became concerned and sent Joseph out. With so much hatred towards Joseph, I really wonder what Jacob was thinking when he sent Joseph on a journey to meet his brothers by himself. Wasn’t he aware of the hatred brewing in his household?

Anyway, Joseph was dedicated to obeying his father. From verses 15-17, we see Joseph spends all this time looking for his brothers. I don’t know about you, but I would probably have given up the search long before Joseph did. Joseph spent three days looking for them! And what did it get him? In verse 18, we see that as soon as they saw Joseph coming in the distance, the brothers immediately reacted with “Let’s kill him.” And they were NOT kidding! The brothers of Joseph make a statement about him in verse 19, and I think that, in many ways, it gives us a summary of the life of Joseph. When they saw Joseph coming, they said, “Oh, look, here comes that dream expert!” Now, this was not intended to be a compliment. In fact, it was a complaint. But God often takes the complaints of others and turns them into something positive. Remember, Jesus was accused of being a friend of sinners, and I can imagine our Lord's response was simply “thank you very much.”

But you can tell Joseph’s brothers don’t know what they’re doing. They have a lot of experience with their own bitterness and resentment, but they don’t have any idea of the God-filled life; They don’t have any truth to rely on. There are a lot of people around in our lives like that. All they have is their experience to rely on, and some of that is not good experience. So, there are a lot of people who go through life just reacting to problems. They have no Direction, no Purpose and Meaning. That’s why we need God’s word to guide us and move us forward.

Then in verse 21, the firstborn, Reuben, intervenes and suggests that they not kill Joseph, but rather throw him into a pit. So, they did exactly that in verses 23-24. Then they sat down to eat lunch. And what happens next is just chilling. From verses 26-27, we see: Judah said to his brothers, “What do we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come on, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay a hand on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh,” and his brothers agreed. It’s kind of saying like: “He is our brother, we don’t like him, but we don’t hate him enough to kill him, so let’s just sell him. That would be the loving thing to do.” And they did just that. They sold Joseph for 20 pieces of silver. How callous and hateful can these brothers be? First, Joseph has been wandering around for three days, and he’s probably very hungry, but when he finds his brothers, they throw him into a pit and eat right in front of him. Then they sell him at a bargain rate for 20 shekels of silver. You know, the market price for slaves on that day was 30 shekels. So, these guys don’t even consider their brother, Joseph, worth the price of a slave.

Joseph’s dedication was turned into a great disappointment, and his brothers got away with it all. They took Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a male goat, and dipped the robe in its blood. So, they deceive their father into thinking Joseph was killed by a wild animal. I think this is very ironic. Remember, years before, Jacob himself used the skin of a goat to deceive his father into thinking he was his hairy brother, Esau. Now, his own sons use the skin of a goat to deceive him. Actually, they don’t actually say Joseph was killed by a wild animal. They just led their father, Jacob, to believe it, and that’s a lie just the same.

Jacob lost someone that he loves dearly. He lost his son, whom he really loved the most. I know some of you have experienced this. You’ve lost a loved one, whether it be a friend or a relative, or you lost something you value, maybe your job or something. There's a grief that’s there. I think you probably feel like Jacob, who says this grief is going to be with me till the end of my life, I’m never going to get over this grief, although Jacob will, because even during his earthly life, he will see his son again. But at this point, his heart is just torn. It’s so hard; It is difficult to be in that situation where you’re grieving because you know you will never be the same person because you’ve lost someone, and that has just torn your heart. But I think there is one word that can help you in the midst of that, which is the very next word in the passage. Because many times, we don’t look at the next word in the passage, we just focus on our pain and our grief. So, what’s the next word in the passage? Verse 36, what’s the first word? Meanwhile. There’s always a meanwhile in our lives; There’s always God doing something else that we don’t know about; There's always things going on behind the scenes; There's the meanwhile which increases the wonder of our experience with God. It increases the sense of expecting big things from God. There's always something bigger going on. There's a meanwhile going on.

Let me read verse 36. It says, “Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and the captain of the guards.” Potiphar was the chief executioner, and Joseph was his slave. This was a major setback! Joseph went from being the primary heir of his tribe to being a slave of Egypt’s chief executioner himself, with his life in potential danger every day. The favoured son of Jacob was now a common slave and forced into a situation that seemed even worse than the pit, into which his brothers had thrown him. That’s what happened to Joseph. I can think Joseph must be very depressed. Because I can imagine at some point, Joseph may think, “Wow, here I am now in the home of the captain of the guard.” He’s a high official in Egypt. “Maybe God moved me in here so I can be the sheaf, where others are going to bow down to me somehow. I’m in this great place. Maybe this is it.” So, Joseph might think his dream would be fulfilled in six months. But it doesn’t happen that way. Well, if you know the story, you know the things were not like that. It goes from bad to worse.

Sometimes, that’s true in our dreams. For example, we have this dream, like we’ll have this great marriage, then get married. And then we find out that marriage does really require a lot of work. It's harder than we ever imagined to be married. Because when we’re in conflict, and we’ve got to go to the other person, and we’ve got to work on that, that’s the challenge of being married. So, if you’re going to have a good marriage, then it’s going to require a lot of work. It’s the same if you think you’re going to have kids. Those of us who have children know that there is a tremendous amount of work. Sure, they might grow up and serve the Lord. That’s great. But still, it’s a long journey. So, the work involved between the giving of the dream and its fulfilment is huge in a person’s life.

Joseph entered a new environment, and life would be challenging for him. But God has His hand on Joseph, and He’s going to move Him around in a special way. Between Genesis 37 and 50, a great deal takes place in Joseph’s life. He suffers a great deal because of what his brothers did to him. However, he also manages, by the grace of God, to rise from being a lowly house slave to being a powerful ruler in Egypt.

God had not abandoned Joseph, NO! God was leading Joseph through his setbacks to the fulfilment of his dreams in a way far beyond anything he could have ever imagined. Before all this, no doubt, Joseph saw himself simply becoming a leader of a tribe in Canaan’s desert, but God was leading him to be second only to the mighty Pharaoh in the one major world power of his day. So, we see God was with Joseph, using all kinds of circumstances to strengthen Joseph and bring His purposes to pass in Joseph's life. Likewise, God expects all of us to grow and make the difficult decisions that will cause us to fulfil God’s calling upon our lives. In God’s sovereignty, our setbacks are stepping stones to success. So friends, don’t quit just because you face a setback; Don’t give up just because of a few reversals along the way. Consider Jesus. He was rejected by his brothers and nailed to a cross. His followers were heartbroken, thinking His mission had failed. It was a huge setback in their minds, but the cross was the very thing God used to save us from our sins. And now, Jesus sits at the right hand of God in the place of all authority.

So, trust God with your life, and trust God to bring about His marvellous plan for you, no matter what happens. Our life’s journey may require us to spend time unpacking and understanding exactly what God wants us to do in our future. You may very well be in a rush to see the fulfilment of God’s vision in your life, but that may not be God’s purpose for you. So, the lesson is to take time to unpack what God has called us to do, in accordance with His good will and purpose. God may give you a big dream of what’s going to happen, but you’ve got to live today; You’ve got to take one day at a time. Today is the day that we’re going to serve the Lord; Today I’m going to do what God has me to do today. And as you experience what God is doing in your life, you’ll see God in a new and powerful way; you’ll see that God does big things; you'll see that there's a wonder about life. You see that God speaks in a variety of different ways. You see that God goes before us, protects us, and carries us forward. It’s an amazing thing when we experience God in that very powerful way. So, I leave you with this question. What is God doing in your life?