let’s pray…

joseph to his brothers – genesis 50.20 (niv), you intended it to harm me.  but GOD intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done the saving of many lives. 

who would you rather be in this story?  the brothers or joseph?  everyone wants to be joseph but it took him thirty years of faith decisions to get to this point.  GOD intended it for good.  he had GOD’s perspective on his circumstances.                      

that’s a great dream manager, someone who prays for that and looks for that.  you want to take charge of your circumstances?  recognize who’s in charge of your life.  do you want to be the kind of person who can manage things and come in and take control where it’s needed?  then recognize that GOD is the one who’s in control.  that’s how we manage GOD-given dreams.

you may be managing a GOD-given dream right now and i challenge you if you are.  if you’re a parent, you are managing a GOD-given dream.  if you’re married, you’re managing a GOD-given dream.  if you’re in ministry – you’re managing a GOD-given dream. 

let’s pray…

LORD, right now as we pray, would YOU bring to our minds not the dreams that haven’t happened – that’s easy for us to think about – but the ones that either are being fulfilled or have been fulfilled.  bring to our minds not what’s so easy for us to think about – what YOU’ve chosen not to do in our lives.  bring to our minds instead, we pray right now, what YOU are choosing to do.  LORD, help us to see what the next step is.  even if it’s waiting, help us to wait with faith.  with a sense of tenacity that’s GOD-given, that shows the world around us what YOU’re like. 

the truth is a lot of us are waiting on dreams right now.  there are also a lot of people who are managing GOD-given dreams.  LORD, help us not to take those dreams for granted.  many are parents.  it’s so easy, LORD, to take that for granted.  instead of that, would YOU help us to look to YOU?  would YOU make us great by taking YOUr dreams that YOU’ve placed in our lives and glorifying YOU with them.  we admit it, LORD.  we need YOU, we depend on YOU just as joseph did.  we can’t do this on our own.  we’re not in the place of GOD.  and LORD, i pray with all faith and deep belief in the power of GOD to do this. 

i pray, JESUS, for each of us today that when we get to the end of our lives, the end of our dreams, we’ll be able to look back even at the bad that happened and we’ll be able to say with joseph, “they may have intended it for bad but GOD used it for good to accomplish HIS purpose in my life.”  LORD, i pray that this wouldn’t just be a verse in the bible for us that we read.  i pray that this would come true in our lives.  and that moment, whether it’s a year or ten years or seventy years from now, that moment would be a part of the blessing of each one of our lives.  i pray this with faith believing that YOU can do it.  in JESUS’ name.  amen. 

just a thought from the front porch…

what is a blessing?...

what is a blessing?  what does it mean to pass on a blessing?  if you go and read genesis 48 and 49 you’ll find out that a blessing is not just an encouragement.  a blessing is a statement of what you believe GOD can do in a person’s life.  passing on a blessing means you realize that the dream that GOD gives you, that GOD gives me, if it’s really a GOD-given dream it’s going to be bigger than your life.  GOD wants to give those kinds of dreams.  and once we’ve got them we’ve got to pass them on.  two questions:

to whom do you need to pass on GOD’s blessing in your work, your family, your ministry?  not just encouragement – blessing.  “i believe that GOD will use you in this way.”  this isn’t a lie, something you make up.  it’s something you believe.

and secondly, who do you need to honor?  joseph honored his father jacob. jacob asked to be buried back up in israel and so he was.  in fact, they took almost half the officials from egypt.  a huge procession goes just to bury his father.  even after he died he honored him.  one of the things that keep us from passing on a blessing is not honoring those that passed on the blessing to us.  who do you need to honor?  it may be someone who has died.  honor them in your heart for the blessing they passed on to you.  you’re not really a dreamer unless you pass it on. 

we all need a dream that outlasts our lives.

just a thought from the front porch…

you don’t just start, you finish…

yes, you receive the dream but that doesn’t mean that you’re done.  you must finish the job, you must go all the way. 

you don’t just start it, you finish it.  joseph’s most significant contributions came seven years (at least) after he received his dream, after he was given the signet ring and the robe was put on him.  it wasn’t until seven years later he started making the significant contribution, feeding the world and bringing israel down to egypt.  that’s the main reason GOD sent him there.

HE wanted to bring the nation of israel down to egypt for over 400 years.  that was part of HIS plan.  if joseph had given up five years after he had received his dream and said, “i think i’m going to go on to something else,” he would have missed the very reason GOD sent him there.

some of you came to the front porch today just to hear that.  GOD brought you here today just to say, “don’t give up short of finishing the dream,” or you’re going to miss the very reason GOD sent you here.

just a thought from the front porch…

forget and fruitful…

the story of joseph shows us characteristics of great managers of dreams. 

-great managers choose to serve.  genesis 41.57 (niv), all the countries came to egypt to buy grain from joseph because the famine was severe in all the world. 

if you think walmart is busy during CHRISTmas time, imagine egypt, imagine all the countries and joseph was there finding ways to serve all those people.  he not only saved egypt, he not only saved israel, he saved many – all – the countries of the world. 

we look at famine today and think, “i’ve got to do something!”  joseph did do something.  he served a world that was hungry.  that’s what you do if you’re a dream manager.  you don’t kick back and think, “now everybody gets to serve me because i’ve got the dream.”  no, you choose to serve.

-dream managers remember who owns the dream.  one of the ways you see this very clearly is through the two sons of joseph.  note what he named those two sons. 

he had a son named manasseh and one named ephraim.  manasseh means “GOD has caused me to forget.”  that was the meaning of that name.  “caused me to forget the heartache that i had with my family, the heartache of coming down to egypt.  GOD has caused me to forget.”

then a son named ephraim “GOD has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.”  GOD has caused me…  what you named your children then, said a lot about who you were.  i’m not sure it says a lot about who we are – we just thumb through those books.  in that day it said a lot about who they were.  it said a lot about their heart.  if you were in a depressing time, you named the child a depressing kind of name.  

here is joseph naming his sons, “GOD has caused…” to forget and to be fruitful.

the question for you and i is this, if your dream were fulfilled, whose victory would it be?  sometimes when the dream is fulfilled – ministry, marriage, family, whatever the dream is – even if we’ve prayed for it, after that dream is fulfilled a subtle change of ownership starts to happen.  instead of it being GOD’s dream, it’s my dream.  watch out for that.  don’t be a victim of victory. 

solomon, the wisest man who ever lived at the end of his life ends up being an idolater, worshipping other gods.  why?  because israel was in its golden age.  it was more successful than it had ever been.  that success caused him to relax his faith.  don’t be a victim of GOD’s victory in your life. 

just a thought from the front porch…

after you receive the dream…

receiving the dream is a key.  then look what happened to joseph once he received the dream. 

genesis 41.41-43 (niv), pharaoh said to joseph, “i hereby put you in charge of the whole land of egypt,” and pharaoh took his signet ring from his finger and put it on joseph’s finger.  and he dressed him in robes of fine linen he puts a gold chain around his neck.  he had him ride in a chariot as his second-in-command and men shouted before him, “make way!” and he put him in charge of the whole land of egypt. 

he’s got the dream!  it’s like he won the lottery.  this is it.  he hit the jackpot.

once you’ve achieved the dream, reached that pinnacle of success, then what happens?  many of us feel like, “that’s it!  i’ve got the dream.  i sit back by the pool and enjoy the dream!”  those of you who have reached your dream know this to be true: once you reach your dream, that’s when the work really begins.  big dreams, GOD-given dreams, are hard work. 

you’ve got a dream of a great marriage and you pray for it for years and finally GOD brings the right person into your life, then the pinnacle of success – the wedding, the gown, the orchestra, the harps…  you come down the aisle and the work is over, right?  no, the work just began.

you’ve got a great dream of having kids in your life.  there’s the nine months of waiting and the delivery room, the labor – the pinnacle of success, the baby comes out and starts to cry.  now you can sit back by the pool and enjoy the child, right?  that’s when the work really begins!

you’ve got a dream for a great ministry, a life-changing ministry?  a dream for a great church?  and then GOD does it.  does that mean you just get to sit back and relax and enjoy the beauty of the building?  no.  that’s when the work really begins. 

one of the key qualities in joseph’s life wasn’t just that he had dreams or waited for dreams or that he received dreams.  one of the key qualities in his life is that he knew how to manage the dream. 

one key quality is that dream managers develop discipline.  joseph gathered grain for seven years.  he’s a model of discipline.  he worked when he wasn’t pressured to work, that’s discipline.  all of us know how to work against a deadline.  but he had seven years to gather grain.  why not kick back for two years before he started gathering?  there was no real pressure.  no one knew if the famine was coming for sure.  even though he wasn’t pressured, he worked.

he collected grain consistently over those seven years.  he didn’t collect a little then wait a while.  he worked out a daily way to do it.  he continued to gather grain even though it looked like he had too much at one point.  he gathered so much grain they couldn’t even count it anymore but he kept gathering because GOD had told him to do that.  he’s a model of the discipline that it takes to manage a dream.

just a thought from the front porch…

right thing at the right time…

joseph has a GOD given dream and he is in prison but his story isn’t done.  genesis 41.1 (msg), two years passed and pharaoh had a dream...  two years later! 

joseph’s story is an amazing story of GOD’s wisdom and GOD’s timing.  it was a right time.  and joseph did the right thing at the right time.  it took two years and three days for GOD’s timing to act.  you may be in that time right now – that two-year period –what you’ve done is already working in some way; you just haven’t seen the results of it yet.  just like joseph.

now joseph had an opportunistic wisdom.  he had what could be called an open door faith.  that is the kind of faith that looks for and goes through GOD’s open doors. 

what we do so many times in our faith is close the doors for GOD, deciding in advance that they’re closed.  we’re not even going to try that door.  “GOD doesn’t want to do that.  it didn’t work before.  that’s just the way it is.” 

fast forward – two years later.  pharaoh has a dream and he can’t find anybody to interpret it.  guess what?  the cupbearer remembers, “there’s a guy in prison.  i wonder if he’s still there.” 

genesis 41.14&15 (msg), pharaoh at once sent for joseph. they brought him on the run from the jail cell. he cut his hair, put on clean clothes, and came to pharaoh.  “i dreamed a dream,” pharaoh told joseph. “nobody can interpret it. but i’ve heard that just by hearing a dream you can interpret it.”

what’s an open door faith?  well, it’s the ability to take risks.  there was a good chance in that day that if you didn’t interpret a dream the way the leader, the pharaoh, liked, if he felt like you were trying to make up an interpretation, trying to impress him, trying to lie to him in any way, the leader would have you killed.  that simple. 

so joseph had to make a choice.  be stuck in prison.  he could stay there the rest of his life and be safe.  or he could take a risk and try and interpret pharaoh’s dream and perhaps lose his life.  an open door faith has the ability to take risks in a GODly kind of way.  he did that when he went and interpreted the dream. 

i know some people who love to take risks.  they take risks all the time.  they love risks so much they feel like, “i’ll risk everything!  my family, my life.”  they get an adrenaline high from risks.  i'm not talking about that kind of a risk.  i'm talking about the kind of risks not that raises your adrenaline but raises your faith.  the kinds of risks that make you face your fears.  the kind of risks that make you begin to believe you could do something you never thought before by GOD’s power.  that kind of risk.  not a self-motivated risk but a GOD directed risk.  do you see the difference between the two?  a GOD motivated risk. 

just a thought from the front porch…

the faith steps for dream to reality…

we do not know how to make the step from dream to reality.  we don’t know what to do when we get right to the edge of our dream.  even if we’ve had the dream for years and years, sometimes, when we get right to that moment when GOD wants to do something, when GOD wants to do the miracle that brings the dream about, often it’s at that very moment that we stumble.  

if you take a close look at joseph's life in genesis 40-41-42, you discover how his faith played a part in his dream becoming a reality.  how do you get dreams to come true?  that’s what we’re asking.  how do dreams come true?  how do dreams happen? 

it’s more than just sitting back and letting GOD’s dreams happen to you. HE’s going to let your faith – HE’s going to demand that your faith – play a part in those dreams happening.  there are some practical faith steps that you and i can see in joseph's life that let us know what to do when we get right to the edge of a dream.  how do you receive a dream? 

first of all.  joseph had wisdom.  he knew the right time to act.  wisdom enabled him to act at the right time.  remember joseph’s in prison and GOD does something. 

genesis 40.1-4 (msg), as time went on, it happened that the cupbearer and the baker of the king of egypt crossed their master, the king of egypt. pharaoh was furious with his two officials, the head cupbearer and the head baker…

these were very high, exalted positions.  it doesn’t sound like much to us but if you had anything to do with food for the pharaoh you were a very trusted person because one of the main ways you could kill a pharaoh in that day was to poison the food.  these were very trusted people.

…and put them in custody under the captain of the guard; it was the same jail where joseph was held. the captain of the guard assigned joseph to see to their needs.

what joseph does in relationship to them is very important.  verses 4-7.  after they had been in custody for a while, the king’s cupbearer and baker, while being held in the jail, both had a dream on the same night, each dream having its own meaning. when joseph arrived in the morning, he noticed that they were feeling low. so he asked them, the two officials of pharaoh who had been thrown into jail with him, “what’s wrong? why the long faces?”

doesn’t that amaze you?  if i were joseph and i saw somebody else unhappy, with all i’d been through, i’d think, “great!  somebody else can be miserable with me!”  but here’s somebody who recognizes somebody else’s need and continues to care for people in prison.  he continues to serve people in prison. 

i think he may have had some wisdom here.  he knew who these people were.  it may be more than just his niceness.  he knew that GOD may be able to use his relationship with them in some way and GOD is going to do that. 

just a thought from the front porch…

solving or surviving our setbacks...

it’s important in life to see the difference between solving our setbacks and surviving our setbacks. 

you’re not going to solve all your setbacks.  you’re going to have some setbacks in life that you’re not going to solve.  joseph apparently never solved this setback of the unjust accusation that was brought against him.  he could have spent the energy of the rest of his life trying to solve that saying, “i was unjustly accused!  it wasn’t right!  i'm going to fight with all my might to make sure everybody knows that!”  but he doesn’t do that.  he survives his setbacks.  instead of allowing that setback to govern the rest of his life he survived it and moved on. 

you and i are going to face some setbacks that we’ll never solve in this world.  they’re waiting for the next world for GOD to bring about HIS justice.  the truth is, when it comes to GOD-given dreams, many of us have a mental finger pointing at something, some one in our life that’s keeping that dream from coming about.  it’s a setback.  it’s something that happened.  we’re saying, “until that’s solved i can’t go on to accomplish GOD’s dream…  until they come to me and ask forgiveness for what they did, i can’t go on to accomplish GOD’s dream…. until GOD comes to me and explains to me exactly why HE allowed that circumstance to happen in my life, i can’t go on.  HE’s got to do that first.  until i understand why CHRIStians act like they do sometimes i can’t go on.” 

survive the setbacks.  determine to go on.  stop letting them steal GOD’s dream for your life. 

joseph could have spent the rest of his life mad at potiphar and his wife.  but because of GOD’s grace within him he recognized, “GOD’s still with me even with what they’ve done to me.”  even with what they’ve done to you, GOD’s still with you.  they can’t take away GOD’s presence.  they can’t take away GOD’s dream.  i wish we could solve all the setbacks while we’re in this world.  we can solve some but there will be many that we don’t.  stop letting someone else steal GOD’s dream for your life

as we think about the life of joseph and what he talks about waiting for a dream and how dreams are tested and how we get dreams in our lives, i want us to remind ourselves once again that JESUS was born into this world to say to us loudly and clearly, “i intend to accomplish those dreams, GOD’s dreams in your life.”  HE couldn’t have spoken more loudly than that.  i intend to allow those dreams to come true.  those dreams of healing, those dreams of change, those dreams of a world that GOD is at work in.  GOD came to this world to say to you and i that HE wants to be at work in this world through us.  that’s the dream.

just a thought from the front porch…

what makes a great dreamer...

here in genesis 39 there are two key truths that show us how joseph was able to survive the setback.

1.   again and again we see that the LORD was with joseph and

2.   joseph was with the LORD.  joseph continued to trust in GOD, to say no to temptation because the eyes of GOD were upon him.  he tried to be faithful to GOD even in difficult situations. 

two things you and i need to remember.  some of you the reason you came to the front porch today was to hear these two things.  that’s why GOD brought you here. 

remember you will never find a place as a believer in CHRIST, where the LORD will not be with you.  never.  this isn’t just in the old testament.  you can pick up a new testament and turn it to romans 8, the last couple of verses where paul says, i’m convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of GOD which is in CHRIST JESUS our LORD.

nothing can separate us from HIS love.  you can never find a place where GOD won’t be with you. 

two, you and i as believers, we’ll never discover a place where faithfulness is impossible.  never. 

that’s the real truth of joseph's life.  he was faithful in his father’s house.  he was faithful in potiphar’s house.  he was faithful as a son.  he was faithful as a slave and then as a prisoner.  he had learned the secret of being faithful to his commitments no matter what.  that’s what makes a great dreamer.  that’s what makes a great GOD-given dream. 

just a thought from the front porch…

waiting and temptation…

GOD’s put HIS story into HIS word so you and i can face those times of life that all of us have to face.  what do i do? 

1.  you live the dream.  even on the way down, even when it doesn’t seem like it’s real, you live the dream even though you don’t see the dream. 

2.  resist the temptation.  waiting is filled with times of temptation.  temptations can really come when you’re waiting.  not when you’re working for the LORD and there’s a lot to do but it’s in those down times of life. 

one of the real dangers of any kind of waiting is temptation.  you’re a prime candidate because of the frustration, because of the doubt, because of the untapped time.  if you think you can’t be tempted or you think you’re past this thing of temptation look at this quote from an old clergyman: “sex, money and pride.  those are the three areas i think satan attacks GOD’s servants on.”  billy graham is not a model of integrity because he felt like he was beyond temptation.  he’s a model of integrity because he realized he could be tempted just like everybody else.  that’s one of the keys. 

JESUS was tempted.  HE never succumbed to temptation but HE was tempted.  what makes you and i think that we’re somehow beyond temptation?  forget that!  and when you’re tempted don’t let satan tell you, “because you’re tempted you should feel like you sinned anyway.  just the fact that you were tempted, why don’t you feel as dirty as if you’d sinned?”  when satan tells you that one just say, “that’s a lie!  JESUS was tempted and yet HE never sinned and because of the power of CHRIST in me i can make that choice too.” 

every one of us – you’re going to face temptation in your life as a believer.  satan’s going to send it your way.  when it comes don’t fall for the trap, “as long as i was tempted, i may as well sin anyway!”  that's a trap.  don’t fall for it.

just a thought from the front porch…

someone else taking credit…

there is another way to picture how you and i can live the dream even when we don’t see it.  when i say live the dream, another picture in joseph's life is…

-you succeed in potiphar’s house.  succeed in the house of potiphar, his slave owner.  here’s joseph, this great leader.  GOD’s given him some great gifts and abilities and he’s given him a great dream and he’s working in the house of potiphar making his master very successful. 

if you have a GOD given dream, on your way towards that dream, you’ll meet some people who’ll hitch their wagon to your dream.  they’re even going to take the credit for some of the things that happened in your life because of your GOD given dream.  you can count on that.  potiphar did.  he got a lot of blessings from a man named joseph using him as a slave.  and there are going to be few people who try to use your dream.  what do you do about that?  do you just stop dreaming?  no.  you do what joseph did.  you keep serving HIM.  you don’t worry about them. 

you do what paul did.  he had a GOD given dream to share the gospel with everyone.  in philippians he tells us there are people who are jealous of that and tried to make fun of him and his preaching.  he said, “i don’t care about that. only that in every way whether in pretence or in truth CHRIST is proclaim.”  he forgot about those people who were trying to take credit for his dreams.  you and i need to, too.  forget about it.  GOD can take care about that.

when someone else tries to take credit for the dream, there’s a test.  and the test is this: who’s dream is it?  if it’s your dream – if you and i have started to take possession of it – there’s going to be a lot of anger.  but when i recognize it’s GOD’s dream i realize GOD can take care of them.  HE can take care of them real well!  HE knows exactly what to do to those trying to take credit for HIS dream.  that’s the test.

just a thought from the front porch…

where GOD does something powerful…

even though he didn’t see the dream. joseph shows us how to live the dream even when we don’t see it. 

i’ve written down some pictures for you.  ways to picture how you and i do this.  when i say live the dream, the picture in joseph's life is…

-you lead in slave’s clothing.  there will be times in your life when you feel like, “i'm not at the place of GOD’s dream.  what do i do?  give up on it?”  no.  you lead in slave’s clothing.  even if you feel like, “i’ve got greater qualifications than this!  this isn’t where i’m supposed to be.”  you still do what GOD’s made you to do. 

joseph did that in potiphar’s house.  you and i are to do that.  the new testament tells us to do that.  the bible tells us that you and i are citizens of heaven.  you don’t feel like a citizen of heaven yet sometimes.  we’re still in this world.  but still, in colossians, we’re told to act like, live like citizens of heaven because that’s who we are.  you lead in slave’s clothing.  live the dream even though you don’t see the dream.

-the second picture is you work while you’re in egypt.  he’s not in israel.  he’s not in GOD’s promised land but he’s working.  he’s in egypt.  he did not want to be there.  he didn’t deserve to be there. 

have you ever been in a place where you didn’t want to be and you didn’t deserve to be?  joseph knew all about that.  but there he was.  what was he going to do?  he was faithful.  even there, even in egypt, he made the choice to be faithful. 

we spend a lot of life in egypt, don’t we?  places we’d rather not be, doing things we’d rather not do.  if you and i are going to be all that GOD wants us to be, we have to learn to work in egypt.  when we’re in those places we’d rather not be and doing those things we’d rather not do, we need to be faithful to do GOD’s will.  that’s where GOD’s at work in our lives. 

the truth is, your real success as a believer in CHRIST, your real impact on this world, the success of your GOD given dreams depends not so much on your blessings in israel as your faithfulness in egypt.  those times you’re in a place you don’t want to be, doing something you don’t want to be doing.  but GOD has you there for a purpose. 

some of you are there right now.  your job is in egypt.  or your family is in egypt right now.  you’re in a place that you don’t want to be.  joseph teaches us that’s the place to be faithful.  that’s the place GOD builds dreams.  that’s the place where GOD does something powerful.         

just a thought from the front porch…

live the dream…

joseph in genesis in the old testament moved from israel on a quick journey with some slave traders down to egypt where he’s sold into slavery to a man named potiphar.  joseph is on an elevator.  but the elevator only has one button and it says “down”.  and every time he pushes the button he goes down.  he meets his bothers and he’s thrown down into a pit.  his brothers sell him down into slavery.  every move in his life is a downward move. 

he’s got to be thinking, “GOD, don’t you have any other buttons?  i’d like one more button to push!”  it’s down, down, down.  he’s waiting for the dream and as he’s doing so he’s feeling like his life is on the way down.

what do you do during those times of life?  you feel GOD’s given a dream in my life as a parent, GOD’s given a dream in my life for marriage, GOD’s given a dream in my life for a ministry to make a difference in this world but every time i push the button it seems like i’m moving the wrong way.  how do you handle those times of life?  joseph shows us.  GOD’s put HIS story into HIS word so you and i can face those times of life that all of us have to face.  what do i do? 

for one you live the dream.  even on the way down, even when it doesn’t seem like it’s real, you live the dream even though you don’t see the dream. 

oftentimes what we do is we give up, we feel like it’s going the wrong direction, it’s destroyed and the dream starts to fade.  joseph didn’t do that.  GOD had given into his life a dream to be a leader.  he’s sold into slavery and he’s in the household of a man named potiphar and before long what does he become in that household?  he becomes the leader of all the slaves in that household. 

that’s not GOD’s eventual dream for his life but even there as a slave he was living the dream.  even though he didn’t see the dream. joseph shows us how to live the dream even when we don’t see it. 

just a thought from the front porch…

willing to wait for the dream…

what about the test of destruction?  what happens when it seems like the dream has been wiped out?  everything that you were building on to make this dream happen GOD knocked all the cards down.  what do you do then? 

you ask yourself the question, “am i willing to wait for the dream?”  then you ask, “how long?’  the answer is time to the test of destruction.  usually GOD’s dreams take some time to fulfill.  they’re not very often instantaneous things.  they take time to fulfill.  when it seems like there’s no possible way for this dream to happen in your life, GOD has you right where HE wants you.  that’s the very moment HE can show us it’s HIS dream done HIS way in HIS power and no other way.

if you’ve got a GOD-given dream it’s going to face tests.  guaranteed.  one of those greatest tests is really waiting for the dream. that time in between when you’ve had the dream, you’re excited about the dream, you’re building towards the dream, and the dream falls apart – waiting, waiting, waiting…

before we talk about joseph waiting for the dream in genesis 39, we’re skipping a chapter.

genesis 38 is a soap opera chapter of the bible.  it’s the story of judah’s family, a son named er who was so evil before the LORD that he was killed.  he had a wife named tamar.  according to the custom of the day the second son onan was to marry this wife and he refused to do so.  he disobeyed GOD.  he died.  judah ignored tamar.  and tamar became so upset by this that she dressed up as a prostitute and she enticed judah.  she sinned.  judah sinned.  he went for her enticement.  she got pregnant with her father-in-law’s children.  this is the bible? 

two things:  first of all, amazingly judah, the son of jacob, eventually becomes the son through whom the line of david and then JESUS come.  amazing how GOD takes and uses even our sinful world and through HIS forgiveness and grace is able to be at work.  that never ceases to amaze me.  i wouldn’t have done it that way.  i would have chosen one of those other sons.  joseph would have been a good choice.  he was doing pretty well.  but GOD chose judah. 

but there’s another thing.  while all this is happening up in israel which is supposed to be the main place of GOD’s will being done, down in egypt there’s a boy named joseph and there’s a dream being molded.  when you and i look at the world around us or even what GOD’s people are doing, it doesn’t seem like what GOD wants to happen is happening in a place. but GOD’s still at work.  down in egypt he was doing something amazing as joseph was waiting on the dream.

just a thought from the front porch…

what if it doesn’t pass the test…

a GOD-given dream always has to pass the test of scripture but what if it doesn’t pass the test? 

let’s say you’ve got a GOD given dream (you think) for fast food japanese food.  nobody’s doing this.  this is GOD’s dream for my life – sushi in a sack.  a GOD-given dream.  you’re thumbing back through the book of “hezekiah” someday (i know there’s no such book) and you find a little known verse that says, “thou shalt not sack sushi.”  it’s there.  it just flies out at you.  what do you do?  what do you do when your dream and GOD’s word don’t match?

we do what many of us do.  we try to change GOD’s word.  “it doesn’t really mean what it said.  in the context that this was written, sushi was different in that day than it is today.”  all these things we say.

if you have what you believe is a GOD given dream and you’re reading GOD’s word and HE shows you clearly that it’s not HIS will for your life, what do you do?  you fall on your knees and you praise GOD!  you thank HIM that HE saved you from the hurt and the heartache that the dream would have taken you into.  praise HIM for HIS word. 

humbly say, “my ways aren’t YOUr ways.  YOU have higher ways than i do.  i need YOUr direction for my life.”  you should be more thankful than anything for those times in your life when GOD says, “that is not the way to go.”  think of the heartache HE’s going to save you.  don’t try to change HIS word.  let HIS word change and mold your life.  it’s tough when it’s a dream though, because dreams are so personal.  but let HIS word change and mold your life.

just a thought from the front porch…

anger or authority and assurance…

how do our dreams past the test?

when i face the test of denial, the answer is commitment.  when someone denies the dream it’s an opportunity for me to express a new and fresh commitment to GOD and to that dream. 

when i face the test of doubt, the answer is scripture, GOD’s word.

for joseph GOD’s word was the dream, he had to go back to the dream again for GOD’s word.  but we have a bible to look at.  we can look at this bible to find the answers for GOD’s dream for our lives.  dreams are personal so when people react with doubt at our dream we often react with anger.  one of the common things when people doubt our dream, especially if it’s someone important to us – a parent, brother, sister, close friend, pastor – is an angry reaction of “i’ll prove them wrong.” 

what happens then is our dream turns into a vendetta.  instead of following GOD’s dream for our lives we’re trying to prove somebody else wrong.  and that’s no way to find GOD’s will for our lives.  instead of saying, “i'm going to prove somebody else wrong” or instead of allowing somebody else’s doubts to cause you to admit defeat and give up, there’s a better test.  it’s the test of scripture.

GOD given dreams always have to pass the test of scripture.  what does GOD’s word say?  does it strengthen this dream or are there some things here that make me begin to doubt this is GOD’s dream for my life.  when you take a GOD-given dream and you start to read through GOD’s word with that dream on your mind saying, “LORD, if it’s right, show me.  if it’s wrong, show me.” when you start to ask people you respect who know the word, “is this a GOD given dream, does it fit with scripture?” one of two things are going to happen. 

you’re either going to find out it’s not GOD’s dream or it is.  and if you find out it is, the test of scripture does two great things.  first of all it adds authority to your dream and then it adds assurance to your dream.  if you get GOD’s authority you know you have something to say.  but also you know you have an inner assurance. 

just a thought from the front porch…

strengthened and refined…

if the dream is GOD given, satan doesn’t want you to have it.  if it’s GOD given, GOD wants to test it so it can be strengthened and refined.  from both sides you’re going to get testing of the dream.  dreams will always face tests.  and joseph's faced them.

one is the test of denial.  you’ll face that.  you’ll have people who say, “that’s not GOD’s dream for your life.  where do you get that?”  the test of denial.  someone who just says, “that’s not true.” 

so why do people deny your dreams? 

for one, because they don’t have any dreams of their own.  there are some people who don’t have any dreams and people who do have dreams frighten them.  that’s why joseph’s brothers were so frightened.  they had no GOD given dreams and here’s somebody who did and they realized what that dream meant.  there are some people, when you share a GOD given dream, it scares them to death because they don’t have any dreams of their own. 

a second reason is there are some people who don’t want a GOD given dream.  it’s not that they don’t have a GOD given dream.  it’s that they don’t want a GOD given dream of their own.  the number one reason for this is disappointment. 

when you and i have been disappointed in a dream that we have and someone else comes along and shares a dream, our natural reaction to them is to put down their dream.  why?  because we’ve been hurt.  we’ve been disappointed.  it’s a natural feeling we have in our lives.  we’ve got to watch out for that. 

let’s say you are married and you really want a child but for some reason you can’t have one and you hear that someone else, their GOD given dream for a child had come into their lives, the natural reaction, honestly, is not to rejoice with them.  no. the natural reaction is, “they obviously aren’t as SPIRITual as we are, don’t pray as much as i do.  so why is GOD giving them this dream?”  this happens all the time.  so you and i need to be careful not to quench others dreams when this happens.  and we need to realize that other people who have been disappointed in life will try to quench our GOD given dream. 

that’s why denial comes in.  so often when you share a dream, instead of people being excited about it like you’d expect, they’ll try to quench it.  that’s test number one.

just a thought from the front porch…

life repeats itself...

joseph shared the dream, that was his reaction but jacob, his father, had a little bit different reaction. 

genesis 37.10-11 (niv), when he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said,  “what is this dream you had?  will your mother and i and your brothers actually come and bow down before you?”  his brothers are jealous of him but his father kept this matter in mind, kept thinking about it.

jacob rebuked the dream.  jacob, a man who had two dreams himself, hears about the two dreams his son joseph had had and asks, “what are you talking about?”  he couldn’t see in his own child’s life the very things that GOD had done in his life. 

it’s easy for us to miss that isn’t it, parents?  GOD’s doing in our children’s lives the very thing HE’s done in our lives and we miss it.  jacob certainly did.  but he didn’t entirely miss it.  the bible says he did keep the matter in mind.  he thought about it.

then there was a third reaction, the brothers.  joseph shared the dream, jacob rebuked the dream, and the brothers hated the dreamer.  they didn’t care about the dream; they just went straight for joseph.  they hated him.  they were jealous of him. 

it’s interesting how jacob had set up in his family the very thing that he’d experienced as a boy.  as a boy, he and his brother esau had been separated from each other because the parents favored one over the other.  here’s jacob repeating the pattern in his own family.  here’s jacob who was the younger of the brothers and who does he love the most?  the younger of the brothers.  he loves this one more than the others and it separates him from all the rest of the sons in the household.

joseph and jacob and the brothers, all had different reactions to this dream and i want to give you something to watch for as we continue in this study, a question to think about.  which of these three are going to be most used of GOD to accomplish, to begin the process of accomplishing this GOD given dream? 

is it going to be joseph and some decision he makes?  is jacob going to turn around and begin to see the light and do something that encourages joseph to begin to go in the right way?  who’s it going to be?

it’s going to be, believe it or not, the brothers.  the ones who hate him.  the ones who are furthest from GOD’s will in this thing are going to be the ones most used of GOD to begin the process of accomplishing this dream. 

GOD’s amazing that way.  HE can take the worst things that satan tries to throw at us and turn them around for HIS good.  notice as we go through this story how GOD uses the brothers to begin this process of making the dream come true.

just a thought from the front porch...

a dream to motivate our life…

we have been looking for awhile here on the front porch at a man named Jacob from the old testament but we are now going to look at one of his son’s whose name was joseph.

if you start to read in genesis 37 about joseph's life you’ll find out that he’s a very different man than his father jacob.  jacob was a schemer.  joseph was a dreamer.  that’s the difference.  they’re very different people.  

now we look at jacob and think, “that’s me.  those are the things i face in my life.  that’s the struggles i’ve been through.” but you’re not going to feel quite the same way about joseph.  we all relate to jacob but we can all be inspired by joseph. jacob is a person we look at and say, “that’s where i am.”  joseph is a person we look at and say, “that’s where i’d like to be.”

we all need a dream to motivate our life.  have you ever felt, “i know what’s right to do.  i know what i should be doing.  but i just don’t feel like doing it today.”?

some of you need to hear GOD speaking a dream into your heart beyond your present expectation of what HE can do in your life.  you need HIM to just explode the idea of what HE could do in your life.  others of you need to recognize the dream that’s right around you.  some of you parents, your GOD-given dream, believe it or not, is your kids.  what you do in their lives and what you give into their lives, GOD’s going to change the world through them.  you need to recognize the GOD given dream that’s right there.

joseph.  genesis 37.5-8 (msg), joseph had a dream. when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. he said, “listen to this dream i had. we were all out in the field gathering bundles of wheat. all of a sudden my bundle stood straight up and your bundles circled around it and bowed down to mine.”  his brothers said, “so! you’re going to rule us? you’re going to boss us around?” and they hated him more than ever because of his dreams and the way he talked.

there are some immediate reactions to the dream.  he has the dream and the first thing he does is shared the dream.  that’s a reaction.  that’s what many of us want to do.  as soon as we get a GOD given dream we want to share it with anyone and everyone, especially with somebody who was in the dream like joseph’s brothers. 

not a good idea!  but we often make this mistake.  we share the dream with the wrong people at the wrong time.  even when it’s a GOD-given dream. 

we’re so excited about it and we just want somebody to know.  we share the dream with the wrong people at the wrong time and all of a sudden they immediately start to try to quench the dream in our lives.  if it’s a GOD given dream, it’s going to last.  have you ever had that experience of somebody trying to quench your dream? 

just a thought from the front porch…