Dreams from Our Father

Good morning church family!  My name is Chris McDonald, and I’m currently working through the process to become a licensed local pastor through new life. Thank you to Pastor Joe for having me, I’m grateful for the opportunity today to stand up here, and connect with you all through the scriptures.

Now, this is my first sermon, but I do have plenty of experience with public speaking.  For the past two decades, I worked in leadership positions in the auto industry, and I have held lots and lots of meetings.  I always found that the best feedback I got from these meetings was when I was able to do two things: Make people laugh, and make people think.  So, I hope to accomplish a little bit of the same thing here this morning, so I figured I would start this off with a joke.  What type of car would Jesus drive?

A Christler….  See, it wasn’t that bad right?  If I had to guess what kind of Christler, I’m thinking a big caravan, so all the disciples could pile in there.  Peter would call shotgun, but John get’s to sit upfront next to Jesus because he’s his favorite.  Thomas doubts there’s enough gas to get where they need to go.  

A little but about me, my wife Elizabeth and I have 3 boys. 5, 3, and 9 months.  People ask us all the time, what’s that like? Even if you don’t have small children, I think I can explain it in a way that we can all relate. 

Imagine being a line cook in a really small restaurant. Except at this restaurant, the customers live there, they don’t pay, and you have to guess what they want to eat. You do your best to stock the kitchen with healthy options, but when the customers do tell you what they do want, it’s usually something you would find on the menu at a bowling alley.  Here’s the best part: Even if they tell you what they want, if it’s not plated to their satisfaction, I mean if there’s a chicken nugget out of place, they will scream at you until their stomach hurts.  In-between that, you get to clean the bathrooms, do lots of laundry, and sleep wherever and whenever you can.  Listen we’re very blessed to have 3 beautiful boys. 

Today, we’re going to continue on with Pastor Joe’s series, on this incredible journey through the book of Genesis and cover chapters 37-50, in which we meet Joseph, and his wild, blended, messy family. 

Joseph is 17 when we meet him, he is Jacob’s favorite son, born to him in his old age.  Jacob had a coat specially made for Joseph, which was multi-colored.  Fun fact, back then, some colored dyes were actually as expensive as gold, so this wasn’t just an ordinary robe.  His brothers are probably sharing clothes, wearing whatever they can find, and here’s Joseph walking out into the fields in a Louis Vitton robe.  Not only is he probably not helping his brothers much, he’s also bringing his dad back Yelp reviews of everything they’re doing wrong.  “Judah and Simeon left the gate open again. One out of five stars., would not Shepherd here again”

Because of this clear favoritism, Joseph’s brothers were not fans. To make things even more tense, he starts to share dreams that he’s having.  The first one involves him and his brother’s binding sheafs out in the field, and their sheaves bowed down to his.  The 2nd involved the sun, moon, and 11 stars bowing down to him. Jacob is somehow shocked that his favorite son is walking around in a gucci robe, having dreams about everyone bowing to him. 

So Joseph’s having these grandiose dreams, his brothers are jealous of him, so Jacob asks him to head on a voyage to check on his brothers and their flocks. What could go wrong you say? Well, everything. As soon as they saw him walking towards them in his Ferragamo robe, they said “Here comes that dreamer! Come now, let’s kill him. Their plan is to kill Joseph, throw him into an empty pit, and tell Jacob he was torn apart by a wild animal. The oldest brother, Reuben, tries to be the voice of reason and says hey, let’s not kill him, that’s wrong, he’s our brother. Let’s just throw him in the pit and leave him there. Reuben’s plan doesn’t work, mainly because well, he basically just leaves. During that time the remaining brothers sell him into slavery instead. In verse 29, we’re told “Some time later, Reuben returns to get Joseph out of the cistern.” Some time later? Where did he go? Did he catch a show? Was he out in a field catching Pokemon? We don’t know, but when Reuben comes back, somehow shocked that Joseph is gone, he proceeds to cry out with grief and rip his shirt, Hulk Hogan style.

So Joseph the dreamer heads to Egypt as a slave, and his brothers dip Joseph’s Chanel robe in animal blood, and send it to Jacob with this message: “Look at what we found. Doesn’t this robe belong to YOUR son?” Jacob realizes the robe belongs to Joseph, and surmises that a wild animal must have come along and torn him to pieces. From here, Jacob becomes inconsolable, and mourns Joseph deeply.

So Joseph gets to Egypt and he’s purchased by an officer named Potiphar. Genesis chapter 39 verses 2-3 says “The Lord was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did in the home of the Egyptian master. Potiphur noticed this and realized that the Lord was with Joseph, giving him success in everything he did.” Eventually Potiphur puts Joseph in charge of everything he owned.

Potiphur’s wife starts propositioning him, every day. Imagine Joseph is just trying to handle business for his boss, and every day the bosses wife is just like “How you doin?....”, and every day Joseph is like “Uh, m’aam, this is a Wendy’s, and also adultery is a sin”. Potiphur’s wife finally goes to grab Joseph’s garment, he gets away from her, leaves the garment, and she uses it to incriminate him. She shows it to Potiphus and makes up a story, and he throws Joseph in jail.

So here we go again, Joseph is put in jail with the Pharaoh’s other prisoners, yet Chapter 39 verse 21 says “But the LORD was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love. And the Lord made Joseph a favorite with the prison warden.” So once again, Joseph is recognized for his leadership, put into a position of authority over of the Pharoah’s prisoners. Joseph is then asked to interpret 2 dreams, from the Pharaoh’s cup bearer and baker.

the cup-bearers dream? pretty good. The baker, not so much. Both of them got invited to the Pharoah’s birthday party 3 days later. The Cup guy got to go back to work. The baker, well, let’s just say I hope he enjoyed the buffet, because he was impaled.

In 2 years, the Pharoah starts to have dreams that he can’t understand. The first involve 7 big healthy cows, followed by 7 scrawny thin ones. He wakes up, falls asleep again and has a second dream, involving 7 heads of plump, beautiful grains, followed by 7 more heads of withered grain. The withered grains eat up the plump ones, and Pharoah wakes up and is disturbed. He calls in all his magicians and wise men and asks them to interpret the dreams, and none of them have a clue. So the cup bearer finally remembers ‘Oh yea, Pharoah there’s a Hebrew guy named Joseph in jail that does this stuff for fun, you should ask him.”

So Joseph interprets the dreams for the Pharoah, and he predicts 7 years of prosperity followed by 7 years of terrible famine. He urges the Pharoah to collect 1/5 of all the crops during the prosperous 7 years, to prepare in advance for the 7 years of famine. He tells the Pharoah that find someone intelligent and wise to put in charge of this vast operation. Pharaoh realized very quickly that there was only one person who had the favor of God to not only interpet these dreams he had, but to execute his vision. Once again, Joseph is recognized and elevated, this time to be in charge of the entire land of Egypt, sitting at the right hand of the Pharaoh.

During this time of famine, Joseph’s family is hit hard, and his brothers head to Egypt to get food. They find themselves sitting in front of Joseph, with no idea that it’s him. Joseph puts them through the ringer, and tests their intentions, and their hearts several times. At this point to be honest, he’s kind of earned the right to.

When the famine hit, Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt for food. They didn’t recognize him—because apparently if you give someone Egyptian clothes and a haircut, the whole family forgets them. Meanwhile Joseph is like, “Oh hey, the guys who sold me… and they still don’t recognize me. Classic.”

After a series of interactions where Joseph tested their hearts—because if anyone has earned the right to mess with his siblings a little bit, it’s him—Joseph finally broke down and revealed who he was. But instead of revenge, he offered forgiveness. He told them, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” Which is an incredible spiritual truth… and also the most gracious way to say, “You guys really tried to ruin my whole life… good effort.”

Joseph then brought his entire family to Egypt, reunited with his father, and provided for them through the famine. Jacob blessed his sons and Joseph’s children before passing, and Joseph closed out Genesis reaffirming God’s faithfulness to future generations.

Within this story of Joseph are so many parallels between his life, and the life of Jesus, I could be up here all day.

Joseph was the beloved son of Jacob, Jesus is God’s beloved son.

Joseph was hated by his brothers because of his dreams, Jesus was hated by religious leaders because of his teachings, which he often spoke in parables.

Both were delivered to gentiles in transactions made by one of their own brothers is sold into slavery for 20 pieces of silver by his brother Judah.

In fact, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, wrote at length about the Typology of Joseph, and the connective tissue between his story and that of Jesus.

I’d like to stop here a minute with this story, and talk a little but about dreams. Not Josephs, not the Pharaoh’s, but yours and mine. Have you ever had a dream that felt so big, so real, and so clear, that you were afraid of sharing it with anyone, because you were afraid what their reaction might be? Maybe it’s too big to feel possible, maybe it would require so much work, that you lack the confidence to even get it started?