I Have a Dream

On August 28, 1963 from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. In that speech he said the now famous words, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' and “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” That dream is not yet fully realized, but it is close.

Today is not a sermon on racism, politics, social injustice, or anything of that nature. Today is about the power of a dream.

The kind of dream we are talking about is not the sort of strange hallucinations we have while we are asleep. It is the spark of an idea that turns into a vision. The dream becomes a vision for a preferred future. It becomes the target for which we aim. It becomes the focus of our lives.

We closed Genesis 35 saying farewell to two important figures. The first was Rachel, Jacob’s beloved bride, and Isaac, his father. Genesis 36 spells out the lineage of Esau. Though he is not the one to carry the ultimate promises of God, he is a recipient of God’s blessing as a descendant of Abraham. Genesis 36 shows that Esau is blessed with numerous offspring. He becomes a great nation, but not the nation God had envisioned from which the seed of the woman shall come. That nation will come from Jacob, who is not named Israel.

The story of this nation, these people, and how they came to be continues in chapter 37 with Joseph, the favored child, who has a dream. Will you turn there and read with me?

Genesis 37:1–11 NASB95

Now Jacob lived in the land where his father had sojourned, in the land of Canaan. These are the records of the generations of Jacob. Joseph, when seventeen years of age, was pasturing the flock with his brothers while he was still a youth, along with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives. And Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a varicolored tunic. His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers; and so they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms. Then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, “Please listen to this dream which I have had; for behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.” Then his brothers said to him, “Are you actually going to reign over us? Or are you really going to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. Now he had still another dream, and related it to his brothers, and said, “Lo, I have had still another dream; and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” He related it to his father and to his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have had? Shall I and your mother and your brothers actually come to bow ourselves down before you to the ground?” His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.

Joseph is a young boy. He is 17 years old. He is one of the last children born to Jacob, yet Jacob loves him more than the others. The coat of many colors is a testimony to that fact. So Joseph’s brothers already don’t like him because he gets special treatment from their dad. Then they really hate him because he has these dreams where he is in charge! The audacity!

This should be expected though. This would be like handing the keys to the family business to the kid who has the least experience. In this time period, what Joseph is suggesting just isn’t done. Kings did not pass the crown to their youngest sons. Fathers didn’t pass their legacy to their youngest sons. Fathers overwhelmingly passed the family business, their heritage, and leadership responsibilities to the firstborn son. It was the way of things. This is how things were done back then. In many cases, it still works this way.

But just because the world works this way doesn’t mean God works this way. In fact, if we zoom out and look at the story so far, God chose Isaac, not Ishmael to inherit the promises made to Abraham. God chose Jacob, not Esau to inherit the covenant promises. Now God is choosing Joseph, not Reuben, but there’s a catch. If you follow the genealogy of Jesus, who ends up inheriting the promises? It’s not Joseph, but Judah. So far, God has consistently defied expectations in having the covenant promises made to Abraham pass to anyone but the firstborn son! Sometimes God works in unconventional ways.

What do we do when God gives us a dream? These were powerful tools God used to reveal future events. Notice Joseph doesn’t know how it will happen, only that it will happen. First, we need to be sure it is God’s dream, not ours. We usually do that through prayer, meditation, and sharing it with trusted people in our lives.

But it is not always easy. So we are going to look at three actions you must take when God gives you a dream.

Expect opposition.

You got this idea in your head, and now it has turned into a dream. You know it is going to happen. You start telling people about this dream you have, and.........people think you’re nuts. Have you ever had that experience? Joseph’s brothers think he’s nuts. He’s crazy. As I mentioned earlier, they are expecting their lives to unfold the same way the rest of the world works. To make matters worse, the second time around even his own father doesn’t believe him.

Let’s look at that again.

Genesis 37:10 NASB95

He related it to his father and to his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have had? Shall I and your mother and your brothers actually come to bow ourselves down before you to the ground?”

Don’t miss the atmosphere of this passage. Joseph, the boy who just received a lavish gift from his father, is now being reprimanded. His own dad doesn’t believe it. That’s heartbreaking.

Have you ever had a dream, a vision, a picture of a preferred future, and you began telling people and they thought you were crazy? Virtually every significant invention ever was met with harsh criticism. The technologies we use today began as ideas that seemed strange, unusual, and downright dangerous to those who didn’t understand it.

If God gives you a dream, you should expect opposition even from those closest to you. That’s not how the world works. We’ve never done it that way before. Sometimes they will tell you that you’re just crazy.

The fact of the matter is that whether people tell you you’re crazy or not, there is an enemy that opposes everything you dare to do for God, and he will try to stop you from doing the thing God has planted in your head. He tempted Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. He tried tempting Jesus in the wilderness. He got Judas to betray Jesus. Even if everyone in your life thinks God’s dream is a good idea, the Devil won’t.

Expect opposition.

Stay faithful to the assignment.

Joseph did not know how God was going to bring this dream to life, nor did he know what he was going to have to endure to get there. Similar to what I said last week, you can only live one day at a time. We have the benefit of looking at the entirety of Joseph’s life. We know that he becomes second in command of all Egypt. We know his brothers will bow down before him. We also know that it will take about 13 years for him to get there. So while he is waiting on God to bring this dream to fruition, he is faithful to the task at hand.

Joseph stayed true to who he was as a 17 year old golden child. He stayed faithful as a slave in Potiphar’s house. He stayed faithful as a prisoner in Egypt. He stayed faithful until he got his audience with the Pharaoh.

Staying faithful to the assignment implies you know what the assignment is. What is the current assignment God has given you? We often seek to carve out comfortable lives forgetting that God’s mission is greater than our immediate context. The mission of God is to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that Jesus has commanded. Yet the mission of the American church seems to be to one of comfort and convenience. Stay faithful.

Believe in it.

You will endure hard things if you believe there is something worth enduring for. Sometimes it is out of sheer survival. Other times it is because we believe there is something worthwhile on the other side of the trial. But in the trial we can question the dream. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery to get rid of him. They didn’t want the dream coming true. Joseph was sold to Potiphar, a high-ranking official in Egypt’s military, to work in his house. He was thrown in prison under false accusations. Do you think Joseph might have questioned the dreams a time or two?

Joseph may have been a slave in another man’s house, but his commitment to the task put him in charge of that house. He may have been a prisoner in Egypt, but his commitment to being a model prisoner got him in charge of the whole prison. Then the day came to stand before the Pharaoh and interpret his dreams, and God showed up. Thirteen years.

Thirteen years. That’s how long it took from the time God revealed to me my calling to the day I stepped behind this pulpit as your pastor. There were plenty of times I questioned the dream, but i stuck with it because I knew he would do it.

What dream is God putting in your mind? Martin Luther King dreamed of an end to racial discrimination.

Well, I have a dream too. I have a dream that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. I have a dream that the American church will wake up and put Christ back in the center of Christianity. I have a dream that one day the First Baptist Church of Three Rivers will not need to look outside of itself for leadership because its leaders are training a generation that will be faithful to the assignment. I have a dream that one day the return of Christ will not be imminent, for it will be at hand and his kingdom will be permanently established on the earth.

What is your dream? Until a dream is reality, stay faithful.

If you are here and you do not know Jesus as Savior and Lord, I want to invite you to make that decision today. God’s dream is that none shall perish, but all will come to salvation and a relationship with him. Our world is broken because we chose to depart from his design for our lives. He sent his son Jesus to live the life we cannot live, to offer it as a substitution for us. He died on a cross paying for our sin debt, buried in a tomb, and rose again three days later conquering sin and death, and promises that you too will be resurrected on the last day if you will place your trust in him. Will you do that today?

If you are a child of God, the mission is to go and make disciples. Who are you sharing the gospel with? Who are you investing in? How are you teaching them to obey all that Jesus has commanded?