Dreams Do Come True

I think that is about all we're kind of into our summer period here, July and August, and people are traveling and on vacation and things are going on. And a lot has happened here with us in the last couple of weeks.

Since I was last year with you, I went out to make my big adventure in the Grand Canyon and made that hike fine and got home safely and had an enjoyable trip. I left two weeks ago tomorrow or Monday, two weeks ago Monday, and then we got out to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and spent a couple of days hiking through that and enjoyed that very much with the group that we were with. While I was gone, actually, during the before, I actually left the very tragic situation with Vern Sanford took place where he came down sick while he was on his own adventure fishing in the Boundary Waters up in northern Minnesota. And he suffered a series of strokes brought on by a staph infection in his blood that rendered him unconscious. They had to take him to Duluth, Minnesota, and Karen and her daughters had to go up. Immediately after that, I think Vern had just gotten on to his trip when he started having the effects of a stroke, and they medevaced him out to a hospital in Duluth. And Karen called me and was, that was obviously just beginning to snowball, and she and her daughters flew up to Duluth.

And it's interesting, when she called me and found out where he was, we don't have a we have a part-time congregation in Duluth. It's a very small number of members up there, and they have services every other week. I didn't know the exact situation, so I called one of the elders in the Minneapolis congregation to see if there was anyone, an elder up there or anyone who could certainly go in anoint or he'd be with the family.

And it just so happened that the hospital, they took Vern too, which was St. Mary's Hospital in Duluth. There was a member who works there, and so I was able to get them connected, and she was able to encourage and just support and be there for Karen and the girls and bring food in during that period of time. And then in the meantime, I left on my trip, not knowing what was going to happen there. And just as I flew to Las Vegas, got my rental car, and was driving to the north rim of the Grand Canyon when my cell phone rang, and it was Vern's daughter, Michelle, and pretty well knew what that might mean.

And so I had to pull over for about 30 minutes. At that point, they realized that there was no option other than to let him go. And they had to make a decision to take him off life support. The operation, the doctors suggested could be done if he lived. He would only be a vegetable, so nobody wants to be in a situation like that.

No living family member wants to have to be in that situation to make that decision. And I've been there a few times with a couple of other cases with members, and there's no more difficult situation that I can imagine. And so I had to pull off, go into a rest area there in the desert, and talk and help them through that particular period of time. And that took over a couple of days, and so I was in touch with them. But once he died, then they decided to schedule the funeral.

I came home a day early, and I was able to be with them at that time, as were many of you for the visitation and for the funeral. So it's just a tragic situation. Just three weeks ago today, Vern and I were talking at the back of the hall. He was getting ready for his big adventure, and I was getting ready for mine. And we walked out together. I think we nearly closed the door that day in front of Ron, who always closes the door. It turns off the last light.

But he went off, I went off, and life can turn on a dime. It's just the way it happens. And I think we all are been shocked and saddened. And certainly Karen and her daughters and family there need our support and our prayers. And I know that many of you will continue to be praying and certainly give Karen the support and the encouragement that she needs as she makes her life now and goes on and without him.

And as I said in my funeral service on Monday, Vern was just the type of guy that everybody liked. Nobody said any bad things about Vern. Never heard any bad reports about Vern, and he was just one who was always, when he was here, you knew he was here.

When he was not here, you kind of missed him. And he just had a very kind and gentle presence about him. And I remember when he showed up a few weeks after we organized in United back in 1995. I remember when he showed up, it was just, you know, it was good to see him, it was good to see anyone who showed up. But I remember the Sabbath that he came to check us out during that period of time. And I remember very well over there on Post-Rogue, where we were meeting at that time.

And so it is. That's life. So, as I said, God doesn't make mistakes. We don't always know why and have the answers, but let's make sure that we have our lives in order and doing all that we can, which probably is a good segue into what I wanted to talk about here this afternoon and the topic that I wanted to discuss with you. Because I decided to rehearse something that review a subject that I've covered with you.

I know it once in the past and I have discussed this subject several times with the Ambassador Bible Center classes that I've taught.

But I thought it was a good one to go back through for several reasons, as what I've been through, what we've been through, and what we all need to go through. All of us have dreams in terms of, you know, we all know what a dream is. At night, we will sleep and we'll wake up the next morning and we've had a dream. Sometimes you remember that dream, sometimes you don't remember that dream. Sometimes you say, why was that a vivid dream? Some dreams will linger with you, you know how that is. And some you can't even, you can barely remember, but we, you know, doctors and psychologists study dreams and try to figure it all out. And I don't think it's rocket science in one sense. It's just part of our consciousness and the mind and life. And we all probably have recurring dreams. I have this recurring dream every so often that I'm about to give a sermon, either in Sabbath services or at the Feast of Tabernacles, and I have no idea what I'm going to talk about. And I'm panicking and I'm scared and I can't come up with a topic and I think I'm going to make a complete fool of myself and I cannot come up with anything to say.

There used to be a variant on that dream was that I also didn't have any clothes on when I was speaking, but for some reason that part has shifted out of the dream scenario and it's just the lack of ideas. You probably have your own recurring dream that goes over and over again as kind of a part of the way things work with dreams, but we all dream. And some of them are rather vivid.

Those are things and what we dream about and we don't always have control over. The Bible talks about dreams as well. There are many episodes from the stories of the Bible about people who had dreams. We should all remember the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had of this huge image and nobody could interpret it for him and his magicians and sorcerers couldn't interpret it. So finally he was told about Daniel and Daniel came in and he told him the interpretation of the dream in chapter 2 of Daniel. And Daniel then had his own dreams as you read through the book of Daniel. So it's a book of dreams and visions. Abimelech had a dream, I think it was in Abimelech at the time of Abraham. He had a dream when he was going to take Abraham's wife, Sarah, to himself and God showed him in a dream. No, no, no, no, don't go there. Not going to happen. And he had to back off from that. Probably the most famous dream that comes to our mind is the amazing dream that Joseph had. And I'd like to take us back there as the one dream in the Bible to talk about. As I talk about a subject that I think is a very healthy subject and a very important one as we dream. You know, I used to dream, go ahead and if you will turn back to Genesis chapter 37.

When I was a kid, I used to dream a lot about various things. And these were my own conscious dreams and imaginings, really, of what I wanted to be. I'd watch Roy Rogers or Gene Autry or some other cowboy movie and I wanted to be a cowboy. So I'd go out in the backyard, I had my stick, and it became a horse. And I'd ride around with my cowboy hat on and I had my little holster with a plastic gun and I'd be a cowboy. And then I might be some other superhero, maybe the Superman or Batman in those days. This was pre-Spider-Man, Hulk, and all the other superheroes that have come on.

Batman and Superman were my heroes, superheroes of choice when I was a kid. And I would imagine that I would be one of them and play for a while. And then, you know, you imagine all kinds of other things as you dream. You may want to, maybe some girls might want to be a movie star, maybe a singer, maybe a nurse or doctor. And as we go along, we imagine in our life that we might want to be and do certain people in various situations. You know what happens, though, with dreams of our youth, reality sets in. Life 101 comes along. We get slapped up the head with life. And something happens. Somebody discourages our dream, makes fun of us. Maybe a parent, maybe a teacher, maybe another adult, maybe a peer. Oh, you'll never be that. You can't do this. You're so-and-so's kid. Or you come from this part of town. Or you're this or you're that. You can't do that. Just remember your place, who you are, whatever. And we get slammed with things like that.

And it discourages us. Then sometimes we might make our own mistakes, choices, and that shoots us off on a path of life that we don't always have control over anymore. Got to go to work. Got to pay for that house, apartment. Got to put food on the table. And the dreams that we had to be an astronaut, a movie star, a doctor, a lawyer, an explorer, a cowboy, they're gone because we have to punch that clock. We've got to go to the office. We've got to do this. And this is what life has dealt us by whatever. Our own choices, things beyond our control, discouragement or whatever. And we get on with our life. And before we know it, we've got 45 years in and not even a gold watch anymore. And life gets on and gets away from us. And the dreams that we had of our youth weren't always fulfilled. And that happens in many cases.

You know, I was telling the kids this morning up at the Bible study up there, and I went through the subject with them. You know, things happen when you dream or when you imagine. We've all been to Disney World or Disneyland, and we know the story of Walt Disney and his little Mortimer Mouse that became Mickey Mouse and that whole empire that grew into the Disney Empire. But what most people don't realize is that in the early years of Walt Disney's studio and his creations of Snow White and Pinocchio and what led eventually to Disneyland in the 1950s when he opened Disneyland and then all of those sets and it's a small world and Pirates of the Caribbean and all the various things that we've seen and know about, all of those began in his mind.

And then he drew them, and they came to life. And when he started Disneyland, he had his whole studio or room full of men that were his assistants that were helping him come up with all of these things about the films and the whole industry that eventually became Disneyland.

And Walt Disney didn't call his people engineers. He called them imagineers. Imagineers. Because they would imagine a character, a scene, a ride, and then they would go and make it happen.

They would draw it. They would produce it. They would design it. And his whole, he called it his Imagineering Studio. They weren't engineers, they were imagineers. Because they came up with an idea and then they brought it into reality. Now, it's all fantasy, make-believe world, but it is what it is. We all know what the Disney experience is, and it's a very successful entertainment industry. Nothing wrong with it, and it's given us all many hours of pleasure and taking a lot of our money, especially more and more if you go to Disney World and what it costs. I think you have to take out two mortgages now to get into Disney World and spend any amount of time there. That's just the way it is. But the creativity, the dream, and this idea of dreaming and imagining and making something happen is a very interesting concept. And I think it's a biblical concept, and I think it's an important one for spiritual growth and our ultimate achievement of God's kingdom. I think it's rooted in the Bible. And I want to illustrate it here by looking at a very familiar story of Joseph and his dream. We'll talk about that, rehearse the story, and learn a few things from it, and then we're going to make an application that I think is important for us all to understand. And if it is a repeat for some of us, consider this version 2.0 of the same idea. Here in Genesis, chapter 37, is where we come into the story of Joseph. Now, you have a King James Bible in front of you. Look at the heading of chapter 37, which is not in the inspired text, but is added there by the editors. It says, Joseph dreams of greatness. Here in my new King James Bible. How many of you got a new King James Bible? How many of it says that in your Bible? He dreams of greatness. So, we're going to talk about Joseph's dream. And it is a dream from God, number one. No question about that. It's not the usual dream. It's not the dream that you and I have last night or last week that, you know, of whatever has been going on in our life and comes up in our subconscious. It's not that type of dream. This is a specific dream from God. And yet, Joseph had it, and he understood it, he interpreted it correctly, and most importantly, it framed his life. It was a dream that shaped and framed his entire life. What happened here is the story goes along. Verse 3 tells us that Joseph was the most beloved son of Jacob, or Israel, as it mentions here. He was the son of his old age, and he made him a tunic of many colors. And from this, we get, of course, the Joseph and the amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat that has been a successful Broadway show and movie and story, all based here. Jacob loved Joseph. He was the son of his favorite wife, the one that he wanted to marry to begin with, which was Rachel. And, you know, you go back into the story of Joseph. She eventually had Joseph and Benjamin, two sons. And so he played favorites toward Joseph.

And, of course, in a family this size with 11 other brothers and a daughter, you can understand the problems there. Any of you that came from any size family at all, and if anybody, any other sibling was given favoritism, you know, the conflicts that can arise within a family when that takes place. It's not a wise thing to do as a parent to play favorites with children. It happens. It happened here in the case of Joseph and Jacob, so much so that even it affected his clothing. And when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him. So the resultant envy was natural within a family dynamic. Now, verse 5, it says, Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him even more. And so he had this dream, and it was a vivid dream. It was not this type of dream that he woke up, and he was really struggling in his mind to remember what was that one all about. This one was in full, high-definition, big-screen, 55-inch plasma LCD color. And there was no question in his mind what he saw, and it was emblazoned and branded right there, burned into his mind. And he came out among the family the next day, and he began to tell them about it, and it created even more hatred. Here's what he told them in verse 6, Please hear this dream which I've dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the field, then behold, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright, and indeed your sheaves stood all around, and bowed down to my sheaf. This was a familiar thing. I don't dream about sheaves in the field. You know why? Because I don't fool around with sheaves in a field, nor do you. We dream about the things that went on the day before, or last week, or it's, you know, we went to bed thinking about. So God used something that was familiar to set this story, this point, into Joseph's life, and it dealt with sheaves in the field. His brothers said to him, Shall you indeed reign over us, or shall you indeed have dominion over us? They hated it even more for his dreams and for his words. Well, Joseph dreamed still another dream, and he told it to his brothers, and he said, Look, I dreamed another dream, and this time the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me. So Joseph even took this second dream, or God did with him, to another level. It wasn't sheaves in the field, alfalfa, corn, wheat, whatever it was, now it was the planets and the stars and the moon, and they bowed down to him.

So he told it to his father and his brothers, and his father rebuked him, and he said, What is this dream that you dreamed? Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you? And his brothers envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind. Jacob rebuked him for the moment in this and said, Look, what are you talking about? Perhaps Jacob sensed the strife that was building and said, This has gone too far. The first one was a bit of a novelty, and he probably passed it off, and he comes back with his second dream, and Jacob realizes, Hey, let's stop with the dreams. Okay? And yet, Jacob keeps it in his mind.

He tucks it away, files it back there, and he goes on. And he doesn't, which tells me that he perhaps thought something is going on here. Something's going on. And the brothers, of course, paid him even more. Well, you know the stories that goes on here in verse 12.

His brothers went to feed their father's flock and check him. And Israel said to Joseph, Are you or not your brothers feeding the flock and check him? Come, I'll send you to them.

And so he said, Here I am. So Joseph goes on this mission to go and see how they are and return word back to Jacob. So Joseph puts on his coat of many colors, his amazing Technicolor dream coat, and he goes off. And his brothers see him coming.

And they see him before often, verse 18, and they begin to talk and to conspire against him to kill him. Their hatred is just continued to multiply. As they talked about it, you have to imagine that we're talking here about capital, family money, that they were probably seeing slip away from them as Joseph grew in favor with his dad. The business was doing well, and these other 11 wanted their share. And they saw that probably Joseph was going to get more. That had to have been a part of it there because he was the favorite. And it was, you know, Jacob had a family enterprise going here.

And so as they sensed their futures, their shares diminishing in value, they began to talk and to conspire. And they said, the dreamer is coming. Look, this dreamer is coming. Come, they said in verse 20, let us kill him and cast him into some pit. And we'll say some wild beast is devouring. We shall see what we will become of his dreams. They totally discounted the dreams and thought it was just a bunch of fantasy and saw nothing whatsoever there. They were going to kill him.

Reuben steps in, the older brother, and one of the older brothers and says, look, let's not kill him. Let's shed no blood. Let's just throw him into a pit and we'll come up with something else. We'll deliver him back out of their hands and bring him back to his father. But it came to pass when Joseph came that they stripped him of his coat. They took him and cast him into a pit. The pit was empty. There was no water in it.

Not a well. They sat down to eat a meal. They tried to figure out what to do and let it go at that after they calmed down here. They looked up and here comes a company of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead with their camels bearing spices, balm, and myrrh on their way to carry them down to Egypt.

Now, understand that where Jacob and his family was located in the present-day state of Israel, that promised land, the land of Canaan, was right smack dab in the middle of the major interstate highways of the ancient world. And what came out of Babylon and Assyria and went down into Egypt passed right through the land of Canaan. And they were right on this trade route. This is like you and I getting out here on Interstate 70 and at the Flying J truck stop and we're going to see truck after truck after truck come in and stop there. They were seeing a caravan of camels come in and come through carrying freight of the business of the day. And they came up with the idea, we can make some money off this guy. Let's sell him. And so they sold him to the Ishmaelites and they took him on down into Egypt. The Midianite traders passed by. They pulled him out of the pit. They sold him for twenty-second shekels of silver and they took Joseph to Egypt.

And then they went to the pit, got the coat, had to come up with a story because they couldn't go back and tell their father that they had sold their brother into slavery. So they smeared some animal blood on him on the coat, took it back and they told Jacob that he got caught by a lion, mountain lion or whatever. They made up the story that he was killed, which must have been a really fantastic story. They don't give you all the details here, but if all they took back was a coat, they must have really made it a gruesome story, which means that they probably told Jacob that he was eaten all the way down to the very last tomele because there was nothing left to bring back to be put into an urn, into a box, and into a cave and tomorrow and over, other than a coat. So think about that and the impact that it had on Jacob. Joseph now is packed off into slavery down in Egypt. Now, you know the story it picks up in chapter 39. He is sold down there because it's human trafficking was a problem then, just as it is now, and people were sold into slavery. And he was a commodity. And he was purchased by a man named Potiphar. He was a chief in the house of Pharaoh, and he was bought by the officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, named Potiphar. And as circumstances developed in Joseph's life, he was shown favor. Because what was happening with Joseph was God was with him. What was taking place here was family business of a gruesome, dysfunctional sort, but God was still working behind the scene.

And keep in mind that God indicated that through the dream, through the dream.

And that dream would be a very key anchor or framework for Joseph's life. Now, he is sold into ownership by Potiphar, but because of favor, because of who he was, what he knew, and his abilities, it became evident that God was with him. It tells us in verse 3 of chapter 39, and God made all that he did to prosper in his hand, and what he set his hand to do. And Joseph found favor in his sight and served him. And he was made overseer of Potiphar's house, and all that he had was put under his authority. And Potiphar, being a very important person of EIP, and Potiphar's court, was wealthy, but he also had a lot of other people working for him, and a lot of material goods that he was over. And Joseph basically became the chief steward, or chief of staff, of Potiphar's house. The Potiphar also had to travel a lot. No doubt he was gone a lot, which created an interesting dynamic within his marriage, because his wife, Mrs. Potiphar, for lack of any other name given to us here in the account, cast her eyes upon Joseph one day, and he must have caught her attention for whatever reason. People get caught in attention situations like this, and she tried to seduce him. And Joseph had the character to say no. He remembered what his teaching, what he had been taught, the law of God, and he would not sin against God, as he said. He tried to get away, and as he did, she tore his cloak. And then she was scorned, and you know, I think it's Shakespeare that said, you know, hell hath no fury like a woman who is scorned.

And she was cast aside, so she frames Joseph, and says that he tried to rape her, and her stories believed by her husband, and Joseph is thrown into prison. He's stripped of everything that he has. And so here's Joseph, betrayed by his family, sold into slavery, makes his way back up the ladder, and then another human being lies and frames him, and he tumbles back down and is thrown into prison, and no hope whatsoever. I would not think that an Egyptian prison was a very pleasant place to be. No prison really is, but he was a foreigner, and he was thrown into a prison of dictatorial, hierarchical state, and I doubt that the prisoners were given any, had any rights whatsoever guaranteed by any laws. He winds up in there with the baker or the butler, and these guys have dreams. And one of them gets out, they both get out, and one of them gets hanged, and the other gets his freedom and forgets all about Joseph for a period of time, as you know, as the story goes along. Joseph's life is one of ups and downs until it comes again to chapter 41.

And dreams are still in the business because Pharaoh now has a dream.

It came to pass at the end of two years. This is two years after it seems Joseph was at least thrown into prison, and what he went through there with the butler and the baker, who the butler did not remember Joseph but forgot him in verse 23 of chapter 40. And then at the end of two years, Pharaoh had a dream, and behold, he stood by the river. So we look at Pharaoh's dreams here, and because these are significant, suddenly there came up out of the river seven cows, fine looking and fat, and they fed in the meadow. Then behold, seven other cows came up after them, and out of the river, ugly and gaunt, and stood by the other cows on the bank of the river.

And the ugly and gaunt cows ate up to seven fine looking and fat cows, so Pharaoh awoke.

Here was another vivid dramatic dream. And they slept and dreamed a second time, and suddenly seven heads of grain came up on one stalk. Plump and good, seven fat grains of Indiana corn, imagine, I guess, what it would be. But then behold, seven thin heads, blighted by the east wind, sprang up after them. And the seven thin heads devoured the seven plump and full heads. So Pharaoh awoke, and indeed it was a dream. And it came to pass in the morning, so he had both of these in one night. His spirit was troubled, and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt and all of his wise men, and Pharaoh told them his dreams. But there was no one who could interpret them for Pharaoh. Then the chief butler came to Pharaoh, saying, you know what? He's scratching his head, kind of like Colombo used to do. You know what? I think, yeah, there was a guy back here in the prison, and we had dreams. And I think he interpreted our dreams, and I remember this guy.

And so they called him forth. He said, we each had a dream, and one night each of us dreamed according to the interpretation of his dream. There was a young Hebrew man, a servant of the captain of the guard. We told him, and he interpreted our dreams. For each man, he interpreted according to his own dream.

And so verse 14 says that Pharaoh sent and called Joseph. They brought him quickly out of the dungeon. He shaved, changed his clothing, and came to Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, I have had a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it. But I have heard it said of you that you can understand a dream to interpret it. So Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, it is not me. God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace. And that is a remarkable statement after all of these years. And after all Joseph has been through, being betrayed by his brother, sold into slavery, bought by Potiphar, framed, thrown back into jail, languishing there forgotten for over two years.

And he comes out, and he's standing before Pharaoh. He's standing in the oval office.

On a very nice plush royal blue carpet. The lighting is just right, and it smells good.

It doesn't smell like a dungeon. And Pharaoh, the big guy, is right there. And Joseph could have been tempted to say, yeah, I've got a talent. I've got a gift. I'm pretty sharp. What would we have said? What would you have been tempted to say?

Ussured in with your new set of clothes on, fine suit, nice dress, jewelry given to you, finest cologne, perfume, all cleaned up. And you're right at the very heart of the Egyptian empire in the Pharaoh's office. And he says, I hear you've got a talent.

Things go to our heads very quickly. We can forget certain things. Joseph didn't forget that it was God that had given him this gift. Joseph had had time to think for these years in this dark, stinky, dank dungeon. He had had time to think. One of the most interesting books I read was this past winter. I read The Count of Monte Cristo.

Those of you that know the story of the Count of Monte Cristo know that the hero of the story was unjustly accused and thrown into jail, Chateau Dif off the French coast.

And he languished there for, oh, I think it was 12 or 14 years. And the way Alexander Dumas tells the story and describes life in that dungeon is very, very dramatic and it's not very pleasant.

But it gave the hero time to think. And I think Joseph had time to think about everything.

And he came out here not forgetting that it was God who gave him this gift to be able to answer Pharaoh. He says, God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace. And so Pharaoh said to Joseph, Behold, in my dream I stood on the bank of the river. And he said, Seven cows came up out of the river, fine looking, and I'm willing to go through and repeat all of those. He explains him to Joseph.

And then down in verse 25, Joseph said to Pharaoh, The dreams of Pharaoh are one.

God has shown Pharaoh what he is about to do. The seven good cows are seven years. And the seven good heads are seven years. The dreams are one. And the seven thin and ugly cows which came up after them are seven years. And the seven empty heads blighted by the east wind are seven years of famine. Think about how you would have interpreted that if you'd been presented this riddle.

What would you have come up with? I mean, we read it. It sounds, oh yeah, that's so simple, seven years. Seven years each. But I think I probably would have guessed at something else.

I don't know that I would have been that sharp. What would you have said? Again, God was giving him the understanding and he very clearly, quickly gets to it. This is the thing, verse 28, which I have spoken to Pharaoh. God has shown Pharaoh what he is about to do. Seven years of great plenty will come throughout all the land of Egypt. But after them seven years of famine will arise and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt and the famine will deplete the land.

So the plenty will not be known in the land because of the famine following, for it will be very severe. And the dream was repeated to Pharaoh twice because the thing is established by God and God will shortly bring it to pass. Now therefore let Pharaoh select a discerning and wise man and let him set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this and let him appoint officers over the land to collect one fifth, 20 percent, of the produce of the land of Egypt in the seven plentiful years. And let them gather all the food of those good years that are coming and store up grain under the authority of Pharaoh and let them keep food in the cities. Then that food shall be as a reserve for the land, for the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt, that the land may not perish during the famine. As you know from the rest of the story, the famine didn't just stay in the land of Egypt. It went up into the land of Canaan because Joseph's brothers wind up coming down for food.

Joseph gives Pharaoh an option. He tells him, look, this is what's going to happen seven good years and then seven years of famine. You need to do this, this, and this in order to prepare for the seven lean years. And essentially he's telling him you need to create a super, super czar. A person that's not only Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Economics, but also a Homeland Security man. Because once you start collecting food, and nobody else has it, you've got other problems. You may eat, but others are going to want what you've got.

So this was a big job that Joseph was laying out, and Pharaoh says, you're the man. You're hired.

And he puts him in charge. Second in command, right into Pharaoh. Everybody answers to Joseph. Joseph only answers to Pharaoh. And he begins to create the storehouses, storing up the food, preparing for the famine that is to come, which does come. And this is a dramatic story, a dramatic time, that affected several nations. But for the point of the story, again, you know that Joseph's brothers eventually come down wanting to buy grain, and Joseph knows who they are. They don't know who he is. And he begins to play a game with them.

And he gets to a point where he finally has to reveal himself, tell who he is. And that is over in chapter 45. We'll skip through all the other parts of the story here. Joseph essentially frames them and gets it back into a corner where they know, finally, that he could kill them for stealing. And he gets to the point where he can't hold it back anymore. He has to reveal himself to his brothers in verse 1. He sends out all of his other aides. He cries aloud and turns to them and says in verse 3, I am Joseph. Does my father still live? This is really what Joseph wanted to know. He loved his father and he wanted to know, does he still live? And his brothers were completely dismayed. They recognize that even as Pharaoh's number two man, he held life and death over him. And then when they find out that this is Joseph, their brother that they betrayed, they are even doubly afraid of what might happen to them. And he says in verse 4, I am Joseph, your brother whom you sold into Egypt. But now do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here. And this is the key, verse 5, the latter part. For God sent me before you to preserve life. For these two years, the famine has been in the land and there are still five in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you and the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. At some point in the story and in his life, and this is now 30 plus years from the time he's been sold, at some point Joseph figured it out that all that had happened to him was by the hand of God.

Now I don't know exactly when. That might have happened over those three decades.

But at some point he realized that being thrown into a pit by his brother, strapped to the back of a stinky camel, and camels really stink. They're nasty animals. If you've ever been to the Middle East or go to the zoo, you don't have to go to the Middle East, go over here to the zoo. They stink. They're nasty. And he was strapped on the back of one of them and had to endure several days journey down into Egypt. I doubt he was probably thinking, oh great, God's working with me. This is all in God's plan. I don't think he was doing it at that point.

Now, maybe when he rose up to chief of staff of Potiphar's house, maybe he was beginning to think, well, no, God's with me again. But then when he was framed and thrown back into prison, what do you think he was thinking? What would you have been thinking? Where's God?

Why is this happening to be God? Maybe even we might start thinking, is there a God?

But through it all, he was thinking, he was praying, he was sorting it all through.

I doubt that he came to the point where he didn't believe in God. But he came to a point where he understood it finally. And my feeling is that it was probably at a time after getting the job with Pharaoh and getting involved there and recognizing the magnitude of the job that he had and getting into that, that he finally figured it all out. To where he could say to his brothers at this point that this has happened because of God. So don't be angry, don't worry. I finally understand. I'm not going to seek revenge upon you. Joseph was the second wealthiest man in Egypt. He was a global capitalist at this point. And he had wealth at his disposal.

And with all that he'd been through, he was now able to use it for good.

I mentioned the story of the Count of Monte Cristo. Those of you that have seen the movies, if you haven't read the book, you know the story. He becomes the Count. I can't remember the gentleman's name right now. It slips in my mind what his real name was. But while he's in prison, he meets another abbey, the abbey for rare, who tells him of this vast treasure that is secreted away in a cave on an island. And the abbey dies, he gets out, that's part of the story, and he goes and he recovers this vast treasure. He renames himself, remakes himself, calls himself the Count of Monte Cristo. And he is fabulously wealthy.

What he does with the money, then, is he sets out to gain revenge against the four or five people who were responsible for putting him into prison. And from that point on, his life becomes one of seeking revenge. And he lays out a careful plot to seek revenge upon every one of those men who have gone on to make their own fame and wealth, and he gets his revenge on every one of them. And that's the whole story. And the point of the story is, it's a story of redemption and there's a Christ-like theme through it all, Monte Cristo, you can catch all of that. But he uses his wealth to get revenge. And at the end of the story, the one thing that he wants, which was with the girl, he can't get the girl that was denoting. But he got his revenge. He used his money in the wrong way. Joseph's story, however, is another story of being cast in the prison unjustly, but brought out and being given access to a tremendous amount of wealth.

But he uses it for good. Not to seek revenge on his brothers, but to save his brothers and his family, as well as Egypt and many others. You have to realize this was a major event taking place. And Egypt was the benefactor for a lot of people in other nations. And Joseph is the key person here. He uses the wealth that wasn't his. He didn't earn it. It wasn't his technological genius that created it. It was, in a sense, put into his hands because of his righteousness. And he used it for good and not to seek revenge when it comes down to this point here.

And the point of it is dreams play out throughout all of this. And here is the point of the story for what I want to bring out to you today. This dream framed Joseph's life.

The dream, the original one that he had, of his brothers bowing down to him, his family.

And it framed his whole life from that of a young child. And it was a dream that he had, given to him by God. But Joseph had a part in it in that he had to act upon it.

He had to do something with it. And that dream was the overarching goal of his life.

It's kind of like the dream that you and I are given of the kingdom of God.

God gives us the hope, the vision, the dream of eternal life in his kingdom. And that becomes the overarching theme of our life that frames everything that we do. From the time that I made my decision to believe and to accept and become a part of God's church and accepted that vision, it has framed and shaped my whole life and yours as well. I mean, every decision, every major decision that I've made in my life has been with that in mind. I'm not saying that, you know, every little decision as to where I go on for take a trip or, you know, vacation here or there, necessarily. But every major decision, the job that I have, certainly, but who I married, and how I've lived my life, how I've raised my children, the hopes and dreams I have for my grandchildren, how I, you know, every day of my life, as well as yours. And we frame our life by that dream.

Just like, you know, I could take you into our home and walk you down our hallway, and you would see pictures of our family, of our boys, little, bigger, bigger.

We need to start putting in a few grandkids' pictures there. We've got them scattered in other parts of the house. But you can walk down our hallway, as I could in your homes, and see your life framed through the pictures of your children, your family, your experiences.

And we do those things, and it tells us about this power of dreaming, of imagining, of deciding, I will be this, I will do this, I can do that. And, yes, when we're young, we might dream about being a cowboy, or being a movie star, or being something else that is noble and good, and maybe a little bit beyond our reach of our everyday life. And those, as I said, those ideas and dreams get shattered. But sometimes we miss when we do the opportunity to really frame our life by what we decide we want to do, and how we want to live, and where we want to go, what we want to be. We do have the power of choice. Joseph had the power of choice. God gave him the vision, just as God gives us the vision of the kingdom of God. But just like Joseph, we have the power of choice to believe that dream, and to act upon it. And if we act upon it in the right way, it can shape and frame our life, just as this dream shaped his life. Because he came down to the end of his, or at least near the end of the story, at least, and made that point. And he said, look, God's done this. Don't worry, brothers. God's done this, and it's because of his plan for me. Now, Joseph had to make certain decisions along the way to remain faithful, to overcome adversity, when people slandered him, when he was unjustly accused, when it seemed like God wasn't with him. He had to remember and exercise faith that God was with him. But he had to make the choices along the way as to how he would live, how he would conduct himself, the goals that he would set, the plans he would make, the things that he would do. And that, in the end, caused him to come to the point where he realized and believed that God indeed had guided his steps all along the way, even when he didn't think God was guiding his steps. But it was because of the choices that he made. And that is the same with us. We have an overall dream of the Kingdom of God that creates a very, very large life. God's Word gives our life definition and clarity on the quest for the Kingdom of God. The vision of God's Kingdom helps us to find, really, a very large and exciting life that's filled with accomplishment as well as meaning. But we truly believe that we will be kings and priests, that God is preparing us for a place in his government, in his Kingdom, for all eternity.

If we really believe that, then we will translate our life into not only a life of faith and professed belief, but a life of physical accomplishment and preparation for that world to come. We will believe it, and it will guide the choices that we make. The future reality will fire us with ambition to be something, to be somebody, and to do things, to live a life with passion and belief and confidence. And I think, and this is something I've held deeply in my part of my belief for a number of years, I think this begins with having dreams. And a dream, in this case, of the Kingdom of God as the prime number one dream that is the goal that we seek, that God has given to us. But then on top of that, we make our own dreams. We build our own visions.

We have a spark and an ambition about life, and we strive to make our life work so that we can come to whatever point in our life, at age 30, at age 45, 60, 75, and can say that we have lived a life at a high level. We've lived a full life. And none of us know when, you know, what the next day will bring, and the next week we, as I said earlier, just with, you know, Vern Sanford, myself. We walked out the door and, you know, life turns very quickly.

One came back from a trip and another didn't. And none of us have any guarantees.

That doesn't mean we live with morbid fear, but we live with, you know, we recognize that our life is in God's hands. And at whatever point, we want to be able to say that we have had a good life.

We've lived it according to God's purpose. And we've done the things that we want to do.

Have any of you seen the movie The Bucket List?

Okay. I should raise my hand. I just saw it this week.

Go see it. Or rent it. Bring it to you. I don't go see too many movies anymore. They all come to me.

See it. The Bucket List. Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, whatever you think of those actors, put it aside for this one. It's a pretty good movie. I can recommend this one.

Two guys, they get cancer, terminal cancer. They meet up in a hospital room. And one of them, the Morgan Freeman character, decides that he's one day sitting in his hospital bed, he starts writing on a legal pad the things that he wants to do. And Jack Nicholson sees it and says, what is that? Actually, he's throwing it on the floor, I think, and he picks it up and says, what is that? He makes an excuse for it. And he says, it's a bucket list. Things that he wants to do before you kick the bucket. That's the way it is. So they make this list. Jack Nicholson has the money because the Morgan Freeman character has been an auto mechanic and he doesn't have fabulous wealth, but Jack Nicholson does. So they team up and they start, for the next few months, going around accomplishing everything on their bucket list. And the story develops from there.

And it's a pretty good movie. I saw it this week after coming back from the Grand Canyon because this personal trip of mine to the Grand Canyon was an opportunity for me to cross off one of the things on my bucket list. Of course, I wasn't calling it a bucket list until this movie came out.

Prior to that, and I still do, I call it my dream list. Because a few years ago, a good friend of mine, John Robinson, gave a sermon after being inspired by some of his reading to give a sermon about a dream list. Living a life where we write down the things we want to do, the things we would want to be, the things we want to accomplish if we had all the money in the world, unlimited time, which meant you didn't have to punch the clock at eight o'clock on Monday morning, and the support of your family. Create a list, your dream list. Not a list of goals. I'm going to buy two heads of cabbage at the grocery store, you know, on the way home from work. Not that type of list, but a list of what you would want to be, what you would want to do, where you want to go, what you want to see and accomplish with your life before you before you kick the bucket. And I put that list together a number of years ago. I can show you that list right now.

Someplace. Here it is. Here's my dream list that I wrote up several years ago. I crossed a few things off of it. The latest was my trip to the Grand Canyon because 12 years ago I stood on the Grand Canyon and I said, I want to go rim to rim before I take up the rocking chair. And I can't go rim to rim. And so two weeks ago I went rim to rim. Crossed it off the list. I've got other things that I've crossed off up here. One of them was I've got them divided between travel, education, spiritual, acquisitions, family, financial, and some of them I've crossed off, the others I haven't got to yet. One of them is to see my sons on their own. Now they're both on their own. Note to son. In the back row you're on your own. They're on their own. I've got others up here. I will tell you all of them. But I will tell you that some of them are things and places I want to see. Others are things that I want to accomplish of an educational and spiritual nature. Since coming back off this trip, the events of the last couple of weeks, I've added a few more.

They're not so much big dramatic places in the world. To me, at least, it's a little bit more meaningful. That is not just to satisfy something for me, but if I get a chance to do it, will satisfy a lot of people. A lot of people. And I wrote it down. God willing, I'll have a chance to be a part of making some of those things happen on my dream list. So it's not just about me.

It's not about a garage full of cars, or a cellar full of expensive wine, or some goal like that, or the first million, or the third billion, or whatever it might be. That's not it. Although that could be somebody's dream. Those are not the important ones. So this is something I've added over the years. I've added two cross-stores of accomplishment, and I've added two in recent days. I encourage you to make your own dream list. It can be a 3x5 car, just start writing it down. It can be a piece of paper you're stuck in the back of your Bible. It can be something a little bit more elaborate, like I've done here, to divide it up, to remind myself of a few things. But make your own bucket list. Make your own dream list. There is something about writing things down that by itself won't make it happen, because you've still got to make certain choices. A lot of things have to come together, but it does help you to expand your thoughts.

It makes you think into the future. It projects you into your future. And I think even by writing something down, it helps you to break free of the limitations that you've put on yourself or someone else put on you when you were 18 or 12 or 38. And you thought, oh, I'll never do that, or it's impossible. And you just forgot about it. Writing it down is a step, a step, not the step, but a step toward breaking free of some of the limitations that are put upon us. And it helps us to control and shape our future. And it is a commitment when you write something down to help you to crystallize and to focus your thought. So don't just think about it and don't just imagine it. Write it down and keep that someplace where you keep those things that are yours.

And I don't care how old you are. I don't care how young you are.

Make a dream list. Make a list of those things that you would like to do if you had unlimited money, unlimited time, total support of your family, and the things that you would like to do.

I think living like that, taking that approach, is a way to take control of our life and puts us within the framework of what we read here in this story with Joseph. Of a dream that, yeah, God gave Joseph that dream, and that was a specific part of his plan. But God gives us dreams, too, of his kingdom. And he's working with all of us for his eternal life. And we are going to play a very key role in his church and in his kingdom. And we can live our life around our dreams and our hopes. In a sense, we write our own script in many ways. We don't have to accept always what has been given to us in the lot that we have. We can break free of that. We can exercise our choice.

Some of the things that I've written down may never be possible. I'll tell you one of them.

I'll tell you one of them. One of the things, and this is more of a physical thing, it's to see the ruins of ancient Babylon. I'd like to see them in sight. I've seen some of them in a museum, but I'd like to see it on sight. But right now, I don't want to go over there.

Things will have to change a little bit more. So that one may not be attainable.

Some of the others are a bit more noble in the sense that I've written down recently.

I hope to work to be able to make them possible. I won't tell you what those are. Those are a little bit more private at this particular point. But I think gradually, as we make a list like that, and we begin to crystallize and focus and see those things, the opportunities will be there. I know it works. I know it can happen for each one of us.

Because I don't think any of us want to come to a point in our life where we've not done the things that we would like to have done.

And I don't want any of us to come to a point where we would think that, no, we didn't get it done. Because we can get it done. We can get things done.

We can do some of the things that we want to do. I think God can open doors and opportunities for us as we show commitment and dedication. God's blessing comes in many different ways.

At many different times. There's a poem that, years ago, I ran across that illustrates a life that is not lived the way it should be. It's a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier.

Nobody even knows who he is anymore or reads anything by him. But it's a story, it's a poem called, Maud Muller. Maud Muller was a country girl who, one day, was out in front of her country farmhouse, a rich young lawyer came by on his fine horse and stopped to get a cup of cold water from her well. She gave it to him. She caught his eye. He caught her eye.

She was a poor country girl and he was a lawyer from the city. He had to ride on.

She had to stay. He became a judge, married and lived at a big fine house.

She married and had children but stayed on a small farm in the country.

Years later, as this poem goes, they're both in old age, sitting around.

And the poem ends with the poignant line that the saddest words of tongue and pen are the words what might have been. We don't ever want to have a life that we come to it and we wonder what might have been. We can live our life according to a blueprint.

God works off of a blueprint. He's going to bring us into his family and I think he expects us to live off of a blueprint as well. In Hebrews 9, verse 23, we read that God made the tabernacle in the wilderness after a blueprint.

Hebrews 9, verse 23, It was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

The copies of the things in the heavens, the tabernacle that Solomon built, the tabernacle in the wilderness that Moses built, was built off of a copy of a heavenly thing.

It was purified with heavenly sacrifice as well.

God's plan with all of us works off of a blueprint. And a blueprint, if you know, has everything spelled out down to the very last, is detailed. And it knows what's going to happen, and what should happen, and the end product of what that blueprint should produce.

God works off of a blueprint and he's working with us. If we can learn to dream, if we can take our life and live it fully, we can move through the adversities, the trials, we can learn throughout a lifetime and keep our eyes on the vision of eternal life. Learn how to make life work in a very high fashion, in a very effective fashion, so that there's no regrets and no thoughts and yearnings of what might have been in our life. If we learn to dream, we learn to live our life and to take the control that we can over the matters that are before us and make the right choices and decisions. So make your dream list. Make a vision list. Call it a bucket list if you want, if it's a little bit more current. But make your list and live your list and prepare for God's kingdom.