The Dreamer

Well, hello and good morning. Good morning balcony. Thank you, good morning. My name is Mark, I'm one of the pastors here. I wanna welcome all of you here live in our auditorium. It is so great to be together. And those of you joining us on our live stream, welcome as well from wherever you are on planet earth. We're just glad that you have joined us. And I have to say it is so great to be back in church with you.

Since I was last here between that time and today, I went on a trip to Alaska. Yeah, it was awesome. In fact, there's this wonderful ministry that is formed to encourage pastors and provide moments of renewal, recharge, just the beauty of God's nature. And so I got to stay on this island. Yeah, when I got the invitation, I said, "Well, you know, let me think about it for a couple of weeks and I'll get back to you." Actually, I literally said, "Do I get to keep both of my kidneys?" Because it's just absolutely spectacular. It's right off the coast of Sitka. And I was there with two other pastor friends. In fact, this guy named Mark right here, we've known each other for over 30 years and he was instrumental in my being able to be there.

This cabin on the lower left right here, this is where I had to kind of tough it out for the time that I was there. Even had my own laundry room, so that kind of says it all, right? It was just absolutely amazing, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and the best fishing experience I've ever had in my entire life. There was a lot of that going on. Came home with 50 pounds of fish and even caught two sharks unintentionally. And well, this is kind of what that's like. Watch this.

All right, here we are for Bjorka. Mark's a Spurlock Master, has a shark on. - Bigger than the first one. - Yeah, this is a good size shark. Welcome to Shark Week. Anyway, you get the idea. - It came out of the water probably five or six feet away. - It was a big shark. - Strip them on right now. - After about 20 minutes and the shark decided the fun was over and he got away, which is great because we really did not want him in the boat with us for sure. But I think this arm is still sore from that. It was just incredible.

And so, you know, really overall, I caught a little bit of everything, including COVID on the flight home. So that was another little extension to the adventure and I'm fine, but you know, kind of an odd way. It brings us right here to today with our new series called You'll Get Through This, if you know what I mean. And we are about to embark on one of the most greatest stories in the entire Bible. It's an Old Testament story about a guy named Joseph. And this story is going to impact your life, I promise you. It's just amazing.

In order to get the most out of this series, I wanna encourage you to do a couple things. First of all, we have a companion book entitled, You'll Get Through This by Max Locator. Wasn't it nice of him to write a book for this, this little series we got going here? Anyway, we've already run out, which is a great problem to have. We have the first chapter available for you at the lobby, after the, out in the lobby, after this service. And then we expect to get more in the office by Tuesday.

You can get them online. If you have a Kindle or some other type of electronic reading device, that's available on those platforms as well. And I imagine we'll have some more next weekend too, but get the first chapter so that you can stay in sync with everything. And along those lines, this is gonna be such a richer experience if you go through it with other people and God will speak through their experience to your heart as well.

So in other words, if you're not part of a small group, I strongly encourage you to become one and you can either sign up out at the table in the lobby or you can sign up online by going to tlc.org/smallgroups. And listen, whether you end up in a small group or not, you are going to want to get this little small group study guide right here because this is gonna help you stay on track. Like which chapters are we reading? Which videos are we watching this week? So many resources available to you. These are out in the lobby. I encourage you to pick these up. It's a short little thing, but it's gonna be so helpful in terms of all the resources. You can also get this electronically at tlc.org/smallgroups.

All right, now I encourage you to buckle your seat belts because you are about to meet one of the most dysfunctional families ever, okay? Some of you think, man, my family's so messed up. Well, you got nothing on this family. In fact, if they had their own baseball team, which they could do because of their numbers, they would kind of function a little bit like this. Check out the screen here. There's the balls in play here. Little infield grounder. Here goes the runner. He's running to third base. No, he's running to the pitcher's mound. No, he doesn't know where. Oh, there's the throw to first base and just knocks that poor guy out. And there's our runner. He's rounding left field and coming in towards third base. A one run has just scored and some player just goes crazy running off and there he is. He scored because they could never find the ball.

Let's just look at this replay here on the screen. There he is right there, making his way through the center of the field. And then here it comes. Boom. Man down. And I tell you, man, if Joseph's family had a team, this is how they would do life right here. Total chaos. And Joseph is in the middle of all of it. And for reasons you're about to see, I'm calling him the dreamer today. But first, let's meet the rest of the family, shall we? Starting with dad, the schemer. His name is Jacob. Jacob literally means heel grabber because Jacob's the kind of person who will trip you up in order to gain his own advantage.

He's the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham. You've probably heard of father Abraham. This is his family. And Isaac, his favorite son is Esau, the fraternal twin of Jacob. Esau is burly, he shops at Bass Pro. He is a rugged outdoorsman and a skilled hunter and his father could not be more proud of him for all of these things. On the other hand, Jacob is the exact opposite. Jacob shops at William's Sonoma. He prefers to stay home with mom, perfecting recipes in the kitchen, which comes in handy because one day Esau comes back from this epic hunting trip and he is starving to death. And Jacob just happens to have a nice big pot of stew waiting for them.

And he offers it to Esau in exchange for Esau's birthright. That's the lion's share of the inheritance as the firstborn. Esau accepts the deal only to resent both his decision and his scheming brother, Jacob. Think of it this way. You know those Thor movies? Okay, Esau, he is Thor, okay? He's got all the brute strength, but Jacob is like brother Loki, okay? He's the clever one. And just like Loki can like change his appearance to fool people, that's exactly what Jacob does. He actually kind of masquerades, can put on like an Esau costume, if you will, in order to trick his father Isaac into conferring Esau's blessing on himself.

And Isaac, his eyesight is so poor, that's exactly what he does. He gives the blessing that belongs to Esau to brother Jacob. And now Jacob has cheated Esau out of both the birthright and the blessing. And so he vows to kill his brother, which he is clearly capable of doing. Knowing this, Jacob runs for his life and he ends up living with his uncle where he quickly falls in love with his cousin, Rachel. Makes a deal with his uncle to work for seven years so that he can marry Rachel. But when the wedding day arrives, Jacob gets tricked by his uncle because behind the wedding veil is a Rachel, but her older sister, Leah.

Now, can't untie the knot. So Jacob makes another deal with his uncle to work seven more years so that he can ultimately marry Rachel. So are you still with me? Now Jacob has two wives who also happen to be sisters. And these two literal sister wives, they, not surprisingly, begin to compete for Jacob's love by saying, "Who can have the most babies?" And so in short order, Leah gets pregnant, has a boy, and then another one, and another one, and another one. And so by now, it's Leah for Rachel zero.

Now, in a move of desperation, Rachel says to Jacob, "Why don't you sleep with my servant and then she can have a child on my behalf?" Her name is Bilhah. And Bilhah ends up having two more boys. And then Leah sees this and says, "Well, hey, I've got a servant too." Her name's Zilpah. And Zilpah ends up having two more boys by Jacob. And then finally, excuse me, Leah herself has two more boys and a daughter. And finally, after all of this, Rachel finally has a son. His name is Joseph. Wow, she'll eventually have another son, but in all, Jacob has 12 sons, one daughter by four different women. Wow.

Can you imagine the tension that creates among all of these brothers, all of the confusion, this rivalry between Leah and Rachel and Bilhah and Zilpah just spills into their lives and gets snowballed. So it's like, hey, does dad even know my name? Does he know who I am? I mean, how's this all gonna work? Who's gonna be the leader when dad and moms are older? Well, for sure, one person for sure, they're not thinking is ever gonna be the leader, is the one that was born second to last, years later, Joseph.

And now that you have some of the backstory, Genesis 37:2 says, "This is the account of Jacob's family line. Joseph, a young man of 17, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them." So Joseph tells on big brothers, and that's a group that we're gonna call the bitter. Bitter, because of this family trait of favoring one child over another in such overt ways, and it spilled into their lives.

And so watch the consequence, it says, verse three, "Now, Israel," that's Jacob by another name, 'cause God named him Israel. That's another story for another time. But Israel, Jacob, loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age, and he made a richly ornamented robe for him. This richly ornamented robe is not the kind of thing you wear to tend the flocks out in the field, okay? This is like Joseph showing up on the job wearing an expensive Armani suit. Yeah, he's not there to get his hands dirty. And it clearly signals to his brothers, he's the favorite.

So, verse four, "When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him." And as we're gonna see next week, these brothers, these men are not the kind of people that you want to have feeling badly about you. Because when they hate you, they rub you out. One time in their past, a man violated their one sister terribly. And so they went and found that man, and they killed him along with every other male in that village. And they took the wives and the kids and the flocks. So, this is like having the Corleone family hate you. These are bad guys.

But just when you think it can't even get worse, it does. Which brings us to the dreamer. One night it says that Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more, like they couldn't even hate him more, but they do. He said to them, "Listen to this dream. We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it." Wow, isn't that interesting? It's like you guys were bowing down to me.

His brothers said to him, "Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?" And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. Wow, are you detecting a theme here? They hate him as much as they possibly can. Well, almost, brace yourself. Then he, Joseph, had another dream and realized it would be really stupid to tell his brothers so this time Joseph kept it to himself. It doesn't really say that. That's what I want it to say. It's like, don't do it, Joseph. We realize you're 17, you probably have this overinflated self of self-esteem thanks to dear old dad, but you can't resist the last.

First night actually says, "Then he had another dream and he told it to his brothers. Listen," he said, "I had another dream and this time the sun and the moon and 11 stars were bowing down to me." But think about it this way, guys. You guys are stars. You are, I mean, hey, that's pretty cool. But even so, you seem to keep bowing down to me. It's really kind of crazy, right? Like, yeah, right. When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him, not even Jacob's on his side now. And he said to him, "What is this dream you had? Will your mother and your brothers, and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?"

And if you're wondering why they're also riled up about these dreams, it's because in these days, God would often speak to people directly through dreams. Now, sometimes you may do that again today, but of course our normal, reliable way of hearing from God is through the Bible, which by the way, in the Bible there is a vision for your future too. Promises that God is gonna take everything and work it for good in your life. That someday God is going to make all things new and set things right, and it's these kinds of promises that if you lean on them, will help you get through this. Whatever this happens to be in your life right now.

But in Joseph's day, there was no Bible. And so dreams like this were a really big deal. And after Joseph has two dreams, that basically have the same one point, it says at verse 11, "His brothers were jealous of him." Not just hateful, but jealous. "But his father kept the matter in mind." And I have to wonder if the brothers are jealous because they're starting to fear that maybe these dreams might just come to pass. Which would elevate Joseph even more. And so might they devise a plan someday perhaps to derail that possibility? We'll find out next week.

But for now, I want you to just notice what it says here at the end of verse 11. It says, "His father Jacob kept this matter in mind." Jacob has been a manipulator, a schemer, his entire life, but he's also come to learn that sometimes God has a mysterious way of showing up in our lives. And so he wonders, is this one of those times? As he ponders what's going on. And you might be thinking the same kind of thing like, what in the world does this have to do with me here and now? And how does this relate to our lives?

Well, first of all, think about this. In this moment in God's redemptive history, these are God's chosen people, if you can believe it. And out of this, this cauldron of dysfunction will come a waterfall of blessing that is still touching our lives to this very day. I mean, doesn't that give you some hope that God can work in any circumstances to bring about His glory and our good? It's incredible. In fact, let me just give you a couple things to ponder. Three things in particular, I invite you to keep in mind. And I've kind of adapted some words from a guy named Augustine, or Augustine. And I don't know if he was thinking about this story when he said these words, but they fit so perfectly.

And the first thing is this, that we can all apply to our lives right here, right now, and it's this. Trust your past to the mercy of God. You got things in your past you can't do a thing about, and you wonder, why do I even have that? Well, think of Joseph's family. As you're gonna see, you've already seen today, but in the weeks ahead, this family is so dysfunctional, but from the 12 sons of Jacob came the 12 tribes of Israel, the nation that God established to bless the entire world.

And why? Because they were also perfect, not even close, but because God in His mercy would bring from them the great prophets and the holy scriptures and Jesus Christ, the Messiah of the world from that mess, He brings the world's greatest blessings, eternal blessings. And I don't know what your family's like. I know some of your stories, but some of you, I imagine you feel very blessed, like these families on stage today, blessed for things in your life. Others of you, you feel your family was more of a curse, if you're being honest. And even in the best homes, there's baggage.

I mean, there's emotional wounds and relational wounds, spiritual wounds, psychological wounds, even sometimes sadly, physical wounds from our families. And it's not just that, it's just life itself, right? Which dishes up no shortage of difficulties. And so maybe here, here this morning, and you're honestly, you wonder, you know, am I ever going to be able to escape my past? Am I just so damaged that God could never use me? And if that's you, please hear me right now. Because while our past may influence us, our past cannot ultimately determine who we are or what we will become, that's God's job.

God determines that if we will let Him, if we will invite Him. So trust that past that you're carrying to God's mercy. Your story's not over yet. Someday you're gonna look back and be amazed at what He has done. Some of you already know what I'm talking about. And so decide today if you never have before, I'm not going to listen to my past anymore and just be dragged down by it. I am going to listen to the voice of the Lord who loves me and cares for me and has mercy on me. You can make that choice today.

The second step in this is that you can also trust your present to the love of God. You know, your past to His mercy, your present to His love. You know, in this story you're gonna see there is a beautiful picture of God's love. Trust me, it will emerge. And what makes it so amazing is that this family is so unlovable, it's so often. Like they're daring God to give up on them over and over again and yet He does not do it. Nor will He ever give up on you or me no matter what's in your wake, no matter what's gone on this week or last night, whatever you're at, He will not give up on you because He loves you and that will never change. Amen indeed.

Think back to just the baby dedications we had here just moments ago. All those beautiful, beautiful children, those blessings from God, but you know what? Not a single one of them has done anything to earn their parents' love. Not a single thing. I mean, yes, they're adorable, but they're also fussy and they throw up and they mess their diapers and they deprive their parents of sleep and yet can we even begin to measure the love those parents have for their kids. And not just them, but every parent, how quickly they would lay down their life for their children. And in fact, isn't that exactly what Jesus did for us?

So may we never doubt God's love for us. Again, maybe like Joseph, you're surrounded by just chaos and resentment or like his siblings, you simply feel overlooked, neglected. I mean, you see some people, they're living their dreams or they're pursuing their dreams. And yet for you, that would be a luxury because you're fighting a physical illness or you're dealing with a mental illness, either you or someone you love. Some of you are mourning the loss of a life or marriage, a career. You're mourning that there are better days in your past than there are right now. At least that's how you feel. Mourning the loss of all the things that you used to call good and normal.

I'm here to remind you that God loves you and that God invites you today, now, to take refuge in his love. Like little chicks do when they hover under the wings of their mama. God says, "I invite you to do the same." In fact, in Psalm 91:4, the promise is that he will cover you with his feathers. And under his wings, you will find refuge. You can find refuge today.

You know, when I was in Alaska, did I mention I was in Alaska? When I was there, we saw so many bald eagles. They're just everywhere up there. In fact, this pair right here, there's this little guy here and the one right below, they would just perch in the tree right outside my room, about 25 feet above my head. And I could just go out there and watch them. And they had a nest on a neighboring island, a couple hundred yards away. But even from that distance, we could hear their little ones calling to them.

And one day we're out on the water and our host, he was fishing with us and he catches this little fish about this big and he's not gonna keep it, but he has to reel it in and when he gets it into the boat, it's really swallowed the hook. And so by the time he gets that hook out, that little fish is worse for the wear. And so he tosses it into the water, boats just kind of move along and within two seconds, we see an eagle leave the nest. And it's just cruising in like a fighter jet. It's nothing, wings are just, it's just right towards our boat. And then about 20 feet above our head, it just banks and turns. By now, its talons are fully splayed and it just swoops down and snatches that fish out of like the boat wake. It's like, where was it? He knew where it was and just picked off it goes. Whoa.

But meanwhile, back in the nest, there's these little baby eagle chicks waiting for their next meal. Totally helpless, totally unable to do anything for themselves. But after all, they don't need to know. 'Cause they've got someone taking care of them. God says, "Come under my wings." You don't have the wherewithal. You don't have the strength, but God does and God cares. So keep this in mind. Trust your present to the love of God. And then finally, trust your future to the providence of God.

The dictionary defines providence as God's protective care in the present and his timely preparation for future eventualities. Hear that again. God's protective care in the present right now and his timely preparation for future eventualities, you have no idea are waiting for you in the future. But he does. And I know this much. I believe with all my heart that no matter what you face in the days to come, no matter what I face in the days to come, in those moments of challenge, God will give you what you need when you need it. Not necessarily what you want, but what you need when you need it.

And I know this deep down in my soul. Because 21 years ago, we did a series on Joseph. René was starting his first sabbatical and I plunged myself into this study on Joseph. At the time, my wife Laura was a little over eight months pregnant with our second child. And then just two, three weeks before we expected that child to arrive, we lost him. A stillbirth that nobody saw coming. And many of you remember this. You were here then or you've heard me mention it over the years. But we eventually named our little baby boy, our second son, Joseph.

And we found out that Joseph means God will add. And we latched onto that, not because we thought that was a guarantee that God would add more children to our family, which in his grace and mercy he did with Luke and Anna, but that we knew for sure God would add comfort and healing and even purpose in our pain, which he has done over and over again for the past 21 years. I couldn't even begin to tell you about all that he has done through that experience.

But here's the central truth that church is my son Joseph's legacy. It's that God will give you what you need when you need it because God is faithful. I know that to my core and it is my son Joseph's ongoing gift to his father. The gift of his little short life to me and to others whom we have the opportunity to encourage. Now next week, you're going to see Joseph's life, the Joseph in the Bible, take a dramatic turn because out of their hatred, his brothers are going to horribly mistreat him. And what looks like one of the worst possible moments in his life, it actually becomes pivotal to some of the best moments of his life. It's so amazing.

In fact, here's the key verse to Joseph's whole life right here, comes later on, years later at chapter 50 when he says this to his brothers. He says, "You intended to harm me." And they did. "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good." To accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. We have an amazing God who can work all things to good. And whether you're familiar with this story or this is all new territory, I can't wait until you and I, we just feel the full freight of this as we enter deeper in to this amazing story and all the moments that God has in store for us.

And along the way, my prayer is that each and every one of us will just be all the more eager to trust our past to God's mercy and our present to his love and our future to his providence. You know, like Joseph, you may come from a very dysfunctional family. I mean, frankly, you may be in a weird relationship right now. You may be experiencing jealousy or hatred or other negative emotions, and they're coming from the very people who should be loving you. You may even have people mocking your dreams. But the story of Joseph reminds us that by God's grace, you'll get through this. Amen? Amen, let's pray.

Precious Heavenly Father, we thank you for the truths that we have seen today and I pray that they would impress themselves upon our hearts and our lives. And Lord, I pray especially for those who are here in this room today or they're watching remotely, they're watching this online, and there's chaos in their life. There's real relational challenges or there's fear over an uncertain situation. They just don't know how it's going to ever resolve. They pray that it will take a turn for the better. Whatever burdens we come and came here today with, Lord, I pray that you would allow us all to take refuge in you, to take refuge under the shadow of your wings.

And Lord, we trust that you will meet us there in each moment. I pray these things in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and with a heart full of gratitude and anticipation as to what you have in store for us. It's in his name we pray and all God's people said, Amen. Amen indeed.