A Dream Is Revived Part 2

During the rain forests looking to Jesus, founder and perfecter of our story of Joseph in Egypt is one of high drama of former slaves and judges the brothers sold him years before in the mind of God and ingenious plan was unfolding to save to nation the dream was indeed coming church in Chicago this morning with Dr. Erwin Sir, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line.

I think today's program will be one of high drama.

What can we expect will Dave, I think that what we can expect this to see how God brought about the reconciliation of Joseph and his brothers how God tested these brothers and how Joseph's heart of forgiveness was extended toward them. It's an extraordinary story but you know there are many people who do not experience their dreams because of failure, moral failure because of greed. Because of relationships that have gone sour.

The world is a very hurting place and I've written a book entitled, when a good man falls that I wrote it with the intention of giving people hope because often times there are those who fall yet God is not finished with them for a gift of any amount. This book can be yours.

Go to RTW offer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 now I'm going to be giving you that contact info again at the end of this message. For now, let us listen in as we continue the story of Joseph.

Chapter 45.

Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him. He cried have everyone go out. So there was no man with him. When Joseph made himself known to his brothers and he wept so loudly that the Egyptians herded and the household of Pharaoh heard it.

Joseph said to his brothers. I am Joseph is my father still alive but his brothers could not answer him.

They were dismayed at his presence.

Then Joseph said to his brothers.

Please come closer to me and they came closer and he said I am your brother Joseph was sold into Egypt and now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here for God sent me here to preserve life. Can you imagine it may be someday will see this in heaven that was videotaped by God, here's Joseph who is suddenly in the arms of Benjamin and then in the arms of Ruben and yes, also in the arms of Judah, the scene is really too sensitive for us to try to reconstruct, as Joseph and his brothers are finally united and finally brought together many Bible commentators have seen in this little picture of how it is going to be when the nation Israel finally recognizes Christ to be the Messiah to be there brothers. It says in Zechariah chapter 12 verse 10 they shall look on him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for his only son. They shall recognize Christ to be their brother and Jesus will reveal himself to the Jewish nation and say I am your Messiah for whom you have been looking all these many many years and they'll scarcely know how to answer.

But Jesus will in effect take them in his arms and they will be reconciled. And Paul says that there will be a generation of Israelites living, all of whom doesn't mean every single one but as a nation.

They shall accept Christ.

That's what Paul says all Israel shall be say as it is written, I shall bring from Zion, a deliverer, and so Joseph is reconciled to his brothers. What does this teach us about dreams if you been here, you know that each time we analyze the whole business of dream not speaking of those kinds of experiences that we have at night when we have those crazy crazy dreams like I do that make no sense whatever that are just jumbled together and in absurd ways, but rather the aspirations that we have the dreams that we dream the desires that we have. What does this passage of Scripture teach us about dreams first dreams are sometimes fulfilled in stages. They are sometimes fulfilled in stages.

Or we could say sometimes dreams take a long time to be fulfilled when Joseph was there in prison never saw the fulfillment of his dream he II believe that there dream really died and then attend brothers, and labile and that's not quite the dream. It's it's just about the dream, but not quite, because Benjamin has to bow before him to and so dreams are sometimes fulfilled in stages.

If you've got a dream if it's a reasonable dream if you have prayed about it and you believe it to be God's dream hang onto it as long as you can because you don't know God might yet fulfill it.

There is that possibility 20 years elapsed from the 17-year-old boys dream until the brothers bowed down, and God has plenty of time on his hands. We're very busy where the ones who somehow think that it has to happen today that just to let God lead you and you never know you never know dream might still be fulfilled. Dreams are sometimes fulfilled in stages. Secondly, a small dream a small dream can result in great blessing great blessing. Is it interesting that the dream that God gave the teenager ended up being the means by which God was going to bring blessing really to the then known world, because when you stop to think of it, there was a family that was a blast, the sons of Jacob, and they had to get into Egypt in accordance with God's promises and so you have a family that is blessed you have the Egyptians that are going to be blessed, because the Israelites are going to be there you have. We who are blast.

We are encouraged to read the story we say to ourselves. Here's a young man whose example has been and is ration to millions upon millions of people through century upon century, Joseph didn't know when he was going 12 at hurt. He didn't know that someday there would be great blessings that would come as a result of a little puny dream really a little dream in a little country by a man who was just scarcely more than a boy.

And look what God did most of us know the name of DL Moody.

We sure ought to, but not too many people know Edward Kimball.

I think Edward was his first name Kimball who led DL Moody to Christ if he remembered the letter that shoe salesman to Christ and when DL Moody was being inducted into the church there out in Massachusetts when he was asked about his testimony, he was rejected for membership, which should be an encouragement to those of you who perhaps for one reason or another, have ever been rejected for membership and the reason is because they asked him what did Jesus Christ do for you and can you believe his answer was, I cannot think of anything particularly the Val we tell those who interview prospective members that if somebody gives you an answer like that. The answer is no, you're not fit for membership. You can't think of anything particular that Jesus did for you, we'd say get say well it was DL Moody's answer in the next year he knew enough to say the right things was admitted into membership.

Kimball had no idea this scrawny kid was someday going to be a great evangelist who would begin a school and a church and whose ministry and blessing would touch millions of people.

As an evangelist had no idea like that but you know sometimes very small dreams because God sets up the dominoes in such a way, it results in great blessing you know that you may want to be a missionary. Maybe want to be a pastor or maybe you want to do something great for God and what you don't know and what I don't know is that the greatest thing that we do for God is possibly something that we do some day afternoon when we minister to a single mother and we show her the compassion and the love of Jesus, and she comes to saving faith in Christ and she rears her two children to love Jesus Christ.

And from that, a series of events takes place. That just causes us to be astounded at the mercy of God and we even were not aware of what was happening because sometimes just a small kindness, a small dream in the hands of God can become a means of great blessing, a little lunch at the boy gave to Jesus would eventually feed 5000 people and he had no idea when he left that morning with his lunch that God would do something so you know that there are things that God may still do in your life and through your life for his glory things that will astound you which you will not know about before you die you'll have to wait until you get to heaven to see all the good things that God did just because you lived for him because small dream sometimes can end up with great great blessings number three God is powerful enough to fulfill our dreams.

I mean, if he really wants to. I'm not saying that he wants to fulfill all of our dreams, but I need it. He really wants to know he is powerful enough, you thought of the fact that God took the weather patterns of the Middle East, and he control those weather patterns seven years of plenty seven years of rain seven years of a great harvest in the next year Bannerman and the famine lasted seven years. I can just imagine the people hurt during the famine, not only in Egypt but in other countries they're saying to themselves, and our children are starving we don't know where there is food in.

We don't know what to do.

We don't know where the next loaf of bread is coming. People complained about hard times and have discussions about how awful things had become in the economy of their countries. They had no idea that the reason that the heavens were shut up for seven years and there was no rain was because God said there is a family in Canaan that has to get the Egypt and this is the way I have decreed that they are going to end up there.

It's going to need a world wide famine to pull it off to see that Joseph has his dream fulfilled and to see that the promise that God made to Abraham 15th chapter of Genesis boxes Abraham your descendents I go to be taken from Canaan and they are going to be put into another country in Egypt and there to be there for hundred years and they're going to come out.

That's what God predicted and had to get the family of Jacob into Egypt. And that's the way he chose to do it. Course there were other options that God had gone his all kinds of ways to move one family to move the family from one country to another is just that this was God's sovereign choice and you and I know that God sometimes chooses things that we do not understand they are mysterious to us. He does it all the time.

We don't understand exactly what he has in mind when he does what he does.

But this we can be absolutely sure that if God gives you a dream.

He has enough power if he wills to pull it off if he can shut up the heavens of the can open the heavens. If he can create all the circumstances by which Joseph came into Egypt and and and to have all of this together. God is mighty and great.

That's why it's okay if we are Christians dream some big dreams once in a while. That's why we can do that is because God is strong. You don't were going to do next week. My text is going to be taken from 45 verse five. Do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, for God sent me you sold me you sold me, but God sent me were going to talk about the profit duns of God that is just absolutely astounding. They sold them in anger and God will use this for good to preserve people alive. How do we understand the providence of God. That's next week as we talk about the powerful resources that God has in mind to fulfill our dreams.

There's another lesson that is of course that God is bigger than our failed dreams. He's bigger than our failed dreams we've already learned that he gives us dreams that we would never choose for ourselves. Never in 100 years, Joseph his dream was to sit down in the land of Canaan. Next to his father. I'm sure as I mentioned Mary, a lovely Jewish woman have some kids and enjoy life. That would've been his dream he had no idea that God had a different dream for him and that meant to be sold cruelly by his brothers to be in Egypt but they are, of course, we learned that God had all kinds of other dreams prepared even a dream for him in prison because God is bigger than our failed dream and he re-creates new ones in accordance with the circumstances in which we find ourselves. He's always got something new for us did not have any dreams for these brothers as he sure did.

I mentioned it before, 15th chapter of the Genesis, God says Abraham your children, your descendents are going to be in the land and then there going to be taken into the brothers said they blew it they were cruel and God does not in any way get them off the hook because of that cruelty. They were a group of half-brothers as we learned from four different mothers motley crowd of guys who just no wonder they didn't get along, and yet they are going to be the ones who will be the beginners of what we call the 12 tribes of Israel had a dream for them and you know that even despite their failure despite their failure. Somehow it came about, doesn't mean that we excuse their failure. It simply means that in the midst of human failure and disappointment and crushed whole's and expectations that we hoped would come to pass, but don't in the middle of all that there is still is God and I say to those of you today who have brought your shattered dream to this auditorium to the sanctuary. I want you to know that at the end of your shattered dreams. There is still God, still God, you know, the Puritans used to say in this is a difficult quote because we may wonder whether it is really fair. But what if the Puritans used to say is this, that she who has gone and many other things does not have more than he who has God only well what is really saying those Puritans they believe so passionately that if you had God, you could accept failed dreams and you didn't need many dreams. God was the center of your life, because he would become your dream. That's what the Puritans believed and I have no doubt in my mind that God shatters many of our dreams simply because he wants us to find him as our ultimate dream. He who has God and many other things does not have more than he who has God only because if you have God you have all that you really really need that's with the Puritans used to teach John Erickson totter had her dreams boyfriend popular. She of course over 20 years ago dives breaks or spinal cord, and you know today, of course, that she is in a wheelchair still still hurting. I just read a recent book in which she spent most of the recent year in bed with all those awful sores every dream. The young woman could have shattered when it happened. She spent days wondering how she could commit suicide so that she would not have to live every dream crushed every one but you know today, God had a different dream for her and you know the blessing that she has been to millions of people. The organization that she begins helping those who are disabled. Blessing people with her speaking and her writing and who could have ever predicted that with the death of all of her dreams. God would give her something so special and so unique that's just like God is just like God he takes away the dreams upon which we attach our hearts shatters them. They lie at our failed and in this fair. He comes to us and he says I love you I care about you and I want you to know that I'm giving you a brand just like God.

That's the way he is the only requirement for you to still have a dreams that you be alive. Once your dad and the preachers all said those wonderful things about you that make others in the audience wonder whether he's talking about the person you think really knew. I'm getting a little facetious. There once it's all over and things have been said about us.

You can stop your dreaming on earth, but until then God has some purpose for you and those who may even go through Alzheimer's disease. They may no longer be able to dream their own dreams, but they become a part of the dream.

Of those who care for them, because God's purposes towards us are always benevolent. There is always some reason why it is that loves his people and he goes on loving us and he keeps giving us a dream. There's a final lesson that I thought much about and it does not grow out of the text of Genesis, that it is I believe scriptural and that is this the gods dreams are really only for God's people.

Gods dreams are only for God's people because I was meditating on this and the question occurred to me. Does God have a dream for everyone. The answer is I think I know at least interpreted in the way I'm interpreting at the answers no, he that believe on the son hath everlasting life.

All the dreams but he that believe it's not the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abiding on him, God has a purpose for every one but he does not have a dream for everyone except those who are his people and your dream with God if it is to begin has to begin at the foot of the cross by receiving Christ as Savior. Transferring your faith to him being reconciled to God and then you and God can begin to dream together until that time, you are under the condemnation of God. There is a purpose for your existence. But there is no use talking about dreams and their many of you who are listening to me today that if the truth were known, if the inside of what is within you were to come out and we could see who you really are. We would discover that you have never believed on Christ for yourself which is the place were all dreams begin. My friend, this is Pastor Sarandon. Even if you've never believed on Jesus Christ. That is where all legitimate good dreams begin but let me ask you this question. What does Moses and Jonah and Lawton know, and Samson David, what do they have in common. While they all fell into sin.

They were all disciplined. But at the same time God revived them so to speak, and God gave them some new dreams. That's why I've written a book entitled, when a good man falls.

It's a book actually of hope for a gift of any amount. It can be yours. Here is what you do go to RTW offer.com that's RTW offer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 ask for the book when a good man falls 1-888-218-9337 you can write to is running to win 1635 N. LaSalle Boulevard Chicago, IL 60614.

It's been a long road from a pit in Canaan to a palace in Egypt for Joseph God's dream had been fulfilled. The fate of men and nations depended on one man holding onto a dream. God had given him one component in what's known as the Providence of God. Next time I'm keep your dream alive. Dr. Luther will come with the final message on the life of Joseph. Don't miss the dream is fulfilled.

Thanks for listening for Dr. Erwin Blitzer this is Dave McAllister running to win is sponsored by the Moody Church