The Story of God: When Dreams Become Nightmares

I don’t know about you, but if you’re like me, walking through the Story of God is both eye opening and encouraging at the same time. Because the same God who met with Abraham, Sarah and Hagar; who blessed Isaac and was with Jacob; is the same God who meets with us and blesses us and is with us today.

Think of some of the things we have learned so far: First, God uses the least likely of people to bring about his blessing to the world. He takes a relative nobody from the pagan culture of Haran; a man in his seventies, Abraham, and chooses him to be the guy to build a new nation – the people of God.

Second, God sees us when we suffer and hears our cries for mercy. He heard Hagar’s cry after she’d been rejected and found herself lost in the wilderness. And after hearing her cry God rescued and restored her to Abraham’s tribe.

Third, God is always faithful even when we are not. This truth came through over and over again in Jacob’s story. God did what He said He would do for Jacob. God always provided for Jacob, always protected Jacob, never gave up on Jacob and was always with Jacob. Even though Jacob was far from a model man of faith, we learned through his story that God will never give up on you.

But another lesson that seeps through the pages of God’s story is this: We can’t always see what God is up to. Even though our circumstances say, “No way,” God finds a way to make His plans prevail. Sarah said, “No way!” when she heard that she was to bear the child of blessing. Jacob thought “No way!” when he ran away from home after deceiving his father. He had no idea what God was up to by having him go to work for his uncle for the next twenty years. But we know. God used that time to humble him and shape him into a man of faith who would lead His new nation.

And today, as we begin Joseph’s story, we’re going to begin to see all these truths about God come to bear in and through his life. Over the course of the next eight weeks or so, we’re going to see how Joseph becomes one of the least likely people that God uses to bring about His blessing; How Joseph suffers one injustice after another, but finds that God is always with him. And beginning today, how Joseph can’t always see what God is up, especially when his circumstances scream, “No way!”

In fact, as we enter Joseph’s story, we’re going to see how God is always working to seek what is best for us, even if we find ourselves in the worst of circumstances. In fact, that’s where we begin today with Joseph’s story. So, if you brought your Bible with you, let me encourage you to open it to Genesis 37, where we will see what happens when dreams become nightmares. So, if you’ve found Genesis 37, lets set the stage by reading the first two verses: Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. This is the account of Jacob’s family line. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, 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.

This is our introduction to Joseph. Jacob/Israel has now been back in the land for about a decade. Joseph is now 17 and is learning the family business. He’s tending the flocks with a few of his brothers. But we quickly see that Joseph has the ear of his father. And he comes to him with a “bad report” about his brothers. We don’t know what this bad report entails. All we know is that Joseph is an informer… He saw something his half-brothers did wrong, and he brings that “bad report” to Jacob.

Funny how it seems that almost every family has a tattletale. Now in my family, that tattle tale was not me. The reason I know this, is because, I was often the one blamed for whatever bad stuff that happened. “Larry did it.” “Larry made me do it.” And since I was the black sheep in the family, my folks almost always believed the tattletale.

Nobody likes a tattletale; nobody likes a snitch. Yet this is how we’re introduced to Jacob. How did he come by this role? Well, that lead’s us to our first point:

1. Jacob’s Favoritism Look now at verse 3, Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him. 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. Genesis 37:3-4

You see, almost every child assumes the old Tommy Smother’s line is true: “Mom always liked you best.” In other words, kids are pretty quick to catch on if a sibling is getting preferential treatment. As we see here, Jacob openly favored Joseph over his brothers. This is not surprising. After all, favoritism had a long pedigree in Jacob’s family. Isaac loved Esau more than Jacob, Rebekah loved Jacob more than Esau, and most recently we learned that Jacob loved Rachel far more than Leah. And now with Rachel gone, Joseph becomes Jacob’s favorite.

And nothing made that more apparent then the ornate rob Jacob had made for Joseph. Now, if you grew up in the flannel board era, you probably heard this story in Sunday School or Vacation Bible School, and were taught that this robe was a robe of many colors. It’s like all his brothers got to wear were the cheap bargain jeans from Kmart, but Joseph, the favored child, well he got to wear the expensive designer jeans of his choice.   But this robe was even more than that. Because this robe wasn’t just a designer robe – It was a chieftain’s robe.

The robe itself was an insignia of rulership. It was not just an elegant gift to a favored son. In giving it to Joseph, Jacob was marking out Joseph as his heir apparent to lead the tribal clan, even before he was dead.

Imagine the tension this created. It would be similar to having your father announce at the dinner table that your younger brother gets the family home when dad dies. And nothing is said to any of the other children. You just get to sit there and feel devalued, overlooked and passed over. Now, you can imagine how the brothers felt. Especially, when Joseph wore this robe wherever he went.   He was dad’s favorite, and he rubbed it in your face, almost every time you saw him.   Its no wonder the Bible says they hated him. But if being dad’s favorite wasn’t enough to cause a growing tension in the family, what came next sealed the deal. So what came next?

Joseph’s Dreams Look at verse 5, Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: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.”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. Genesis 37:5-8

He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had:  It isn’t just Jacob’s favoritism or Joseph’s manner that the brother’s hate. It is the dream. It’s like Joseph is just sticking it to them. Dreams in the ancient world were considered derived from the divine realm and were taken seriously. Dream were often filled with symbolism, calling for the need of an interpreter, though some symbols were pretty clear. Like in this case. Every brother knew exactly what this dream meant. It meant that Joseph would one day rule over them, and they would all bow down to him.

Now, I don’t know if Joseph was just naïve at this point, or was just being an arrogant seventeen year old brat. But when you hear Joseph spouting off about how great he’s going to be, don’t you just want to reach between the lines of your Bible and tell Joseph to put a lid on it? It’s no wonder that the narrator tells us twice in this passage, And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.

But there’s more: 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 moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. Genesis 37:9-11

This time with the images of the sun and moon symbolically representing father and mother, suggests Joseph’s eventual prominence in the ancestral line, superseding even his father. You can imagine Jacob’s surprise and understand why he rebuked Joseph. But at the same time, Jacob understood the seriousness of dreams like this. “Maybe God IS up to something with my son” after all, Jacob’s first encounter with God was also in a dream. So Jacob kept the matter in mind.

But not the brothers: No, their contempt for Joseph only just grows. After this dream they are now “jealous” of Joseph, a stronger and more passionate feeling than the hatred they had for him. They literally couldn’t stomach too much more from Joseph. And you get the sense that at some point their contempt for him may just spill over into some kind of violent response. Which leads us now to what comes next:

The Brother’s Revenge And so we read in verse 12, Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem, and Israel said to Joseph, “As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them.”

“Very well,” he replied.

So he said to him, “Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.” Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron. Gen 37:12-14

Now Jacob has reason to worry about his sons at Shechem. After all, it had been ten years since they had murdered all the men of Shechem, and many of their sons were now grown men.   They would not have forgotten who did this vile deed. So if Joseph’s brothers were near Shechem, they could be in danger. This also meant that Jacob was sending Joseph in harms way.

But Jacob had no idea where the harm would come from. For it seems Jacob was oblivious to the danger that was waiting for Joseph. He’s clueless to the division in his family and the hatred his sons have for Joseph. He’s simply expects Joseph to go check on his brothers and return. So we read, When Joseph arrived at Shechem, a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?” He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?” “They have moved on from here,” the man answered. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’” Genesis 37:15-17

Now more than 50 miles from home, Joseph is lost. He can’t find his brothers. But then he encounters this man who directs him to go to Dothan, another 14 miles away. By the time he reaches his brothers, he is far from the safety net of his father. And so we read: So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. Genesis 37:18

“Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other.  “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.” Genesis 37:19-20

“Here comes that dreamer!” They don’t call him by name, they only identify him by their resentment. And they are quick to hatch a plan. They had harbored hatred in their hearts for so long, that at the first opportunity that came their way they knew exactly what they wanted to do with Joseph. Joseph’s dreams are about to become his nightmare… But then… a brother steps in to save him – Reuben.

When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father. Genesis 37:21-22

Now, if anyone should have been angry with Joseph it was Rueben. He was the legitimate heir. He was the first-born. However, Reuben saw his chance to recapture the favor of his father.   After all, he had fallen out of favor years before when he slept with Bilhah. This is his chance to make things right with dad. But it’s not going to make things any easier on Joseph. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing— and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it. Genesis 37:23-24

They stripped him, took him, and threw him. You can just feel their contempt. They cast him into an empty cistern, took all the supplies he had brought, ignored Joseph’s pleas, and callously sat down to eat their own meal, leaving Joseph with nothing. And then we read: As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt. Genesis 37:25

Now, at this point, you might begin to ask, “What is God up to?” After all, the Ismaelites were their relatives.  The Ishmaelites descended from Abraham through Hagar. And they often worked together with the Midianites, descendents of Abraham through Keturah, the wife he married after Sarah died. So the members of this passing caravan were actually the uncles of their father, Jacob. They were their second or third cousins. So at the sight of them, Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?  Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed.  So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt. Genesis 37:26-28

What was God up to? He was saving Joseph’s life. If this chance encounter with the Ishmaelites had not happened at this very moment, Joseph would have been left alone in the cistern to die. You see, Reuben was not the true leader of these brothers. Judah was. He made the decisions and his brothers followed him. And with the arrival of this caravan he finds a convenient way of getting rid of Joseph without having the guilt of his death on his hands. So he takes it, and the brothers think it’s a fine plan. After all, Reuben isn’t even there when the decision comes down. How do we know that?   Well, the narrator tells us: When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy isn’t there! Where can I turn now?” Genesis 37:29-30

Indeed, we now see that Rueben truly did want to rescue Joseph and save face with his father. But now he is distraught. He has nowhere to turn. This is sad. He does not have the faith of his father. Because if he did, he could have turned to God.

By now all the brother’s know that they must cover-up their dirty deed. So Then they got Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, “We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son’s robe.” Genesis 37:31-32

He recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe! Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.” Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. Genesis 37:33-34   Jacob’s earlier deceptions have come back to haunt him once again. As Jacob deceived his father with goat skins and Esau’s clothing, he is deceived with goat’s blood & his son’s cloak.  Such irony.

Then there’s such hypocrisy: All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said, “I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave.” So his father wept for him. Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard. Genesis 37:35-36

Joseph’s dreams had become Jacob’s worst nightmare… All seems lost. But it leaves us with our question: What was God up to?

You could say, God was up to something in Reuben’s life. He had a father wound. He wanted his father’s blessing. But now that was lost for good.   Maybe that’s were you find yourself today. You were never accepted or approved of by your dad, and its left a wound that won’t heal. Reuben said that he had nowhere to turn. But we know better… We know that God is a Father who continually pursues you with His love, who accepts you fully and will approve of you completely. We know this because this is how God embraces anyone who puts their faith in Jesus. We have someone to turn to!

God was up to something in Judah’s life. He may have despised his brother, but he didn’t really want to kill him. So, he took the easy way out. Out of sight, out of mind. It will be sometime before we see what God’s up to in Judah’s life. But sometimes we’re like Judah aren’t we? We try to put the hard things of life out of sight and out of mind. We ignore them. But just because we ignore them, doesn’t mean that God does.

God was up to something in Joseph’s life. Jacob made him a leader too soon and it went to his head. God’s dreams didn’t help too much either. He was young, brash and a bit full of himself. But God wasn’t done with Joseph. That’s why his story is only beginning.   What looks like a nightmare now, may just turn out for his good. And by the way, what’s true of Joseph is also true of you. What looks like a nightmare in now, may just turn out for your good. God may just be up to something good for you.

Not all trials and hardships are what they seem.  Sometimes we don’t see what’s going on.  Sometimes God allows us to have hardships and trials because He wants to use them to mature us.  Sometimes God allows us to go through difficulties so He can lead us to a place where He can use us.  Sometimes we just don’t see what’s going on.  But we do know this:  God is always with us.  He was with Joseph.  And He will be with us, no matter what we might face.