Vanna White, the glamorous star who shows the letters
on Wheel of Fortune, was a leader in her church youth
group in North Myrtle Beach, North Carolina. Her pastor
wrote about how he asked her, when she was a senior, what
she was going to do after graduation. She responded that
her dream was to become a model, and so she was going to
modeling school in Atlanta.
This is how the pastor reacted: "Vanna, no!" I said.
"Don't do that! Those schools will do nothing but take your
money. Nobody ever gets a job at one of those places. You
have brains! Ability! You could be more than a model!"
She thanked me politely and said, "But I have this dream
of going to Hollywood and becoming an actress." "From
North Myrtle Beach?" I asked. "Vanna, that only happens
in movies. This is crazy!" He goes on to say he is not
surprised that her autobiography does not mention his
ministerial influence. He points out that Vanna makes more
in one week than he makes in a whole year of giving good
advice to aspiring teenagers. His point in telling this story is
to call attention to the fact that it is not wise to try and
interfere with other people's dreams.
A dream can be an escape from reality, but it can also be
an alternative to a present inadequate reality. A dream can
provide an ideal toward which we strive and thereby change
reality for the better. In his book, Finding The Goal Posts,
Lawrence Howe tells of such a dream in the life of Cecil
Rhodes. He was 22 years old when he conceived the idea of
an international scholarship fund. A plan that would bring
the keenest minds from around the world to study together,
and grow in their appreciation of the culture and learning of
other lands. Such a project would, of course, take millions of
dollars, but with no money and a dream, Cecil Rhodes made
out his will bequeathing millions of dollars to this noble
cause. Then he signed his name to his dream and went out
into the world to back it up.
He struggled against adversity; sometimes succeeding;
sometimes failing, but before long he came into possession of
the great Kimberly Diamond Mines in South Africa, and he
became world famous for his fabulous wealth. He was
comparatively young yet when her fell prey to tuberculosis
and he knew the end was near. He called for his will to have
it read. He did not need to add anything to it except a
paragraph of instructions to his lawyers advising them how
to make his wealth available to fulfill his dream. He did not
even need to sign it, for he had done that years before. As
Howe said, "He literally signed his name beneath his ideals.
He built great castles in the air, and then went out by hard
work to put foundations beneath them..." Here was a
dreamer who built his castle from the top down.
His dream was not an escape from the real, but an ideal
he sought to make a part of the real. This kind of dream
ought to be standard equipment in the mind of every Christian,
young and old alike. As Christians we are bound
to be realistic, but we are not bound by reality, for our ideals
are always to be far superior to the reality of what is, and
they are to drive us on to change the real till it conforms to
the ideal.
In an article titled "Dreams: Pathway to Potential," Kent
Hutcheson writes:
“A person who has dreams is filled with
expectation, and no obstacle seems insurmountable.
He had a positive attitude, is excited and is never bored.”
This means that dreams are practically the same thing as
faith. Listen to Heb.11:1, "What is faith? It is the confident
assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the
certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us...." Faith
and dreams are one. It is a weak faith indeed that has no
dreams of being more of what God wants you to be in the
days ahead. Someone printed on a piece of stationary, "The
poorest of all men is not the man without a cent but the man
without a dream."
In the Congressional Library over one of the entrances
leading to the archives are these words: "They build to low
who build beneath the stars." Thank God we have ideal that
soars far beyond the furthest star into the very presence of
God where Jesus sits at His right hand. There is our ideal,
and our dream, if it is divine, is to be conformed to His image.
This morning I want you to consider with me a dreamer in the
Old Testament whose life conformed to that of Christ in
many ways. Joseph is one of the most widely known and loved
characters of the Bible. He is one of the few great heroes of
the Bible whose life is not blotted by a fall. Like Jesus, he was
tempted, but remained faithful. Like Jesus, his own received
him not, and he was unjustly persecuted, but like Jesus, he
forgave and became the savior of the very ones who hated
him. We want to consider his life from the point of view of
the three results that can come into the life of the dreamer.
I. DREAMS CAN CAUSE TENSION.
Have you ever wondered as you watch your children fight
like animals, what good can possibly ever come of them?
Jacob must have wondered this often as he watched his 12
boys growing up. There would be tension enough without
creating special sore points as Jacob did. He showed such a
special favoritism to Joseph that he made the other boys
jealous to the point of hating him. Joseph was the child of his
first love Rachel, and he was born to him when he was 91
years old. Jacob made no attempt to hide the fact that Joseph
was special. He broadcast it by making him a long robe of
many colors. This was the garment of an overseer-one who is
superior.
It was perfectly natural that Joseph was not popular with
his brothers. This was not his fault, but it was the fault of
Jacob showing favoritism. I read of a father who heard a
knock on his bedroom door and he said, "Is that you pet?"
"No it isn't pet, its only me." replied a little voice quivering
with sorrow. The father's eyes were opened and
that was the end of pet in that family. Jacob did not see his
error, however, and so tension remained in his family.
Then came the straw that broke the camels back. Joseph
had a dream that only added fuel to the flame of hate already
raging in his brothers hearts. He had a dream, and he shared
it, that all his brother and even his mother and father would
bow before him. It was a God given dream, of course, but the
family just considered him an arrogant brat. Even his father
rebuked him for such a dream.
A somewhat similar relationship existed between Isaac
Watts, the great hymn writer and his father. As a boy Watts
had such a talent for poetry that he made his general
conversation rhyme. His father tried to discourage it and one
day he became so exasperated by Isaac's constant rhyme, he
threatened to punish him in a very un-poetic manner if he
did it again. Being so much a part of him, he unconsciously
did it again and his father picked up the rod. Isaac fell to his
knees and pleaded dear father on me mercy take,
and I will no more verses make.
His father was disarmed and recognized his son was born
to be a poet. He recognized his sons dream was God given,
and so the tension was eased. But this was not the case with
Joseph's family. Things went from bad to worse and so we
see, not only can dreams cause tension, but-
II. DREAMS CAN COST TRIAL.
Jacob sent Joseph to see if all was well with his brothers.
When they saw him coming they plotted to get rid of this
arrogant dreamer. They said we will kill him and then see
what becomes of his dreams.
The majority can never tolerate the dreams of the one who
seems inferior to them. The man who dares to be different
and put his dreams into practice must be prepared to face
trials. When George Stephenson planned to draw a train of
cars by steam at the rate of 14 miles per hour, he was
regarded as a fit candidate for the madhouse, but he had a
dream and he went for it. When Fulton proposed to use steam
to navigate the Hudson river, men of science ridiculed him
and called it the silliest idea to ever enter a silly mind. Most
scientific dreamers face the same criticism, but without these
dreamers their is no progress.
In the realm of social reform nothing would change
without dreamers. Why do we have a Martin Luther King Jr.
holiday? It is because he was a man who said, "I have a
dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true
meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal." The dream cost him his life,
but it was a dream that changed our nation more than most
of us can imagine.
When William Carey shared his great dream of bringing
the Gospel to India, he was criticized by theologians and
politicians. His plan was publicly denounced in the House of
Commons as the "mission of a lunatic." Even after his dream
began to become reality, Christians expected the wrath of
God to fall on him for this interference with God's business.
Sidney Smith, a brilliant man of his day called the early
missionaries, "a little detachment of maniacs." Today we
know Carey as the Father of Modern Missions, and one of the
great heroes of Christian history. But he had to pay a price to
fulfill his God-given dream. Dreams are not free if you are
determined to follow them.
“The man is called a fool or knave,
Or bigot plotting crime,
Who for the advancement of his race
Is wiser than his time.
For him the hemlock shall distil.
For him the ax be bared,
For him the scaffold shall be built,
For him the stake prepared.
Him shall the scorn and wrath of men
Persue with deadly aim,
And malice, envy, spite and lies
Shall desecrate his name.”
Author Unknown
Joseph's dream cost him 13 years of trial. He was 17 when
his brothers sold him into slavery and he was 30 before his
dream was fulfilled. During those 17 years his faith in his
dream was tried to the utmost by the pit, Potipher's wife, and
prison. Yet in perseverance, patience and purity he held fast
to his dream and God honored him. We tend to think it is
harder to stand for our ideals in our day, but nobody ever
faced greater odds against him than Joseph. He stood alone
with the majority always against him. It always seems to be
that way for dreamers.
Luther came to the point where he stood before his
superiors and had to choose for safety and conformity, or for
his God given convictions. He did not have an army behind
him. He stood alone and his decision changed the course of
history. He said, "Here I stand. I can do no other. God help
me."
“The fighting heart may some day win.
The quitter never can.
There's many a battle turns
Upon the spirit of a man.”
No young person has ever faced more pressure to be
immoral than Joseph. Potipher's wife tried to seduce him.
You can talk about all the pressure of modern times to entice
you to forsake your Christian convictions, but they could
never be harder to overcome than what faced Joseph. It was
go to bed with her or go to prison. He refused to dash his
dream to pieces with the hammer of lust and chose prison.
That is an awful price to pay for holding to a dream, but he
paid it.
In prison he got along well, but thanks to a forgetful and
ungrateful butler, whose dream he interpreted, he had to
remain in prison for 2 extra years. It was all so unjust and
unfair, and he could have easily said phooey on the dream,
but the fact is that is what was enabling him to hang in there.
In all his trials we do not hear him complaining and rebelling
and doubting. How could he do it? The answer is in the poem
of Edgar Allen Poe,
“That holy dream-that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam,
A lonely spirit guiding.”
It was a lonely road to travel, but Joseph traveled
unyieldingly faithful to his dream and the God who inspired
it. We have seen that dreams can cause tension and that
dreams can cost trial, but the good news is our final point,
III. DREAMS CAN COME TRUE.
The brothers said, let us cast him into the pit and we will
see what will become of his dreams- and they did, for they
saw the dream come true. Joseph never wavered through all
his trials and even when the real was in utter contrast to the
ideal he remained faithful until he finally came to be the
prime minister of Egypt with the power of life and death. He
used that power to save his family and thereby prepare the
way for the great plan of God for the children of Israel.
It is marvelous to see Joseph's attitude when he was in
power. What character he had. He was faithful in prosperity
as well as in adversity. He never forsook his ideals. No
wonder the story of Joseph is one of the most popular in the
world. God entrusted His great plan in history to a 17 year
old shepherd boy. God could not have given a more clear
demonstration of His faith in teenagers. Give God a teenager
who wants to build above the stars; a teenager who dreams of
a life in God's will; a teenager whose ambition is to be like
Christ and to be guided by Christ, and I'll show you a
teenager that God is willing to use to change the course of
history. God wants teenagers, and pre-teenagers, and post-
teenagers who dream inspired dreams, and who live their
lives according.
Anyone can sit down and list reasons why a thing cannot
be done, but the dedicated dreamer will go ahead and do it.
The task of the church in winning the world is humanly
impossible. But God calls us to dream gloriously and then
live for the glory of that dream.
Are you laid low by dilemmas,
Or are you lifted by dreams?
Dream your own dreams. Don't try to fit your life into
somebody else's dream. The glass slipper would fit only
Cinderella because that was her dream and nobody else's.
Everybody wants to be somebody, but too often they want to
be somebody else. Do not dream of being somebody else, but
dream of what God can do through you, for you have the
same capacity to dream as anyone else. Why do you think
Lincoln was president when our nation went through the Civil War?
It was because Lincoln had a dream of a country
where all the people were free. He never gave up that dream
even though he had to endure great opposition. He was
willing to pay the price for his dream, and God saw to it that
the slipper of victory fit his foot, and he became the man who
set the slaves free, and saw his dream come true. God uses
dreamers of every age. Edwin Markham wrote,
“Ah, great it is to believe the dream,
As we stand in youth by the starry stream;
But a greater thing is to fight life through,
And say at the end, the dream is true.”
Victor Frankl has become one of the great authors and
speakers of the 20 th century. He survived Hitler's
concentration camp, and he tells us why. "Others gave up
hope. I dreamed. I dreamed that someday I would be here,
telling you how I...survived the Nazi concentration
camps.......in my dreams I have stood before you and said
these words a thousand times." His dreams kept him going
when the non-dreamers died in despair.
Dreams will never come true if we go on sleeping. Paul
says in Rom. 13:11, now it is high time to awaken out of sleep.
We must wake up and get into action to make our dreams
come true. It may take days, months, even years, but if we
have a dream that is consistent with God's will, we will see
some, much or all of it come true, and any part of a dream
coming true is far better than having no dream to aim for and
achieve. Someone wrote, “Hold fast your dream within your heart,
Whatever might befall;
Let others laugh, if laugh they will,
But keep your dream through all.”
Jammie Buchingham tells of a young woman he visited in
prison. She had been a part of the Charles Manson gang, and
had been convicted on 7 counts of murder. She was sentenced
to die in the California gas chamber, but just before she was
executed her sentence was changed to life in prison.
Somebody sent her a Bible in the mail, and she just tossed it
to one side and never looked at it once. Unknown to her there
were people who had the audacity to dream that such an
awful person as her could become a child of God. They
prayed and sent her letters telling her of God's love.
She finally picked up the dusty Bible and began to read. She had
only known hate all her life. When she read the life of Jesus, and
saw His love for and tenderness toward the fallen, she realized
that is what she had dreamed of all her life-to be loved and accepted.
The Bible told her she could be forgiven and accepted if
she opened her heart to Jesus. She slipped off of her cot in
that lonely cell and asked Jesus to come into her life and be
her Savior. Susan Atkins is still in prison, but she is a free
woman in Christ. She has led a number of other women to
Christ in the prison, and God has made her greatest dream
come true, for she is loved and she is loving-the two greatest
dreams anybody can have. It looked as if her life would end
as a nightmare, but the Gospel made her dare to dream again,
and she discovered what God wants all people to discover; if
we will dream the dreams God dreams for us, we will see our
dreams come true.
We have just started a new year, a new century, a new
millennium and the one thing we know will be true of the
future is that God will use dreamers to make a difference in
time and eternity. Tony Compolo said, "Without personal
dreams about the future, we are all dead." One of his goals in
life is helping people dream bigger dreams. The future for us
as a church will depend upon its dreamers, and it is never too
late to start dreaming. What can you do for this church?
What can you do for this community? What can you do for
your family, friends and neighbors? What can you do for
yourself? What can you do for the kingdom of God? What is
your Dream?
