"What's On Your Bucket List?"

What’s on your Bucket List?

Genesis 37:15-19

In 2007 a film was released titled The Bucket List. The movie featured Jack Nicholson as a billionaire and Morgan Freeman as a car mechanic. They were complete strangers until they met by sharing the same hospital room. Both of them discovered they had a terminal illness. They quickly realized they had to come to terms with this fact. They took a hard look at what they had done with their lives up to that point. And against the advice of the doctors, they both checked themselves out of the hospital and began to carry out what they called their bucket list. The movie created a bit of a movement across America as many people decided to create their own bucket list-which is simply a list of things you have never done, but have always wanted to do and then do them before you kick the bucket. I will be honest. While I was studying this week I started one. I now have eight things on my list and I am setting a goal of actually completing these in the next 18 months.

I don’t know what you would put on your list but I do encourage you to dream a dream and stop putting things off. Men and women alike have been dreaming dreams for centuries. In the Old Testament Joseph was called the dreamer way back 700 years before Christ came on the scene.

It is very interesting to note that in the book of Genesis there only two chapters that deal with the creation of the universe. Just two. Genesis begins by simply saying, “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Then it simply says “he made the stars also.” Think about the number of stars… scientists estimate there are 100 billion, trillion stars; (21 zeros btw) yet in five words it simply says “He made the stars also.”

Then we come to the life of this young man named Joseph, the Bible dedicates 14 chapters to this young man’s life and the dreams that he held. Now why do you think that is? Is Joseph more important than the creation of the universe? Clearly God is interested in our dreams. He is interested in helping you become the best possible version of you that you can be. God is much more interested in you and me that He is in His creation.

The brothers of Joseph make a statement about him in verse 19 and I think that in many ways it gives us a summary of the life of Joseph. When they saw their brother coming they said, “Behold this dreamer cometh.” Now this was not intended to be a compliment. In fact it was a complaint. But God often takes the complaints of others and turns them into something positive. Jesus was accused of being a friend of sinners. I can imagine his response was simply “thank you very much.”

This morning I am hoping that for those of you who feel that you have lost your dream or that your dream has for some reason turned into a nightmare, I am hoping you can find it again. Let’s look at the life of Joseph.

First of all notice that Joseph had some very special dreams. Verses 1-4. Sounds like a typical family. They had their good times but they also had some tough times. We do know that they were a family of faith. Some of you are perhaps like me-you came from a family that was very dysfunctional-you never knew what might happen on a day-to-day basis and before I got married I dreamed….and I determined that the family I would have would look nothing like the one I was raised in. I would encourage you to dream a new dream for your family and if necessary determine that you will break the cycle of abuse, addiction or dysfunction. And instead create a godly family.

Now Joseph’s family loved God but they still had their troubles. Joseph’s mother, Rachel died when he was just a boy. His father, seemed partial to Joseph and he made a coat of many colors for him-this caused his brothers to become very jealous. They hated Joseph. Verse 4 says “they could not speak a kind word to him.” The Bible says in verse two that Joseph told on them and that just made him more unpopular. So there was turmoil. Problems in this God-fearing family. Hear this if you don’t already know it-your family troubles will do one of two things for you. They will either DRAW you TO God or they will DRIVE you FROM God. And guess what? You are the one who has to decide which one will happen.

So we see in verse 5 that Joseph had a dream. This dream was about sheaves of grain; bundles of grain and in his dreams he saw his bundle was standing up and the others representing his brothers were bowing down and they weren’t bowing down to God… they were bowing down to Joseph. Joseph then made the mistake of telling his brothers about it. Then he had another dream. He dreamed about the stars and the moon and the sun all bowing down to him. Also he made a second mistake of telling his brothers about this one also. These were special dreams. Dreams can be good.