Whether we realise it or not, God is in the business of handing us opportunities. And He expects us to make the most of them. What tragedy that so many people miss out on grabbing those opportunities with both hands.

I wonder if you can point to some seemingly small decision that you made along your life’s journey that had huge consequences. Or perhaps it was a seemingly chance encounter, or some small twist or turn – that changed your life.

When I ask people that question, they often answer no, I can’t think of anything like that. And my response is, you’re not thinking hard enough.

My father was Romanian. After WWII when Romania looked like falling into communist hands, his parents, his sister and he decided to get out of there. But where to flee. So they decided that they would apply to each Embassy in alphabetical order until one accepted them is immigrants.

Now, if you have a look at the alphabetical list of countries, it goes something like this: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Andorra, Angola, Antigua, Argentina, Armenia and then … Australia.

The earlier ones rejected them. When they arrived at the Australian embassy, they went through the process and the official there said no. They left dejected. But as they were walking out and through the car park, that same official came running out to tell them that he’d changed his mind. They would be accepted and could emigrate to Australia.

And that… that’s why I’m an Australian, and not Afghani, Albanian, Algerian, Angolan, Armenian or anything else. That one small twist – years before I was born – has defined my whole life.

Decades later, I almost didn’t go to the church service one Sunday, because I was sick and running a high temperature. But I felt I should go – that’s where I met my wife. She was visiting from interstate and that was the only morning I could have met her. It’s funny the twists and turns that life takes?

I know that if you think back, you’ll be able to see some amazing things that happened along your journey, that have completely changed how your life has turned out. Some people put it down to coincidence. Others to fate. Yet others to destiny. What do you put it down to?

Me, I believe … in fact, I know that I know, that it’s none of those because the God who created us – you, me – has a plan for our lives. He has a plan for your life. He has a plan for my life. And along the way, He hands us opportunities and He expects us to take them and do something with them. Don’t believe me? Have a listen to how Jesus put it:

As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. So he said, “A nobleman went to a distant country to get royal power for himself and then return. He summoned ten of his slaves, and gave them ten pounds, and said to them, ‘Do business with these until I come back. ’ But the citizens of his country hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to rule over us. ’ When he returned, having received royal power, he ordered these slaves, to whom he had given the money, to be summoned so that he might find out what they had gained by trading. The first came forward and said, ‘Lord, your pound has made ten more pounds. ’ He said to him, ‘Well done, good slave! Because you have been trustworthy in a very small thing, take charge of ten cities. ’ Then the second came, saying, ‘Lord, your pound has made five pounds. ’ He said to him, ‘And you, rule over five cities. ’ Then the other came, saying, ‘Lord, here is your pound. I wrapped it up in a piece of cloth, for I was afraid of you, because you are a harsh man; you take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow. ’ He said to him, ‘I will judge you by your own words, you wicked slave! You knew, did you, that I was a harsh man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? Why then did you not put my money into the bank? Then when I returned, I could have collected it with interest. ’ He said to the bystanders, ‘Take the pound from him and give it to the one who has ten pounds. ’ (And they said to him, ‘Lord, he has ten pounds! ’) ‘I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence. ’”

The easiest thing in the world for us to do is to read this like a fairy tale. Heard this one so many times some of us, that it’s like water off a duck’s back. But let’s just remember who He was speaking these words to – the everyday man and woman in the street. Jews. A proud nation, God’s nation, who were farmers and peasants. Nobodies, when compared to the Roman empire, the power of Caesar. An occupied nation, oppressed, with little or no future.

And so along comes the Son of God and tells them a powerful story about the fact that God is handing them something – in the parable, it’s the pounds, the money – and He expects them to do something with it. What this story is about, is God handing His people, even the peasants, even the farmers, even those who live in an oppressed land, a substantial opportunity with the expectation that they will grab hold of it and do something with it.

Now – let’s take a moment you and I to apply that parable, that powerful story to our lives, the way the men and women who were listening to Jesus tell it, applied it to their lives. God comes to you, He hands you an opportunity – with the strongest of expectations that you’ll do something with it. How do you handle that opportunity?

Are you too busy to notice? Are you too busy to take hold of it? Is it perhaps an inconvenient opportunity? Do your circumstances perhaps tell you that you couldn’t possibly make a difference in this world, a little like those who were listening to Jesus on that Day? Or … do you grab it with both hands and throw your whole life into doing something with that opportunity? All too often, God’s opportunities come disguised as calamities, impossibilities … and yes, even sometimes, seemingly insignificant decisions. But what we do with God–given opportunities is going to impact the rest of our lives.

Over the coming few weeks on the program, we’re going to be looking at the different ways that God presents opportunities to us. Because I believe that He has opportunities ready and waiting for you, just around the corner. And I know that there are so many of His people who are set to miss those opportunities for any number of reasons.

And that, in my book, would be a tragedy. So – where do we go in the Bible to talk about opportunities, to discover what God has to say to us about the specific opportunities that He has ready for us? I’ve thought and prayed about that, and we’re going to journey for a while with Joseph, of technicolour dream coat fame.

All God seemed to be handing the young lad was calamity after calamity. It was a terrible journey that Joseph had for much of his early life. But at each turn, he took the opportunities that presented himself. And as a result, he became a man of great power. But that’s not the main bit of his story. The other consequence was that he saved the fledgling nation of Israel (although it was just a family not a nation at that point). It’s through Joseph that many, many years later, God gave us … Jesus.

As one calamity after the other savaged his young life, Joseph couldn’t have known the ramifications of God’s mighty plan for his life, ramifications that wouldn’t become evident until many centuries later.

I know – God’s plan for your life isn’t the same as Joseph’s. But He has a plan and He’s passing you opportunities far more frequently than you might suspect. The trick is – make sure you don’t miss them.

Most of us dream big dreams when we’re young. But the older we get, the more the drudgery and burdens of life weigh us down, the less we dream. What dreams has God placed on your heart?

When we’re young, we have dreams for how we want our lives to turn out. Those dreams are all different in one sense, and all pretty much the same in another, in that they include some common elements. Most of us when we’re young, dream about being wealthy, famous, finding love. Some dream about having children. They’re what I call “happily ever after” dreams.

And in fact, we don’t just dream those dreams when we’re young. We continue with our daydreaming pretty much our whole lives. It’s when we stop dreaming big dreams, that we know that we’re plumbing the depths of human existence.

Whether we realise it or not, we’re all daydreamers. It’s part of what keeps hope going and hope, when the going’s not quite what we wish it was, hope is what keeps us going.

We’re chatting this week and over the coming few weeks about not missing out on God’s opportunities. Because He loves us, He has a plan for our lives. And time and again, He drops opportunities in along our path – opportunities that we can choose to pick up and run with, or ignore and bypass – something which many people do.

But often God places a dream in our hearts – a dream that He planted there when we were quite young. A dream that somehow He brings to fruition as we grow and mature.

When I was young, daydreaming wasn’t encouraged. “Daydreamer” was a detrimental label – that implied laziness. And yet I dreamed dreams. In my early teenage years, I had an encounter with God and I dreamed about becoming a minister. I dreamed about telling people about Jesus. But by the time I finished high school and went on to study at university, and set out to build a career and make lots of money (which I’d also dreamed about) the idea of me becoming a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ was long lost.

And yet it came back and came to fruition in my late thirties and early forties and here I am well into my fifties living out that dream. My point is that the dreams that God lays on our hearts are often a pointer to the opportunities that He is planning on laying before us further down the track.

And that’s exactly what happened with young Joseph, the son of Jacob way, way back in the old testament. Let’s have a listen:

Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan. This is the story of the family of Jacob.

Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.

Once Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, “Listen to this dream that I dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf.” His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.

He had another dream, and told it to his brothers, saying, “Look, I have had another dream: the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him, and said to him, “What kind of dream is this that you have had? Shall we indeed come, I and your mother and your brothers, and bow to the ground before you?” So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. (Genesis 27:1–11)

It seems like a pretty grandiose dream doesn’t it – a dream of greatness. And when we have those sorts of dreams – and tell others about them – the most common response is mocking and rebuking. Exactly what young Joseph ran into. It’s what I ran into when I share my dream as a teenager too.

When finally at age 39, 40 I found myself studying to become a minister of the Gospel of Christ, I had another dream. To share the love of Jesus with millions of people. Millions. Outrageous. I didn’t tell anyone about that dream. It was simply too ridiculous. And here I am with you, today, living out that dream.

Dreams don’t have to be big to seem ridiculous. Most people’s dreams aren’t huge actually. But if they were to verbalise those dreams, they’d no doubt draw the same response that Joseph’s dream drew.

I’m not saying that every dream we have in our hearts is from God. Sometimes we dream of fame or comfort and wealth. Sometimes we dream away the problems that we’re facing in the here and now – visualising what our lives would look like if only that problem would go away. No, not all dreams are from God. But some of them are.

They’re the ones that inexplicably warm our hearts and bring tears to our eyes – no matter how difficult or outrageous they seem. Joseph’s dream was outrageous wasn’t it? Being a ruler where his father, mother and brothers were bowing down to him. They all put it down to the fact that he was dad’s favourite – spoiled little brat, and his brothers hated him for it.

And yet, if you know Joseph’s story – something we’re going to explore over the coming weeks – that’s exactly what happened. The dreams that God puts in our hearts when we’re young and sometimes when we’re older too – the one’s He puts there as opposed to the selfish ones that we dream along the way – those dreams from God are an opportunity that many, many people miss. Because they write them off as just some crazy idea. What a tragedy it would be to miss out on the dreams that God’s put in your heart, eh?

One of the things that happens with those dreams, and one of the reasons that we often miss living them out, is that reality sets in. In Joseph’s case, the hatred of his brothers caused his life to take a terrible turn. We’ll check that out another time/after the break. Joseph was sold into slavery basically – that’ll teach the little brat, right?

In my case I went and joined the army and completely lost my faith in God – then I set out on a career to go and make a lot of money in the IT industry. I’d completely forgotten the dream that I had.

Whenever we have a dream, reality always tells us it can never come to fruition. Whenever we have some dream in our heart, dark days inevitably come. That’s why so many people let go of their dreams. The trick is to hang on to your dreams during the dark times. No … more than that. The trick is to nurture your dreams through the dark days, because those days will inevitably pass. No matter how dark the days become, hold on to that God–given dream. Nurture it. Feed it. Dream it.

Because one day, in God’s time, the time will come to live that dream. Joseph had many dark days, years and years of dark days actually, between that God given dream and when it finally came to pass. God’s timing is always perfect. The harvest always comes at the right time.

I know there are some people today, who have heard Joseph’s story and God has awakened a dream in you that He gave you long ago. Take it out, dust it off, start dreaming it again – because who knows when God will bring it to fruition. Don’t miss God’s opportunities. That dream He gave you all those years ago, will open your eyes to what He’s doing.

We all have dreams for our lives, and yet for every dream there’s a reality that tries to rob us of what God’s laid on our hearts. When reality sinks in, when adversity strikes, dreams seem to evaporate. What God–given dreams are still swilling around there inside your heart?

Yesterday on the program/before the break we were talking about the dreams that God places on our hearts – they often seem outrageous at the time, and yet those dreams are what open our eyes to the opportunities that God brings across our path from time to time.

Often, without that dream in our hearts, we’d miss the opportunities. The God–given dream gives us a new set of eyes, to see what God’s up to from His perspective. That’s what it’s there for. That, and to give us hope.

And we met young Joseph, the son of Jacob way, way back there in the Old Testament, the book of Genesis, a young man with a dream. A young man who dreamed that one day, He would be a great ruler. And, being the naïve young man that he was, he shared it with his brothers, not realising how offensive it would be to them.

Listen to this dream that I dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf.” His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.

I mean who wouldn’t be offended, right? People are often offended by the dreams God puts on our hearts. Often it’s motivated by jealousy. They make fun of us, they tells us that the dreams are impossible.

Of course, God’s dreams are impossible – if He gave us dreams that were possible, dreams that we could realise in our own strength, we wouldn’t need Him then would we. In fact, one of the ways that we can tell whether a dream comes from God, is that it is, almost always, impossible to achieve in our own strength. That tends to be a pretty solid marker that it’s from God – there are others too, that we’ll talk about another time.

So, young Joseph has this dream – hey, come on, it’s a great dream right? But then his life takes a terrible twist. A shocking twist. One that neither he, or his beloved father Jacob, could ever have predicted.

Now his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock near Shechem. And Israel [that’s Jacob His father, Israel is the name God gave to Jacob] Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” He answered, “Here I am.” So he said to him, “Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock; and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron.

He came to Shechem, and a man found him wandering in the fields; the man asked him, “What are you seeking?” “I am seeking my brothers,” he said; “tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.” The man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan. ’” So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan. They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.”

But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him”—that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore; and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it. (Genesis 27:12–24)

Can you begin – just begin to imagine – that something so terrible would happen to you? That your brothers, your own flesh and blood, would conspire to kill you? And then take the precious robe that your dad had given you and throw you into a pit? It’s totally beyond imagining isn’t it?

And yet this is a pattern that anyone who has ever dreamed a dream will recognise. You have a dream in your heart, a God–given dream that really, you don’t understand fully. You have no idea really whether it will ever come to pass, and if so, how God could possibly make it happen.

When my life and my hopes and my dreams lay shattered at my feet, I was ironing one Saturday afternoon – and God gave me a dream to tell millions of people about Him. Millions. His presence in that hour or so, as I sat on the top stair in the stairwell in my townhouse, was palpable. It was the craziest dream anyone could ever have. But I knew that it came from Him. How could that be. Everything around me was in such devastation. I was travelling through such pain at the time.

As I think of young Joseph lying there in that pit, his life in the balance, not knowing what was going to happen to him, I bet you, that he was thinking about that dream that he’d dreamt. His reality must have screamed at him that the dream was a fake. Have you ever had that happen to you? Reality decisively, emphatically tells you that that God–given dream was a lie. The evidence seems irrefutable. There you are in your pit, you look at the walls. You can’t get out. Dream over.

Well I’m here to tell you that if it’s from God, it’s never dream over. To the absolute contrary. Dreams and adversity seem to go hand in hand in God’s scheme of things. Let me say it again – maybe it didn’t sink in the first time: dreams and adversity seem to go hand in hand in God’s scheme of things. Why? Listen to what the Apostle Paul said thousands of years later, out of a not dissimilar situation:

Indeed we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.
(2 Cor 1:9)

My friend when you find yourself in that pit with your dreams shattered at your feet, the last thing, the very last thing that God wants you to be thinking is: dream over. Get it?

Here’s the thing about God. What He starts, He finishes. Listen again to the Apostle Paul, writing this time out of his Roman dungeon on death row:

I am confident of this: that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. (1 Phil 1:6)

Why are we talking about this stuff? Because God has a plan for your life. And along the way, He places opportunities before you – opportunities that you can accept or reject; opportunities that you can grab onto with both hands, or push away, walk around and leave behind.

If you let the God–given dream in your heart die, let me tell you, you’re going to miss those opportunities. Because the dream is what helps you identify a situation as an opportunity from God. The opportunity resonates with the dream and bingo, you know that this is one to grab onto.

When the opportunity came to take a half unit elective at Bible college in media studies, I just knew that I should take it – it spoke so clearly about the dreamt that God had laid on my heart. If I’d let go of my dream because of the adversity I’d faced, I wouldn’t have taken that media half unit, and I wouldn’t be sitting chatting with you today. It’s that simple.

Joseph had a lot more adversity left to face, let me tell you. We’re going to see some more of it in a little while. But here’s the thing – the dream, the dream never died. And just as well, because it is through Joseph, His brothers and their descendants, that God brought Jesus into this world.

Dreams and opportunities – are vital if we’re to live out the plan that God has for our lives.

Bad things happen to good people. Bad things happen to us, to you and me. We wish they didn’t, but they do. But right in the midst of those, there are invariably God–given opportunities aplenty, for us to make a difference in this world. Problem is, we’re so busy reacting to those bad things – badly – that we’re prone to miss them.

Last week on the program we spent a bit of time travelling along the road with young Joseph, son of Jacob (or Israel as God called Him) way back in the book of Genesis in the Old Testament. And it’s been an exciting journey of a young man who had big dreams for his life. Huge dreams – not born of himself, but given to Him, apparently by God.

Have another listen, as he tells his father and brothers about the amazing dream God’s given him:

Once Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, “Listen to this dream that I dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf.” His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.

He had another dream, and told it to his brothers, saying, “Look, I have had another dream: the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him, and said to him, “What kind of dream is this that you have had? Shall we indeed come, I and your mother and your brothers, and bow to the ground before you?” So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. (Genesis 27:1–11)

When we give our lives to Jesus – and even sometimes before we do that – God puts dreams in our hearts, dreams that almost always seem to be crazy and impossible – that’s the point, right? If they were sane and possible, we wouldn’t need God to make them happen.

But whenever we have a powerful dream like that, something that some people refer to as their calling in life, adversity is always going to plunder that dream. It happened to Joseph that way, it’s happened to me that way and no doubt, it’s happened to you that way too. And when that dream is plundered by adversity, a bunch of people pull over by the side of the road and give up. A whole bunch of people who are passionate about Jesus, who love Him with all their heart even, have given up on their dreams, their calling, because the reality of adversity has screamed in their face, “Ya see, you were crazy! What were you thinking? Who do you think you are?” Am I right?

Well, we’ve seen so far in Joseph’s story, if you’ve been able to join me, that his brothers hated him so much, they conspired to kill him. They beat him up and threw him in a pit – that’s where young Joseph was when we left him last time. So let’s pick up on that story, because things go from bad to worse for this young dreamer.

So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore; and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.

Then they sat down to eat; and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers agreed. When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.

When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes. He returned to his brothers, and said, “The boy is gone; and I, where can I turn?” Then they took Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat, and dipped the robe in the blood. They had the long robe with sleeves taken to their father, and they said, “This we have found; see now whether it is your son’s robe or not.” He recognized it, and said, “It is my son’s robe! A wild animal has devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces.” Then Jacob tore his garments, and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and all his daughters sought to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and said, “No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” Thus his father bewailed him. Meanwhile the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard. (Genesis 27:23–36)

I want you for a moment to put yourself in Joseph’s shoes. The story here is told much more from the perspective of his brothers and his father, but get into Joseph’s sandals for a minute and ask yourself, how does he feel in the pit? How does he feel when he’s hauled out, probably with his hands tied and sold BY HIS BROTHERS, by his own flesh and blood to a slave trader? How does he feel on the journey down to Egypt, walking chained to other slaves? How does he feel when he’s stood up in the marketplace, sold to an Egyptian official, this young Israelite, this young man who was his father’s favourite, this young man who’d lived in freedom and had had those dreams of greatness?

It’s difficult to imagine, isn’t it, that things could get any lower for young Joseph. Robbed of his freedom; robbed of his life; robbed of his future; robbed of his dreams. Have you ever been there? I have, and it’s a place I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. We’re not told what was going through his mind, but we can certainly imagine.

My point in sharing this story with you is this: none of what we’ve read about the devastating events in Joseph’s life, took God’s eyes off His goal; none of what’s happened to this point – terrible as it will have seemed to Joseph – has robbed him of his God–given dream. To the contrary, all these things – as we’re going to see soon – were necessary to make the dream happen. For without them, Joseph wouldn’t have ended up in Egypt, which is where all that had been in Joseph’s dreams would come to pass.

The opportunities that God hands us to live out the dreams that He places on our hearts, so often come disguised as adversity and tragedy. That’s what this story is telling me – this story not just about Joseph, but about how God brings His plans and purposes for Joseph’s life to come to pass.

Now it’s easy for you and me to sit here and say, “sure, that’s fine for Joseph. But that’s not how it’s going to happen in my life, because me, I’ve got a plan for my life and guess what? I’m going to make it happen differently. I’m not going to travel through that sort of devastation. I’m going to go from dream to fulfilment in a few weeks, on easy street without any pain or diversions. I’m going to….”

Oh, really. Let me say it again. It’s as true for you and me as it was for Joseph. The opportunities that God hands us to live out the dreams that He places on our hearts, so often come disguised as adversity and tragedy. Do you get it? Are you listening to God’s Word for you today? Are you letting it sink into your heart? Hmm?

I know that this is a bitter pill to swallow but just think about the powerful encouragement in this truth. Of the millions of people listening to this program around the world today, a bundle of you are travelling through adversity right now. Perhaps you’re travelling through adversity right now, and the dreams that you had in your heart, the things that you thought God was calling you to – seem over, dead and buried.

But I have good news for you today. God hasn’t given up on you. His dreams for you are alive and well. He’s taking you on a journey you may not have chosen for yourself, but his plans for your life will not  – WILL NOT – be defeated. Your King reigns and nothing in this universe will stop Him from finishing what He started. Nothing! That’s good news, don’t you think?!

Okay, you’re out there doing the right thing. You’re honouring God when no one else around you seems to be honouring Him. And then all of a sudden, someone finds a reason to punish you for doing the right thing. The injustice of it all is … overwhelming. How do you react when that happens?

Well yesterday on the program we saw that young Joseph, son of Jacob back in the book of Genesis way back there in the Old Testament, this young man with great dreams had been sold into slavery.

Dreams shattered, freedom gone, family done, in a foreign land, gone from being his father’s favourite to a common slave, owned by another man, that’s where Joseph was.

Now for most of us that would be enough to makes us give up. But Joseph … Joseph knew something intuitively, something that had, I don’t know, been put inside him by God – something that kept him going. And it’s that something, that you and I are going to discover for ourselves from God’s Word today.

Because we all have dreams that are shattered; we all have times in our lives when we need that special something from God, to keep us going; to help us nurture our dreams through the dark days. So are you ready to discover that special something? Let’s dive into God’s Word – it comes to us in two parts today. First part:

Now Joseph was taken down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man; he was in the house of his Egyptian master. His master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord caused all that he did to prosper in his hands. So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him; he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had, in house and field. So he left all that he had in Joseph’s charge; and, with him there, he had no concern for anything but the food that he ate. (Genesis 39:1–6)

So what do you get out of that? Here’s what I learn. Joseph continue to honour God, Joseph continues to do what’s right, Joseph continues to use his natural giftings to the full, even though his circumstances have taken a terrible turn for the worse; even though he’d much rather be at home with his father and mother.

And as a result – God was with Him, even this heathen Egyptian Potiphar could see that. Turns out the young Joseph was a pretty capable administrator – so, what happened as a result of Joseph doing what’s right, and using his gifts, despite what was happening to him? Joseph found favour in Potiphar’s site and Potiphar put him in charge of all that he had. He became the overseer of Potiphar’s house. That’s not bad. That’s pretty good. But just as he was getting to the top of the roller coaster ride, you guessed it, there was a rapid downhill run? Let’s listen to the second part of what happened to Joseph here in Potiphar’s house:

Now Joseph was handsome and good- looking. And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Look, with me here, my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my hand. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” And although she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not consent to lie beside her or to be with her. One day, however, when he went into the house to do his work, and while no one else was in the house, she caught hold of his garment, saying, “Lie with me!” But he left his garment in her hand, and fled and ran outside. When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside, she called out to the members of her household and said to them, “See, my husband has brought among us a Hebrew to insult us! He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice; and when he heard me raise my voice and cry out, he left his garment beside me, and fled outside.” Then she kept his garment by her until his master came home, and she told him the same story, saying, “The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought among us, came in to me to insult me; but as soon as I raised my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me, and fled outside.”

When his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, saying, “This is the way your servant treated me,” he became enraged. And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined; he remained there in prison. But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love; he gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer. The chief jailer committed to Joseph’s care all the prisoners who were in the prison, and whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. The chief jailer paid no heed to anything that was in Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with him; and whatever he did, the Lord made it prosper.

When Potiphar’s wife accused Joseph of doing the wrong thing, when all along, all he’d done was the right thing, man I have to tell you, that would be enough to have just about any of us throwing up our hands, lokking God in the eye and saying to Him, “You have to be kidding right God? Are you just out to get me here? Do you really love me? What the blazes are you doing?

And yet again, a second time – just in case you or I missed it, just in case you or I think, Great for you Joseph, but when bad things happen to me, I’m just going to react badly, just in case we’re thinking this message isn’t for us, Joseph does it again.

Things go from bad to worse, what happens to him simply isn’t fair – and even though this trip to prison was absolutely a necessary step to his dream being fulfilled, he had no way of knowing that, did he? All he saw was the injustice and the pain, thrown into prison. But young Joseph does the same thing again. He honours God. He gets on and makes the best of his terrible lot and so the Lord honours that, the Lord is with Joseph. The jailer puts him in charge and even here in this prison, where he could have been rotting in self pity where told: because the Lord was with him, in whatever he did, the Lord made it prosper. Are you getting this?

We can be pretty dense about this you and I. Bad things happen to us. Unfair things happen to us. And our natural reaction is either to come out punching and destroy the people who did this to us, or to withdraw into our shell, and become all bitter and twisted about what’s going on. Am I right? Oh and just to put the icing on the cake, we blame God, and we conveniently choose to forget that He loves us so much that He sent His one and only Son to die for us so that we could be forgiven and have eternal life.

When bad things happen to us, we want to respond by doing bad things. But look at what happened to Joseph – twice in one Chapter God puts it there, first in Potiphar’s house, second in the Kings prison – just because God knows how hard it is to get through to us on this.

Joseph honours God, he behaves well, and instead of using adversity as an excuse – wait for this, because this is the crux, this is the punch line, this is the bit that God really wants us to get today – Joseph uses his natural gifts and in doing so discovers God–prepared, God–given opportunities right there in the adversity.

That’s the power of what God’s saying to you and me today through his Word. God’s opportunities abound just as much in adversity as they do in the good times. Even if the whole world seems to be against us God is for us. That’s why the Apostle Paul a few thousand years later, wrote if God is for us, who can be against us?

My friend, if you have a God–given dream in your life, you can be certain that adversity will come against you. Absolutely certain. That place of adversity is your opportunity to honour God. In fact the very best time to honour God, is when no one else is. That’s what Jesus did. That’s what got Him crucified. Opportunities abound, no matter how dark the day may seem.