Bill Johnson - My Favor, Your Blessing (God Is Upgrading Your Dreams)
The dreams went from being all about him to being about the people of God; it cannot be just focused on what I get and my own promotion. I will lay my own life down for the benefit and well-being of those around me until the time His word comes to pass. The word of the Lord tested him until the very end of his life. His final words were, «I want my bones to be the seed of what God’s going to raise up in that country.» Thank you. Good morning; nice to see you. Two women were on a bus fighting bitterly over the last available seat. The conductor had already tried unsuccessfully to intervene when the bus driver yelled out, «Let the ugly one take the seat.» Both women stood for the rest of the journey. Yesterday, I bought a world map and gave my wife a dart. I said, «Throw this, and wherever it lands, I’ll take you there.» We are now spending the next three weeks behind the couch. I just got 30 minutes of cardio trying to pick up an ice cube from the kitchen floor. Cupcakes are muffins that believed in miracles. There’s no reason to tailgate me when I’m doing 50 in a 35, and those flashing lights on top of your car just look ridiculous. One more: I am so out of shape that if someone yells, «Run for your life,» I’ll be like, «You guys go ahead; I’m going to meet Jesus.»
Take your Bibles and open to Genesis chapter 39, as that’s where we’ll start. I just need to set the stage here for our talk today. A few weeks ago — maybe four weeks ago now — I talked about forgiveness, which is probably a subject that should be repeated or reviewed every few months; it’s so critical. Here’s a portion of scripture in Mark 11 that says, «Whatever you say to this mountain, be uprooted and cast into the sea; it has moved.» Earth-shaking answers to prayer are followed by this verse: «When you stand to pray, remember—earth-shaking answers to prayer.» When you stand to pray, forgive. The spear point of effective prayer is forgiveness. It actually pierces the way into a lifestyle of ongoing effective prayer that literally affects the course of history. I watch so many people tell me they have forgiven, but there’s no evidence of fruit; their thought life isn’t any different, their words aren’t any different, their behavior around the person isn’t any different. There has to be transformational change in a person who walks in forgiveness. Today it’s not entirely about forgiveness, although I’m going to touch on it; I want to talk to you about goodness.
This guy named Joseph and his story—I love Bible stories because they help to clarify; well, like David and Goliath, it’s pretty easy to figure that one out. It encourages me with great courage and hope for great victories. I love these Bible stories, and this one is really an extraordinary story of a young man who had dreams—dreams that God gave him about his own personal significance. By the way, I love standing so high above all of you, because you need massages in your shoulders by the time we’re through with this. Perhaps we should offer that too out there. I don’t know, maybe the ministry team could operate in massage therapy at the end of these all. Maybe I should stand back here a little ways.
So, Joseph has this dream that the Lord gives him about his significance and his future. I think some of Joseph’s opinions got into the dream. I can’t prove it, but there’s a verse in Psalms 105 that says, «Until the time Joseph’s word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him.» So it seems to imply that there was some flavor—not in violation of God’s will, but he somehow had influence on it, and God worked on him to make him into the person that would become what he dreamed about. If that makes sense, it makes perfect sense to me. Amen, Bill.
Alright, so here’s Joseph: he’s got these dreams, and he makes the mistake of telling his brothers. Joseph was already the favorite kid; his dad Jacob bought him a multicolored coat, and he just stood out. The brothers all hated Joseph—hated him. They wanted to murder him. In fact, the only reason they didn’t kill him is that Reuben, the oldest brother, said, «No way; we can’t do that.» So they spared his life, but they hated him with a passion. They put him in a pit trying to figure out what to do, and when Reuben was on a walk, they sold him into slavery to some traders that walked by.
So, here’s Joseph: he’s got this dream of personal significance. He has this dream where his brothers, his mom, dad, everyone’s going to bow to him, which is an awkward dream, but he told everyone—probably not a good idea. When it says, «Don’t throw your pearls before swine,» it’s not calling people pigs; it’s just saying, «Don’t take what’s valuable and put it in front of somebody who’s not going to value it.» That’s what he made the mistake of doing.
Anyway, he’s in slavery, and he gets traded or sold to an Egyptian leader, a wealthy, wealthy leader named Potiphar. He was sold as a slave, and he prospered so much in Potiphar’s house that everything he touched made Potiphar prosper. Everything Joseph touched was blessed of the Lord, and it so captured Potiphar’s attention that he made Joseph—remember, this slave that he bought—head over everything—his entire empire, whatever that looked like. So, Joseph is now in charge of everything, and Potiphar is able to watch everything that Joseph does. Everything he touches turns to gold; he’s got that Midas touch. Potiphar just trusts him with everything.
Well, Potiphar’s wife also really liked Joseph; he had a lot of favor with her too, and she wanted to sleep with him. He wouldn’t do it. His reasoning was interesting; it wasn’t just a moral decision that adultery is wrong—obviously, that’s a no-brainer—but he added a piece that really speaks to me. He said, «My master trusts me with everything; why would I dishonor his trust by violating his marriage?» It’s incredible.
So here he is—he’s learning in his imprisonment, his slavery; he’s learning some of the characteristics of the Lord as the Lord is working in him. Remember: until the time his word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him and worked character into his life so that he could become the one who would actually save a couple nations.
We go on in the story: he’s put into prison, and I love how the scripture talks about how he is favored of the Lord while in prison. Sometimes we think favor means a big house, a nice car, a big title—not for him; it meant in jail. The other prisoners liked Joseph so much that the head jailer put him in charge of the whole jail. It says he entrusted him with everything; he didn’t even follow up to check to see that Joseph had done a good job because he so trusted Joseph with responsibility that Joseph was able to run the jail well.
Joseph was a dreamer; we know that. But he also had this ability—maybe because of his capacity to dream—to interpret dreams. Not just an ability; he, in fact, states it; he says, «God alone has the answers of interpretation for what dreams mean.» He’s got a couple prisoners; they both have dreams, he interprets them—one dies, the other one lives—but he forgets to tell Pharaoh, and he’s stuck in prison for a long time.
So from the time he was put into a pit to the time he becomes Pharaoh’s right-hand man—which we’ll get to in a moment—it was something like 13, 14 years. It may have been, Chris is just telling me, that it was from the time he first had the dream in his childhood until he was with Potiphar—like 22 years. So we’re talking years.
How many of you know when somebody has wronged you, if a lot of time passes, it doesn’t mean the problem gets better? You ever see anyone who has thought about how they were wronged for years? Yeah, it doesn’t make them a nicer person.
So Joseph is in this place where he’s in jail, and Pharaoh has a dream. Pharaoh has a dream and needs someone to interpret it. The guy remembers, «Oh yeah, there’s this guy in prison that interprets dreams.» So Pharaoh brings him in. Imagine this: you’re the head guy of the wealthiest, most sophisticated nation on the planet, and you get a prisoner to come see you because you’re going to consult with him? That by itself—you have to have a lot of favor on a prisoner to get into Pharaoh’s court.
So he brings him in, and Joseph interprets the dreams—excuse me—and it says in the scripture that Pharaoh had the dream twice because God was revealing to him, «This is urgent; I’m going to take care of it.» Now, this is interesting. If you study where the Lord repeats words in scripture, sometimes he repeats a word because of urgency and His right now desire to fulfill it. Other times, he repeats the matter multiple times because you’re going to need the courage of many meals, not just one, from the time the word was given till the time it’s fulfilled.
So when the Lord repeats a matter several times, it’s for a reason. Don’t despise prophetic utterances—sometimes you can be in a prophetic culture where there are so many prophetic words that you actually become nonchalant and do not regard the fact that the Lord has just spoken to your life.
Alright, back to the subject. He brings Joseph into his courts, tells him the dreams; Joseph interprets them, and basically it’s seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. So he asks Joseph, «What do we do?» He suggests that we build storehouses and put food aside over the next seven years of plenty so we have food to help the nation survive during the time of famine—great, great wisdom, great strategy.
Well, Jacob, meanwhile—Joseph’s dad—with his other eleven brothers are in Canaan land. Israel does not yet have its own land, its own nation—it’s just Jacob and his twelve sons; Joseph is one of them. They’re up there starving, and there’s a rumor that there’s food in Egypt. So he takes his sons and says, «Go down to Egypt and get some food; trade, buy—do whatever you need to do—but we’re going to die if we don’t get food.» So they send the brothers down there.
Joseph kind of messes with their heads a little bit; he doesn’t tell them who he is, gives them food, then tricks them. It’s just brotherly love, you know—brotherly love. They go back; anyway, long story short, they come back to get more food because, you know, it’s years of famine, and they come before Joseph. Now, imagine; the last time you saw Joseph, he was thrown in the bottom of a pit, and you sold him into slavery, and now you have this austere governmental leader over the wealthiest nation in the world. He stands there with his dignity, with everything that’s working for him as a world leader, and he stands before his brothers and says, «Come here!» They don’t know if he’s going to take their heads off or what’s going to happen. They’re already living with a sense of guilt because of what they did to their own brother. They lied to their dad, saying he was killed.
So Joseph looks at them, says, «Come here!» and they come in close. He says, «I’m your brother, I’m Joseph whom you sold into slavery. But don’t be angry with yourselves; God put me here.» There’s something about forgiveness that works best when we see the sovereignty of God—that God is actually able to take all the elements of our life, the good, the bad, the ugly, and work them into a God story, work them into a glory story. The hardest time to do that is when you’re in the middle of it and you don’t see redemption yet. You don’t see reconciliation yet. You’re right in the middle of being falsely accused, you’re right in the middle of all these things that didn’t work out as they were supposed to, and Joseph is in this moment. He calls his brothers close; he says, «I’m Joseph whom you sold into slavery.»
Number one: forgiveness does not forget. Yes, this notion that you have to forget what was done to you that was wrong is wrong. Only God can choose to forget; you and I have to redemptively remember. Forgiveness means I’m going to steward my memories correctly. That’s profound. I’m going to steward the memory of that correctly; perhaps it was a horrible abuse situation, and yet you lived—you’ve got to see that memory with Jesus in the picture, who spared your life. Somehow, you’ve got to steward the memories, realizing that there isn’t a possibility of me being dealt a hand that God can’t win with; that He can’t turn that situation around for my strength and for His glory.
It really comes down to trust; it comes down to who do I trust. I had a conversation with somebody recently who said, «Man, trusting God in this situation is really hard.» I said, «Yeah, but like what are the options? I can trust either the one who’s never lied and never failed, or I could trust me.» Now, this has never worked out well; this has never, never turned out right. Whenever I have decided I am the source of all wisdom and knowledge for this decision, there’s something about abandoning ourselves. I mean, it’s laughable when we talk about it, but when you think about it: He’s perfectly faithful; He’s the absolute perfect Father. He loves me unconditionally; He never lies, and He purposes to work on my behalf. Why would I trust my opinion? Why would I trust yours? No offense.
So here’s this story. I’d like for you to look with me at chapter 39. We’re going to read just a few verses. I want you to get the flavor of God’s statement over Joseph. Chapter 39:2 says, «The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man. He was in the house of his master, the Egyptian. His master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord made all he did to prosper in his hand.» In verse 5: «From the time he made him overseer over his house and all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake. The blessing of the Lord was on all he had, in the house and in the field.»
Okay, stop there for a moment. When the favor of the Lord—catch this, please—when the favor of the Lord is on your life, sometimes the blessing of the Lord is felt by others and not by you. Joseph is still a slave, but his master is prospering under his favor. What is God doing? God is taking a guy who’s got a dream. It’s a God-dream, but Joseph’s idea of the God-dream is him being at the top of the stack and everybody honoring him—in other words, a very self-centered dream that he has. That’s his perception of what God spoke to him, and God is weaning him from that kind of a dream that makes him think it’s all about me.
I hear people’s dreams, and I love to celebrate all the dreams that people have. I get it, but every two-year-old thinks the world rotates around them, and sometimes our dreams are two-year-old dreams because we’re not yet engaged with the purpose of the dream.
What was the initial purpose of Joseph’s dream? His place of favor. He didn’t prosper; Potiphar did. It wasn’t his palace; it wasn’t his income; it wasn’t his job; it wasn’t his freedom; it wasn’t his family; it wasn’t any of that stuff. It was Potiphar who was blessed. Why? Because favor was on Joseph.
Sometimes the favor of God on our lives is not best measured by what we’ve accumulated or accomplished, but by the ripple effect of our yes to God on the people around us that are under our influence. There are some people—there are some people—I remember years ago, I never share this one, but I remember years ago a businessman that I would have lunch with, and he told me later, «Every time we have lunch, when I go back to work, I get an increase in income.» I didn’t get the increase in income; I went back with the same income I had. But honestly, he would go back; his boss would meet him at the door; he was a business working in a shop—he’d come back, and he would get a raise; he’d get an increase; he’d get a blessing.
I don’t want to, you know—you get the picture. I’m not saying I caused it, but the Lord will actually put favor on your life that will cause other people to be blessed. It doesn’t just have to be okay; it has to be something you celebrate. Yes, it has to be something you celebrate, that you recognize. I don’t know what it is because I know I didn’t earn it. I know I didn’t deserve it; I certainly didn’t cause it. I didn’t say, as we prayed for the meal, «Oh Jesus, give him a raise.» None of that stuff happened. There was no faith involved; there was nothing—there was just somehow the effect of a personal yes touching his life where, when he got back into where he was working, his boss saw him differently.
Wow.
In verse 21 of 39 it says, «The Lord was with Joseph; showed him mercy, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.» In verse 23, «The keeper of the prison didn’t look into anything that was under Joseph’s authority because the Lord was with him. Whatever he did, the Lord made to prosper.»
I want you to come over now to chapter 45. Chapter 45 is where we have this interesting dialogue that I’ve already referred to where Joseph tells his brothers to come near. It says in verse 4, «Joseph said to his brothers, 'Come near to me.' So they came near, and he said, 'I am Joseph your brother whom you sold into Egypt. But now do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.'»
So now it was not you who sent me here, but God. That’s extraordinary because we don’t think in terms that God causes evil. He didn’t cause, you know, he didn’t cause the evil of a brother that hated Joseph and sold him into slavery. He didn’t cause that, but He’s positioned to use the foolish decisions of free-willed men to use them for His glory. God is perfectly committed to make decisions over and above my foolish decisions.
Charles Stock told us years ago that God took all of our stupidity into consideration when He planned our lives out.
So here we have this interesting storyline where Joseph acknowledges, number one, I remember what you did. Number two, I know you did it for evil. Number three, God is in charge, and He actually used your decision that you meant for evil; He used it for good. He actually sent me here, and here’s the rub: now Joseph is there to save the very ones that don’t deserve it.
And here’s the craziest part: when Pharaoh meets Jacob, he’s so enamored with him, so in awe of him, because of his love for Joseph who saved their country, that he tells Jacob and his sons, «I’m going to give you the best of the land of Egypt.»
So now here’s ten of the eleven brothers—these are the guys that wanted to kill Joseph—and God is now releasing a rich, prosperous inheritance to ten very undeserving guys because of the favor on one yielded Joseph. And that’s got to be okay because that’s the point; you know you’re forgiven when you actually celebrate the blessing and the prosperity of those who hurt you. Wow; it’s a good point.
So here’s kind of an interesting piece: if you’re the Lord—and you’re not, and I’m glad you’re not and I’m glad I’m not—but pretend for a moment you’re writing this chapter. It’s called the Hall of Faith—the Hall of Fame for the people of great faith in the Bible. It’s Hebrews 11. He’s writing there about Abraham; He’s writing about Sarah, Isaac. He’s got all these stories. He puts in there because He’s honoring these champions of great faith, and then he comes to Joseph and tells us something about Joseph that really stood out to him.
Now, if I’m writing, I’m thinking, «Joseph was a forgiver; he was a dreamer; he prophetically heard from God; he interpreted dreams; he saved the destiny of two entire nations.» That’s what I’m thinking, but when God spoke of him, He said, «By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel and gave instruction concerning his bones.»
Not quite what I would have written down as the mark of great faith, but let’s walk through this for a moment. Joseph was the dreamer where everything was about him—everything was about his own personal fulfillment, his own personal destiny, his own personal dreams. By the time we get to the end of his life, these are the bookends of Joseph’s life: we’ve got this dreamer, but it’s all about him. By the time we get to the end—let me put that Hebrews passage in my own language—Joseph is standing at the end of his life, announcing, «God is still going to give Israel a promised land, and don’t bury me here in Egypt. I want my bones to be the seed of a new nation that God is raising up.»
The dreams went from all about him to it’s got to be about the people of God; it’s got to be about the blessing of the Lord on the people of God. It cannot be just focused on what I get and my own promotion. I will lay my own life down for the benefit and well-being of those around me. That’s Kingdom; that was the journey he went on.
It says, «Until the time his word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him.» Until the very end of his life, his final words are, «There’s a Promised Land; I want my bones to be the seed of what God’s going to raise up in that country, in that land, in that place.» And that’s what God took note of and said, «That was faith; that was faith.»
It was faith to look into the unknown, into the unseen with a sense of conviction and a sense of purpose that God has actually set aside a land for the people of God. In between these bookends of personal dreams to the corporate dream was a significant test, and it wasn’t just forgiveness. Forgiveness is huge; it was how deep the forgiveness went in Joseph’s life that it had such a profound effect on his thinking, on his values, on how he thought of people. Everything was shifted to where he could see his own brothers that deserved punishment come into an undeserved blessing.
Can I say this? His family came into a place of being honored and prosperous—higher than just about, if not anyone in the country, except for Pharaoh himself—and these were the guys that tried to kill Joseph. If I can’t celebrate the blessing of the Lord upon a sinner, then I’m not qualified myself, because that’s me—one who sinned that God forgave. And I don’t deserve that forgiveness any more than the person who has hurt me the worst.
The cutting edge—the spear point, if you will—of transformational prayer is that aggressive posture to forgive and to continuously forgive. I don’t think that is something that’s to be reserved for crisis—when somebody betrayed you, or something horrible happened, somebody stole from you, or abused you—or something. There are so many stories in this room; I get it. I don’t want to in any way shame anyone—I’m just saying I don’t think forgiveness is supposed to be reserved for crisis moments; I think it’s an ongoing daily expression of our life.
Here’s this earth-shaking prayer of moving mountains, and the very next phrase is: «When you stand to pray, forgive.»
Let the cutting edge of your world-shaping prayer life let it be the fact that you are aggressively showing the privilege of forgiving everyone who needs forgiveness, and that that is what changes.
So we’ve got Joseph, the dreamer—the dreamer who had the word of the Lord tested him—had to know how to live in forgiveness and not just forgive in a sense of releasing them from his judgment, but forgive to the point where they receive blessing and increase and favor that they didn’t earn—and it’s got to be okay.
One of those frightening statements that Jesus made—and he made quite a few—was when he said, «Whoever you forgive, I forgive.» And when I read those kinds of verses, they make me nervous, but I don’t avoid being nervous with Him; I just know if I’m nervous, I’m the one that has to change. So I like reading those and then just stopping and thinking for a moment that there’s something about my capacity, my commitment to be a forgiver that actually accelerates the revival, the move of God in the earth. I don’t understand how it works; all I know is He said, «If you forgive, I forgive.» In other words, «Son, if you’ll show favor to this person, I will back your favor with My favor. If you show mercy, I will extend My mercy. If you show grace, I will extend My grace.»
So good. He can do all of it without us and do it better without us, but He’s chosen us as co-laborers to lead the charge in what it looks like to be an undeserved people that stand in forgiveness.
I personally think that’s why it’s the Lamb of God that’s on the throne for eternity and not just the lion. The lamb is there not to remind us of sin but to remind us of grace—the ongoing, daily, continuous need of the grace of God in our life. That’s probably enough.
Let’s, uh, you know, I want everyone in this room to know what forgiveness is. I want you to know what it is from God. If there’s someone here that doesn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus, I want you to know what that’s like. I want you to know what it’s like to be transformed. The Bible calls it born again, but it’s where you’re changed from the inside out. It’s not external rules that change you; it’s the internal life of God and the condition of forgiveness that actually makes things possible that were never possible before.
I was told this morning at the back doors; I was greeting people as they were leaving, and a girl walked by. She said, «My addiction was broken off in this house nine years ago.» Wow! Free—an addict that is free nine years ago; free! That’s what He does. It wasn’t the rules that changed; it was a person; it was a person.
And the possibility of everybody in this room knowing the reality of the love of God, the reality of personal forgiveness, the reality of a relationship—an actual relationship with God where you talk to Him; He talks to you—a father—it’s available to everyone here.
If there’s anyone in this room who would say, «Bill, that’s me and I don’t want to leave the building until I know what it is to be a child of God; I know what it is to be forgiven; I want to know what it is to be born again,» if there’s anyone in that condition, I want you to put a hand up because we’re going to celebrate you and just pray for God to do a great work. Right back over here is one—right here. Bless you. Anyone else? Put your hand up. Anyone else? Wait just a moment; I want to make sure that we get everybody. Right over here’s another one. Wonderful; beautiful.
Yeah, thank you, Lord! I know I forgot to greet our online family; we’re so thankful that you guys are with us. I get to see many of you just around the world as we travel. I just want to honor you and bless you, and if there’s anyone in the online family, online audience that you don’t know Jesus, but you want to commit your life to Christ, I want you just to put it in the chatroom; just say, «I want to know Jesus,» and one of our pastors will be right there to help you and pray with you.
Oh my, this is just wonderful; it’s a wonderful, wonderful day to come alive and be alive, and it’s a wonderful day to be inside an air-conditioned building. I was at Twin View a little while ago, at our other campus, and somebody mentioned the man’s name who invented air conditioning. We all gave thanks to the Lord for him, so it was out of deep sincerity as well too.
I want to ask you to stand if you would. Hold your place. The two that I saw—there may be more that made a commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to ask you to do this—ministry team, I’m going to ask you to come to the front. If everyone could hold your place for a moment—that’ll really help us. Ministry team, if you would come quickly, and I’d like these two gentlemen that raised their hands to know Jesus, I want you to come right down here to this banner right here. We’ve got friends that we know and trust that would like to talk with you and pray with you, so just come quickly down here. They’re going to talk with you and pray. If you have a friend that raised their hand, walk with them down here; just be committed to stay with them and go through this great, great privilege.