What do you do when life gets confusing and hard? Or when things don’t seem to fit into a bigger, better plan? Joseph, the father of Jesus, wrestled with those same questions over 2000 years ago—and his response can inspire our own. Join us this weekend as Jeff takes a fresh look at the faithfulness of Joseph.
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The Cast of Christmas Week 1
“The Faithfulness of Joseph”
December 10/12, 2021
Jeff Jones
Merry Christmas everybody! Today begins the Christmas season here at Chase
Oaks as we start a new series called The Cast of Christmas, about the main
characters at the manger scene. Even just seeing this manger scene for me brings
with it warm and fuzzy feelings, because Christmas is the best time of the year, and
it retells such a wonderful and true story. It makes me want to drink hot chocolate,
wear a Christmas sweater, and relish in the meaning of the season. 2000 years after
the event, it all makes so much sense and demonstrates the love and beauty of God
in a powerful way.
But 2000 years ago, at least for the couple in the manger scene, things were not
always so warm and fuzzy and were not so clear. They were amazing and awe-
inspiring, but also scary, uncertain, confusing, and at times demoralizing. We
know the big picture, but at the time they did not, which will bring us to the cast
member for today—Joseph.
For Joseph, as we will see, there was so much he did not know. But he went with
what he did know, obeyed God with the light he had been given, and just kept
trusting and doing the next right thing even when being in the middle of the story
made no sense at all. We will see that, and here is our big idea today:
SLIDE__________________)
When you don’t know what you don’t know, go with what you do know.
Some of you are in circumstances right now or are still trying to figure out life
events in your past that make little sense if God as the author of your story is
writing one with a good ending. Often, in the middle of our story, life events
happen that are confusing and demoralizing. Maybe it is something with your
family life, your professional life, your own emotional or physical health, or that of
someone you love. Maybe you have experienced deep loss, and it was not the way
life was supposed to play out. What do you do when the journey gets confusing,
uncertain, and difficult—when you can’t make sense of how things might fit into a
big picture that is good? Joseph is going to teach us by example:
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SLIDE______________________)
When you don’t know what you don’t know, go with what you do know.
Let’s go the Christmas story:
SLIDE___________________) Matthew 1:18
“This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was
pledged to be married to Joseph…”
So far, so good. Engagements are always a happy thing. Joseph and Mary would
have been very young. Girls were married about twelve or thirteen, and guys a few
years after that, so Joseph was probably fifteen or sixteen. We also know that this
teenager was a construction worker, relatively poor. And we know as we will see
in the next verse that he was a godly person. He intentionally sought to obey the
instructions God gave in the Old Testament law.
Marriages were arranged by parents back then and happened in two stages, the
betrothal period and then the wedding ceremony that initiated full marriage. Joseph
and Mary were betrothed, which usually lasted about a year. During that time the
couple would usually see each other very little, but they would have been looking
forward to the big wedding party and marriage after that. However, a big wrinkle
appeared in the story:
Not the only time that surprise has ever happened, but this one was different.
Joseph and Mary had not been together sexually, so for Joseph all he can possibly
think at the time is that she must have had sex with someone else. Matthew lets us
know in hindsight she was pregnant “through the Holy Spirit,” but Joseph didn’t
know that right away. He just finds out she is pregnant, and he knows that the baby
is not his. As a godly guy who lived his life according to the Old Testament
teachings, this presented a big dilemma. On the one hand, as a righteous guy in the
OT way, he knew that he should not go forward with the wedding. On the other
hand, he also did not want to shame Mary publicly. That’s what we read in verse
19:
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SLIDE____________________) Matthew 1:19
“Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to
expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.”
What most guys would have done is to disgrace her publicly, and in the OT law,
she could be stoned to death. He didn’t want her to experience that kind of public
shame, so he decides to call off the engagement, a lot like a divorce, and keep it on
the downlow. That choice was actually a very loving choice for Mary because it
would protect her but would make him look bad—like he must have done
something wrong. He chooses righteousness and love. Obey God and love people.
We’ll come back to that choice, but that is his plan, at least until he finally went to
sleep that evening, where he has a dream:
SLIDE___________________) Matthew 1:20-21
“But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a
dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as
your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will
give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will
save his people from their sins.’”
An angelic announcement to let him know that he should in fact marry her and
drops the new information that
SLIDE_____________________) Matthew 1:20
“…what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”
That may be clear to some of us, but it certainly wasn’t clear then. He was told it
was all good because this baby was from the Holy Spirit. What does that even
mean? The Holy Spirit is God. God is one and three. He is trinity: Father, Son
(Jesus), and Holy Spirit. So, God made this pregnancy happen, and we know the
big story that this is a virgin birth. She hadn’t had sex with anybody, but God made
her pregnant with Jesus, the Son of God.
So, he knows very little, only that he should still marry her and should chill out
about the whole pregnancy thing because this baby is from the Holy Spirit. That’s
a whole lot to take in! But two basic instructions: Marry her and when the boy is
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born, name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. The name
“Jesus” is a form of the name Joshua, which means “Jehovah will save” or “God
will save.” This baby wasn’t just any baby, but the one promised from God for
centuries that would be the one who would take away the sins of the world.
Matthew then adds that this confusing event, Mary getting pregnant while engaged,
was actually part of God’s plan that had been prophesied hundreds of years before
in the Old Testament:
SLIDE____________________) Matthew 1:22-23
“All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the
prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call
him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us.’)”
Matthew had the advantage of hindsight, which is 20/20. The virgin birth might
make sense to believers looking backwards, and it was even prophesied in the Old
Testament. But that was not front of mind for Joseph. He knew very little, but:
SLIDE____________________)
When you don’t know what you don’t know, go with what you do know.
What he did know is that God sent an angel to tell him that he should marry her
and name the baby Jesus. What he did know is that even when life is confusing,
God can be trusted. So, he trusts God, obeys, and does the next right thing:
SLIDE____________________) Matthew 1:24-25
“When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded
him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their
marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.”
He simply does what he knows to do, even though the big picture would have been
really hard to see. Matthew doesn’t tell us about the other confusing parts of the
story, like no room in the inn forcing the baby to be born in an animal shelter, or
the shepherds who come to worship the baby after angels appear to them. They just
store all that up in their hearts and minds and move forward to be a family.
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They stay in Bethlehem, move into their first little house, and all is fairly normal.
Some of you are hoping to get your first house. For others, I bet you can look back
and remember your first one. A happy little family…until the next event. This next
one was confusing, but really cool. The wise guys from the East. What do you
know about the wise men? Let’s see…how many were there? What were their
names? Some of you got it. There were three wise men, and their names were
Curly, Larry, and Moe. Actually, not. Matthew doesn’t tell us how many, and he
doesn’t share their names. So, we have no idea how many of them came. What we
do know is that they were likely from the area of Babylon, advisors to leaders
there, and God led them to come to look for the newborn King of Kings. They go
first to the palace at Jerusalem where one with the title King of the Jews lived,
Herod, and ask where the newborn King of the Jews lived. That didn’t go over well
with Herod. He liked his title. They are guided to Bethlehem, with a celestial sign,
and end up knocking on the door of Mary and Joseph.
So, the wise men aren’t part of the manger scene. Jesus is now two years old, a
little toddler, and they show up at the door. Joseph was a lot nicer than me, I guess.
When people I don’t know just knock at my door, I often act like I’m not home,
especially if they are dressed in black pants and a white shirt with a book under
their arm. Terrible but true. These guys weren’t dressed that way though, so maybe
that’s why Joseph opens the door. What happens is a very unexpected surprise.
They worship the toddler Jesus as God, and they give to the family in his honor
very expensive gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold we know. Frankincense
and myrrh are what cryptocurrency used to be called. No, they were very
expensive perfumes, which was one of the ways people stored wealth back then.
For Joseph, the worship by these guys from the exotic east was amazing, and the
expensive gifts exciting for a poor pair of newlyweds. If he was like me, he was
already spending the money in his head: “We can add on to the house, get an 80-
inch TV, go ahead and join that golf club, put away some money for Jesus for
college.” They had never seen that amount of money in their lives and never
expected to.
That was confusing but cool, even euphoric. But the euphoria wouldn’t last long.
That night, another dream with an angelic announcement that would let them know
what God sent the money for:
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SLIDE______________________) Matthew 2:13-15
“When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a
dream. ‘Get up,’ he said, ‘take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt.
Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill
him.’ So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for
Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod.”
This was also not in Joseph’s plan. They were a young family trying to establish a
life together and having to flee for the life of the baby in the middle of the night, to
be a refugee in a foreign country was not his dream. They likely traveled on foot
all the way to Alexandria, about 200 miles away. Alexander the Great had set up
Alexandria as a refuge for Jews in times of trouble, so there was a large Jewish
population there. The money from the gold, frankincense, and myrrh almost
certainly is what made that sojourn possible and much easier, but still—not in
Joseph’s plan. That would have been really disruptive and really confusing. Why
would God allow that to happen to this baby of all babies? And Joseph had no idea
how long Herod would live and how long they would have to be refugees in a
foreign country. It would have been really hard for him at the time to put this
together with a big picture plan.
Once again though Matthew, with the gift of hindsight, lets us know that this
indeed was not an interruption from the plan of God but part of the plan of God
that had also been prophesied centuries before:
SLIDE______________________) Matthew2:15
“And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘Out of
Egypt I called my son.’”
Looking back, Matthew could see it, but there was no way Joseph did at the time.
What does he do? Well,
SLIDE_______________________)
When you don’t know what you don’t know, go with what you do know.
He knew God could be trusted. He knew what God had asked him to do in the
shortrun. So, we read it already:
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He did exactly what he knew to do, even though he had no clue how that would
have fit some bigger plan. They would end up staying in Egypt at least several
months, probably close to a year. And then another angelic announcement in a
dream giving him the next immediate thing to do:
SLIDE_____________________) Matthew 2:19-23
“After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in
Egypt and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of
Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.’ So he got
up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he
heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he
was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the
district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was
fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a
Nazarene.”
Joseph’s plan was to go back to Bethlehem, but the angel diverted them once again
to a new location—where Joseph and Mary were first engaged, Nazareth—a tiny
little village in the middle of nowhere. That may have seemed random to Joseph at
the time, but it wasn’t. Matthew once again lets us know that this too was part of
the divine plan as had been prophesied in the Old Testament.
This is all we know of Joseph, but the narrative tells us so much about him. He was
a young guy, sixteen to nineteen years old during this story, but he was a mature
and faithful young guy. When he found out Mary was pregnant and could only
assume that she had sex outside of their relationship, what was he going to do? The
right thing. In that culture, a quiet breaking of the engagement that would not
shame her even though it would make him look like a goober. The loving thing.
The righteous thing in an Old Testament way. When he got more information from
the angel, he changed course in obedience to what he did now know.
Those Christmas events are heartwarming for us because we like Matthew have the
gift of hindsight. It all makes sense looking back. But for Joseph going through it,
the events were hard to reconcile with a good plan controlled by a good God. Even
though he didn’t know the big picture, he chose to trust the one who did and obey
what he did know. And that basic way of life is what got him through the ups and
downs of those early years trying to raise the savior of the world.
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For you and me who also face confusing times as we try to follow Jesus in this
crazy world, Joseph is such a great model of how to navigate times that do not
make sense. We all go through times when it is hard to connect the dots, how what
we are going through now or perhaps have gone through in the past, could have
anything to do with a good plan controlled by a good God. I know that many of
you this Christmas are trying to put on a happy face and say, “Merry Christmas,”
even though your heart is not merry. You are anxious, confused, struggling to
figure out what is going on and maybe how you can possibly go on.
When that happens, learn from Joseph:
SLIDE___________________)
When you don’t know what you don’t know, go with what you do know.
Like Joseph, here is what you do know. You know that God is in control. You
know that God is good. You therefore know that God can be trusted. So, trust him.
It’s okay that you don’t know how all this fits into the big picture, because he does.
And you know what he has already revealed. He has told us in the Bible principles
of how to live through tricky times, and he has given us as the basic ethic, love. So,
what has God revealed in the Bible for me to do and what does love of the other
person demand? That’s what Joseph did, and that’s what we can do too.
If we do, then something wonderful happens over time. We become the kind of
people we all want to become. We become godly, mature, more full of faith. It’s a
way of life that one writer called “a long obedience in the same direction” that over
time produces maturity, that helps us become the kind of people we really do want
to become. There’s really no other way to get there. We go through confusing or
difficult times going with what we know, trusting him with the big picture, and
doing the next right thing, the loving thing, and we become godly over time.
Author Gary Thomas said,
SLIDE__________________)
Salvation is free, but maturity comes at a price.”
