Jesus. What Child is This?
Part 3- Some Surrender: Joseph’s Obedience
Matthew 1:16, 18-25 In the 7 years I have been a pastor I have noticed a very consistent trend that happens during Christmas time. As the story is being told about Christ and sermons are being preached and songs are being sung you hear a lot about Mary, a lot about Jesus, a lot about Herod, wise men, the stable and animals. You hear about the star and the angels, the shepherds and the innkeeper. But one thing I have noticed is that you don’t hear that much about Jesus’ earthly father Joseph.
He always seems to be the one left out of the story. Maybe that’s because scripture doesn’t have a whole lot to say about this man. But what we need to understand is that Joseph, just like Mary, was called by God. He may not have been the one to give birth to the Savior but God trusted him and believed that Joseph was worthy enough to raise the Savior. AND God knew that Joseph had the faith, character and integrity to trust that the baby Mary was carrying was in fact a miracle birth and not believe that Mary had had an affair. Joseph was by all accounts a good man full of faith and a willingness to surrender everything for God and this coming miracle. Let’s read the story of Jesus birth found in Matthew 1:16, 18-25. VERSES 16, 18-19.
In verse 16 we see that Mary was Jesus’ mother, but Joseph was not his father. Now in our day and age that almost seems to be common place. Advancement in medical technology makes it possible for a woman to be pregnant without ever having to have sex through artificial insemination. But we know it wasn’t medical advancements that caused Mary to be pregnant. It was the Holy Spirit. The real issue was how Mary was going to convince her family and more importantly her fiancée that this was a miracle and that she did not have an affair. (think about it, engaged, never been intimate but somehow your fiancée gets pregnant.) In 18 and 19 it says that Joseph was a good man. Although in his mind he has to be thinking he has been cheated on, his heart had to be breaking he had to be going through a roller coaster of emotions during this time. Hate, anger, frustration, sadness, depression. Even though in his mind she is the one who caused the offense he doesn’t do what he has every right to do. Instead scripture says that because he was good, his character was godly he instead decides to think of her instead of himself and divorce her quietly. That too me is just so powerful. If you don’t stop and take the time to really understand what Joseph is doing here then you are going to miss out on something incredible.
Really if you don’t understand the culture of the time and how courting and marriage worked you’ll miss just how loving and how godly Joseph is being towards Mary. I want you to understand how awesome Joseph is being here so let me explain to you really quick how courting and marriage worked in Joseph and Mary’s time. First what would happen is that Joseph and Mary’s families would agree to the union and they would negotiate the betrothal, including a price for the bride that would be paid to the bride’s father. Next, a public announcement would be made. At this point, the couple was “pledged.” This is similar to engagement today, except that it was much more binding. Once a couple was “pledged” they were already considered husband and wife. The only difference is that they could still not have sex because they weren’t considered married.
Joseph and Mary had to remain pledged for one year before they would have their wedding. During that time, the couple would live separately, with their parents. This waiting time would demonstrate the bride’s complete purity. If she became pregnant during this time, then the man could divorce his wife. So when Joseph found out that Mary was pregnant he had the right to divorce her according to Jewish civil law. The divorce alone would have brought public shame and humiliation not only on Mary but her entire family. Not only that but Joseph, who would have been following the Mosaic laws as a Jewish man, had every right to have Mary put to death by having her stoned. Deuteronomy 22:23-24 says very clearly, “Suppose a man meets a young woman, a virgin who is engaged to be married, and he has sexual intercourse with her. If this happens within a town, you must take both of them to the gates of that town and stone them to death. The woman is guilty because she did not scream for help. The man must die because he violated another man’s wife. In this way, you will purge this evil from among you.”
So having heard all of this you can see just how good of a man Joseph was. By making the decision to divorce her quietly Joseph desired to maintain his personal righteousness yet he also desired to show compassion to Mary even though she appeared to be an adulteress. Thankfully God intervened to help both Mary and Joseph. VERSES 20-25.
Joseph awakes from his dream and he surrenders himself to God’s will. He moves forward with the wedding, takes Mary as his wife and even waits patiently to be intimate with her until Jesus is born. This is a very good man. A righteous man, a man who was willing to give up all his civil and biblical rights and surrender to God. If you were in Joseph’s shoes what would you have done? Would you have ignored your dream and gone through with the divorce? Would you have had Mary stoned because of the shame and embarrassment she caused you or would you have surrendered your pride, surrendered your rights, surrendered the pain and shame you felt and followed God without question? It’s a tough question to answer because we desire to be righteous and act just as Joseph did but really we don’t know what we would do.
All I know is that what we can do today is look to Joseph’s example of what it means to surrender to God and learn how to live with that same faith and character. God calls us today, just like he called Joseph, to live a life where we willingly surrender our earthly rights and privileges and follow His will without question. As Christians we are called to surrender to Jesus, live for Jesus, act on behalf of Jesus, show compassion and forgiveness like Jesus. If you want to know why your marriage isn’t that great, why you still struggle with anger, why you constantly worry about your kids, about your job about your money about your home the answer is simple. It’s because you’re not surrendering them to Jesus. We need to learn to surrender to Jesus not just one time and hope everything gets better and fixes itself but we need to surrender every day.
Let’s look at what it means to live a surrendered life like Joseph lived. To live the surrendered life we need to…
1. Surrender to the Way of Christ. To accomplish this I must live righteously. Joseph had every human right to “do away” with Mary through divorce or even death. Joseph had to make a decision. Does he do right by the law or does he do right by God? While no one will say that civil disobedience is always the right response to any situation, a follower of Jesus must always decide if he/she will be righteous and follow God, or right and follow the law. Once in awhile the two will conflict. They did for Joseph and he surrendered to God’s way of doing things. That must have been extremely difficult to decide. Because if Joseph chose Mary then there would be no doubt that rumors would fly. A woman is pregnant but she is unmarried. It may still have caused great embarrassment to their family but they trusted God.
Like Joseph we are called to live righteous and obedient lives. That means when man’s laws and God’s will conflict we always choose God’s will. It means that when our flesh is battling against our spirit we always choose our spirit. We resist temptation and choose Christ in all circumstances.
We always surrender to His Word. That means when church is outlawed we go underground, when prayer is banned we find a way around it. When we are persecuted for what we believe and called right wing bible thumpers we don’t cower; we love more, give more, tell even more about Jesus and what he did on the cross. It means staying away from things that bring temptation to us. Saying no so that we can stay out of sin. We don’t let people or the law scares us from living faithfully and righteously. We don’t let what others think about us what others might do to us scare us into making decisions that go against God’s will. No we stand firm. We keep moving forward, keep trusting Christ, keep surrendering our lives to him. We keep having faith that he will see us through regardless of life’s circumstances.
Philippians 4:8-9, “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.
Gal. 5:16-26, “So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses. When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.
Our spirit and flesh are constantly at war. Temptation is all around us but we, when we repented and believed in Christ, nailed our sins on the cross of Christ. We are no longer slaves to sin and temptation. We, because of Christ and because of the Holy Spirit in us working in us changing us have the power to say no to sin, resist sin, we can now choose to not sin and that power remains in us and grows stronger in us as we keep surrendering ourselves to God.
Habakuk 2:4 says, “The righteous will live by faith.” Joseph made a choice to live by faith. Surrender to God and take Mary as his wife. In the same way we are called to live by faith and be righteous.
Joseph was a good man. A righteous man who lived by faith. He surrendered to God’s will rather than man’s law and we must also go and do like wise. Surrender to the way of Christ in order to live righteously for Christ.
2. Surrender to the Truth of Christ. This means that we must Trust Blindly. Neither Mary nor Joseph had been unfaithful. But as I said the rumor mill had to be busy that week. They knew the truth. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit not by Joseph or another man. They trusted blindly that God had blessed them with a child. Not just any child but the Savior of the world. What a huge responsibility that would be. To know God has trusted you to raise the savior as his earthly parents. They didn’t listen to the rumors. They believed and fulfilled God’s will by marrying, having the child and raising him up in a godly home.
We too can trust God about who Jesus is. Why? Because Jesus has experienced all that we have experienced and even more and yet he never sinned. Instead he took our sins and died on the cross. He isn’t like somebody who comes up to you and says, “I understand what you’re feeling” or “I understand what you’re saying.” Yet they haven’t actually experienced what you’ve experienced. Someone who hasn’t experienced divorce can’t possible understand how someone feels during a divorce. Someone who hasn’t lost a loved one can’t truly sympathize with someone who has. But Jesus can. God can. It was incredibly important for Christ to enter the world the way he did so that as both fully human and fully God he could understand everything we as humans go through in life. Jesus had to be born of a virgin because he had to be free from the sinful nature passed on to all other human beings by Adam. Being born of a woman made him human but because he was the son of God he was born without any trace of human sin. He took on the limitations of humanity so that He could fully understand the pain of humanity yet he remained divine so that he could die without sin for the salvation of all who believe.
And because he lived as a man we know that He fully understood our experiences and struggles. Hebrews 4:15-16, This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. And because He is God, He has the power and authority to deliver us from sin. Colossians 2:13-15, You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross. This truth allows us to come boldly to God’s throne with our praises and sins, our hurts and longings and we can know that as we speak to God about our greatest struggles in life He understands exactly how we feel because he has been there yet he conquered it. He overcame it without ever sinning. A surrendered life means trusting in the truth of Christ. Believing that His promise of Grace and salvation are real. Believing that he will never forsake us but will see us through everything. He knows were we are, he understands how we feel and he alone has the ability to help us.
3. Surrender to the Life of Christ. This means we are called to Follow Submissively. Joseph had a choice. Divorce Mary or submit to God’s Will. The human side of him wanted to divorce. We know that because scripture says he wanted to. But his faith in God kept him from doing so. He chose to submit. God wanted him to take a different path in life. God’s plan for him was to be the earthly father of Jesus. I can imagine that in the excitement of planning for a wedding Joseph never thought he would face such a drastic change in his life but he listened and obeyed. Living the surrendered life means we listen and obey. It means we say as Isaiah did in Isaiah 6:8, Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “ Whom shall I send and whom will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” A surrendered life is a submissive life. But that doesn’t mean it’s a life of dread and a life of pain. On the contrary following Christ means experiencing a life of joy, a life without worry, without stress, without feeling lost and wondering how you’re going to make it. We can trust in Him and know everything will be okay.
But it also means letting God take us wherever he wants to take us. For Paul it meant taking him all over the world to plant churches. For Philip in Acts it meant taking him to the desert to witness to a Eunich. For David it meant taking him from a lowly shepherd to a King of a nation. For Joseph it meant taking him from just a carpenter to a man entrusted to raise the Christ child. Pastors are not the only ones called, we are all called to first and foremost living a life that glorifies Christ. We are all gifted and God has plans for all of us. What is it in your life God is asking you to do but you are afraid to do? Is God calling you to help serve in a ministry but you just keep thinking of excuses as to why you can’t, start a ministry, witness to a friend at work, become a pastor or missionary, work with the homeless. Maybe completely move your family across the country, plant a church, start a business, change jobs. Maybe you feel called by God to give up something that’s been dominating your time but you’re afraid to. What is it that God wants you to do, you know he wants you to do it but you’ve been living a life full of excuses rather than a life of surrender?
When you make that choice to live a fully surrendered life then our desires will change from wanting to serve me to wanting to serve others and wanting to give God my best in everything I do. With that surrendered life comes peace. A peace that passes all understanding. When we live in disobedience we will always be restless. When we refuse to repent there will always be uneasiness and a feeling that something is missing in life. God will always feel distant. We feel like this because we aren’t living a surrendered life.
Maybe you’re thinking, “I’ve surrender this area to God but nothing changed.” I don’t feel peace about it. Then you haven’t surrendered it enough OR you haven’t learned to just trust and have faith to endure through it and let God grow you and mature you by experiencing it. You need to keep surrendering it and yourself to God, keep going back in prayer, keep going back to his promises until you know it’s been surrendered. You don’t dwell on it or worry about it but when it comes up you give it to God and as you keep doing that you will begin to grow and mature and pretty soon that area that you struggled with surrending to God won’t seem like that big of a deal anymore. Or in reality you will probably find that because God allowed you to experience such a tragic and difficult time in your life and you kept trusting in him your faith and hope is greater after having gone through it then when you first started.
Joseph made a huge decision in his life. Trust himself or surrender to God. He trusted God’s plan. Most of our decisions will not be overruled by angels, but that is no reason for lack of confidence that God knows what He is doing. To make good decisions and to live the surrendered life keep praying, talk with faithful friends, and keep acting in faith. Immanuel, God is literally with you every step of the way will help see you through. Not just for us as individual believers but also for us as a church.
