Obeying – Even If It Doesn’t Seem to Make Sense
The Lesson of Joseph and Mary
Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38
December 12, 2010
NOTE: THE ME/WE/GOD/YOU/WE FORMAT IS FROM ANDY STANLEY'S BOOK, "COMMUNICATING FOR A CHANGE."
Audio of this sermon can be heard at www.aberdeenwesleyan.org.
Me: I’ve been a Christian for going on 30 years now, and one of the more surprising things I’ve learned over that time is it’s still hard for me to obey God sometimes.
I’ll come across an opportunity to obey Jesus in some situation, and I still fight with myself, because usually it’s a situation that’s going to cost me something – maybe it’s time, it’s convenience, or maybe it’s going to cost me actual money – something I don’ t have in abundance compared to a lot of people.
And I’m like, “Really? Do I have to do this? It would make way more sense to not do this or for You to have someone else do it, right?”
I remember when I started tithing back in the 1990’s. On paper, it made no sense whatsoever. I had bills to pay. I had bill collectors calling. I had a family to feed.
But even though it made no sense at the time, we did it anyway, out of obedience to God. And He’s taken care of us quite nicely, thank you. But at the time, it made no sense.
We: If you’ve been in a relationship with Jesus for any length of time, you know what I’m talking about.
Sometimes God asks us to do something in the Bible and it doesn’t seem make sense, given the circumstances we find ourselves in.
Or we find ourselves convicted by the Holy Spirit about something and on a fleshly, human level, it makes more sense to not obey.
Or you might be sitting here today and living for Jesus isn’t even on your radar, specifically because it doesn’t make sense to you to become a Christian who loves and lives for Jesus.
And you see some of the commands of Scripture and you’re like, “Forget that, man. Not happening.”
Why? Because to you, it makes no sense to follow God and the Scriptures.
God: I want to share with you the experience of Joseph and Mary, and what they did with God’s telling them to do stuff that you and I would think would be totally nuts – but they did it anyway.
Matthew 1:18-25 (p. 681) –
18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 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. 21 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."
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us."
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
Luke 1:30-38 (p. 723) –
30 But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
34 "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"
35 The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. 37 For nothing is impossible with God."
38 "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her.
What was God telling them to do?
- Believe the words from an angel.
Btw, we need to be VERY careful about listening to an “angel.”
2 Corinthians 11:14 says that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
A lot of what people believe about angels in our day and age has no base in what the Bible actually says about angels.
And belief in angels seems to trump belief in and obedience to the God of the Bible.
At least one cult has its basis in what an “angel” said and it’s got millions of followers around the world right now.
What else was Joseph being asked to do?
- Believe Mary hadn’t been sleeping around.
- Believe the baby was divinely conceived.
Think about this for a moment:
Your teenage girlfriend or your teenage daughter comes to you and says, “I’m pregnant – and God made me pregnant.”
What would you do? Here's something else Joseph was asked to do:
- Not divorce Mary (and save himself from embarrassment).
Here in modern-day America, we don’t see that as a big deal, but I’m guessing all of Joseph’s well-meaning friends were like, “Joseph, dump this gal. You don’t need the hassle of trying to explain your girlfriend’s baby. Move on, man!”
- Not have sex as husband and wife.
Nuff said, there, right? What husband and wife don't come together on their wedding night and, of course, throughout the marriage?
- Name the baby something they hadn’t discussed.
This may not seem like such a big deal nowadays, but in Bible times, names were a huge deal.
You didn’t just name your baby any old thing to be trendy.
Baby names back then meant something, and they usually were tied to an ancestor.
But wait, that’s not all – listen to some more stuff from Matthew 2 –
13 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."
14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."
19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 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." 21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.
So what else was Joseph being asked to do?
- Believe that the government was after his child and so he had to leave the country.
- Then he had to believe that the King was dead and that it was safe to go back to Israel.
Can you imagine what must have been going through Mary and Joseph’s heads during these months? I can’t.
Think for a moment. If an angel came up to you and told you all this stuff – even if you were completely positive this was an angel from God and not at imposter.
Would any of this make sense to you?
What are the chances it made sense to Joseph and Mary? Pretty slim, if you ask me.
But what was their response? They did it anyway.
They didn’t reason it away, they didn’t justify why they didn’t want to, they didn’t hide behind their culture or their financial situation, or anything like that.
They did it anyway. It didn’t make sense to them. But they did it anyway.
Okay. So how does that apply to us today in the here and now?
Well, let me ask you something: does God ask us to do anything that doesn’t make sense to you?
Sure He does.
What does God ask us to do?
Obey what He tells us in Scripture.
That doesn’t makes sense to people – in or outside the church of Jesus, because the world tells us that living for Jesus and obeying what tells us in the Bible is stupid and foolish.
And even thought it’s in black and white, we still don’t understand WHY we should do it sometimes.
What are some examples of things God tells us to do that we need to obey?
Don’t lie. (But everybody does it)
Don’t steal. (Even post-it notes?)
Pay your taxes. (Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s)
Keep sex for marriage. (REALLY?)
Obey your parents when you’re under their roof.
Train up your kids to love and follow Jesus.
Tithe. Even in December.
Believe that God came to earth as a baby that grew up to be the only sinless person in the history of the world, and that He died so we could go to heaven.
Believe that living for Jesus is better than living for ourselves.
Live in the minority when it comes to things society says are okay but God says aren’t okay.
Society looks at a list like this and they just roll their eyes and say we’re crazy.
But listen to what God says in 1 Corinthians 1:25 –
The foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
“It doesn’t make sense.” According to who? You? Are you God? I don’t think so.
Folks, it doesn’t have to make sense to society for it to be right. But the fact is that society gets it wrong all the time.
Just ask all the people who are divorced now who lived together before they got married because society said they should – but who weren’t told that the divorce rate for couples who live together is greater than 75%.
It might seem foolish to you or your friends, but God – the all-wise God of the universe, knows what He’s talking about when He asks us to obey Him.
Isaiah 55:8-9 –
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. 9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
I’ve used this illustration before, but it was brought to my mind by my District Superintendent during a recent conversation:
Let’s say there’s a car driving through a winding mountain passage. The turns are tight, and you can’t see past the truck which is going slow as it makes its way up the steep roads.
At the same time, there’s a private plane overhead, and the pilot looks down and sees what’s going on between the car and the truck.
But it also sees the traffic situation for the next five miles. It can see when it’s safe for the car to pass, and when it’s not.
The pilot has a perspective that the car doesn’t have. All the driver of the car can see is what’s right in front of him. Right here.
That’s a pretty simplistic illustration, but it’s kind of the way God sees stuff compared to how we see stuff.
We’re looking at our immediate situation and our immediate context and we can’t see past the bills, we can’t see past our comfort, we can’t see past our friends, we can’t see past what we see right in front of us, like that car trying to pass that slow-moving truck.
And God’s up there going, “You can’t see what I see. I know when you’re safe, I know when you’re in danger. And I’ve given you My Word – the Bible so you can drive safely and not get smucked.”
How many of you have teenagers?
How many times when you tell them to do something or not do something they keep saying it doesn’t make sense or they don’t understand?
And your answer is, “It doesn’t matter that you don’t understand. What matters is that we understand, and that’s why we’re not letting you do this or wanting you to do that. Don’t roll your eyes at me!”
How many of you have younger children?
How many times do your kids ask you “Why?” when you tell them to do something or not do something?
And what do we say? “Because I said so.”
Right? By the way, that’s a perfectly fine answer for most kids. They don’t like it, but it’s fine. You’re the parent. Your job is to act in ways that protect and benefit your children’s well-being, not to
They wouldn’t understand the answer anyway, so why bother?
“Well, son, the reason I don’t let you play in the street is because the braking distance required for a full stop at 25 miles an hour is not long enough for a vehicle to stop before the force behind the vehicle causes it to make contact with you. Therefore, the resulting impact would cause you great bodily harm possibly resulting in your early demise, not to mention cause undue emotional stress to your mother, and we both know we don’t need that right now, right?”
Sometimes the best answer we can give a kid is, “Because I said so. I know better than you – trust me. And don’t roll your eyes at me!”
And you know what? That’s what God does for us.
Sometimes what He asks of us doesn’t seem to make sense to us, and we’re asking, “Why?”
And God says, “Because I said so. Trust me on this – I know better than you.”
And we don’t like it any better than our kids, but we need to understand that just like our kids can’t understand our reasoning for everything, we won’t understand God’s reasoning in every case either. And we roll our eyes at God…
And just like we expect our children to obey when they don’t understand, God expects us to obey when we don’t understand, too.
We need to believe that God knows what He’s talking about.
Sometimes we need to just say, “I don’t get it God. This doesn’t make sense to me. But you say here in Your Word to do it, so I’m going to do it, trusting that You know what You’re talking about.”
And He does. He really does.
Joseph and Mary had that figured out, and we can learn from their example that while everything didn’t make sense to them, they still believed that God knew what He was doing – and so they obeyed Him, even when others would have laughed at them or put them down for it.
Joseph and Mary have taken away every excuse you can come up with for not obeying Jesus and God’s Word.
So what are you going to do with that?
You: I’d like you to put down put down your Bibles and notes for just a moment and listen up for a moment. You might get back to writing in just a moment.
But I want to ask you a question:
What is it that God is asking you to step out in obedience for today?
You’ve been wrestling with God about it for the longest time and you’ve been holding out because you don’t understand why God would ask you to do that, or you just don’t think it makes sense – whatever that means in your situation.
Maybe it’s tithing. God commands it and you’ve been resisting because you think it makes more sense to take care of your comfort than to invest in God’s kingdom.
And God’s asking you to obey Him – just because He says so.
Maybe you’re hearing God ask you to get more involved in the ministry of the Church to help us reach people with the news of forgiveness of heaven and help us help them live for Him.
Maybe you’re in a relationship that you know God doesn’t approve of or you’re doing something in that relationship that you know God doesn’t approve of.
Maybe you’re withholding forgiveness from someone and God is wanting you to let that go so you can heal.
I don’t know what it is for you. You do.
And I’m not even saying that it’s the case with everybody here – but I think it may be the case with some of you here today.
If that’s you, then let me give you a couple things you can do right now:
1. Say yes to God about whatever it is He’s been talking you about.
2. Ask Him for the faith to obey even when we don’t understand.
For the rest of you here, then let say that for you, what you need to do is right now, ask God for the faith of Joseph and Mary obey God when it doesn’t make sense to you and when society says you’re nuts to do it.
We: Folks, we’re in a time of year when there is at least an expectation that spiritual things are talked about and discussed outside of church services like this one.
I hope that people hear from your lips that you love Jesus and that your heart is to obey Him – even when society thinks you’re crazy or when it doesn’t seem to make sense even to you.
But more than that, I hope they see it. And not just during December.
I hope they see it all year long – including in January when you’re returning that icky Christmas gift you got from your lousy brother-in-law.
I hope they see you being truly counter-cultural in choosing to obey God instead of what society says you should do.
And when you do that, God is honored.
When you do that, God moves in your life to bless you in ways you just don’t even believe right now, and He moves to make you more like His Son, Jesus.
And that helps other people to see their need for Jesus as their Savior, and God may bless you with the opportunity to help that person find Him for themselves.
I hope you’ll get that blessing.
Let’s pray.
