CHRISTMAS FOCUS
IN MATTHEW: JOSEPH
MATTHEW 1:18-25
SEGMENT 1
Lies. It had to be a lie. How could she be pregnant? What good would come of this? How could she put such a thing on God? What possible reason could she have for spinning a tale of an angel messenger and pregnancy and the Messiah? It was not something he had ever heard of before. Mary had never lied to him before and she was definitely not someone who told fanciful tales. He only had questions swirling in his heart and in his mind. Only heart-hurting questions. She had just told him something earlier that evening that had changed his world and it seemed quite fantastic. Fantastic meaning “hard-to-believe” and not fantastic as in “over-the-top joy.” She was pregnant and she said God had done this to her. Her baby would be the Messiah.
It was night time and the man sat on the edge of his bed and just rocked back and forth with a mix of nerves and anger and doubt. What was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to think? What would God want him to do? It was dark outside and seemed even darker in his room. He thought perhaps it might be best to send her into a neighboring region and allow her to live there for awhile. A quiet divorce. Nothing shameful. What was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to think? What would God want him to do? The darkness seemed to grow around him. His eyes grew heavy. His mind swam in mush as he craved sleep, but felt incredibly worried and his heart felt pressed.
READ MATTHEW 1:18-25
[Read Together Matthew 1:18-25 Responsive Reading Style]
LEADER: 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.
CONGREGATION: 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.
LEADER: 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.
CONGREGATON: 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."
LEADER: All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us." When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.
ALL: But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.”
We looked at this same passage last week as we began our celebration of the Season of Advent. We focused our attention first on Jesus and rightfully so! Jesus Christ is the center of our hope and the center of what we celebrate at Christmas time and is the Savior of the World. As I read this passage I believe there is another significant person presented in this passage other than Jesus and His mother Mary. We find Joseph, the betrothed of Mary, in this passage and he is quite an individual based on what we find in the passage.
There is a lot about Joseph that we do not know because we do not know anything about his life other than what we read in Matthew 1-2 and in Luke 1-2. We do not know much about his family other than they come from Bethlehem and he is related to King David. As with all small towns, he was probably related to most people in the town of Bethlehem. We do not know about his education or age, but we do know he was a carpenter by trade and he taught that trade to at least one of his sons after he had a family. We do know that after Jesus, Joseph and Mary had four boys and at least two girls as part of their family. Joseph disappears from the Bible after Jesus is around 12 years of age.
We do not know a lot about Joseph, but what we do know about Joseph of Bethlehem is more about his character than about the numbers or details of his life.
I. A MAN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
Verse 19 in Matthew 1 tells us that he was a “righteous man.” I think that is pretty high praise for someone we know little about. Who else in Scripture is described with this word “righteous?”
* Abel, son of Adam and Eve from Genesis is described “as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings” (Hebrews 11:4) (Also in Matthew 23:28).
* Noah, builder of arks and survivor of a worldwide flood in Genesis 6:9 is described as, “a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God” (Also in Genesis 7:1).
* David in 1 Samuel 24:17 is declared righteous by King Saul because “You have treated me well, but I have treated you badly.” Solomon also describes David as righteous in 1 Kings 3:6.
* Simeon who was waiting to see the Messiah was called “righteous and devout” in Luke 2:25.
* John the Baptist was considered to be a “righteous and holy man” by King Herod in Mark 6:20.
* Cornelius the centurion is called a “righteous and God-fearing man” in Acts 10:22 and is among the first gentiles to accept Jesus as his Savior.
I think Joseph is in some good company when Matthew 1:19 describes him as “righteous.” What does it mean to be righteous? What does it mean to be like Noah and Abel and David and Cornelius? Hosea 14:9 and other passages like it tell us that those who are righteous are those that walk with God. Hosea 14:9 says, “The ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them.” A person who is righteous is someone who conforms to the will of God. A righteous person is someone who looks at the standard God had set and strives to meet that standard. A righteous person is someone in a right relationship with God.
Joseph is a righteous man. Even before he is put into a hard position with a pregnant fiancée he is a righteous man that wants to live his life as God instructs.
SEGMENT 2
Groggy he laid down. The man tossed and turned for what seemed like an eternity and finally sleep overtook him. It was not a restful sleep. He had a light-bearing visitor in his dream. A messenger. A teller of tales of the Divine. The angelic light-bearing messenger clearly called him by name and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” He awoke in a sweat. He would never forget those words. He would tell others those words. It was still the middle of the night, but light now filled his heart rather than darkness. Answers streamed into his heart rather than questions.
He knew now that what she had told him was true. The Holy Spirit had overshadowed her and what was growing inside her was a precious baby from God. It was God! Why did God want to come to earth? What was he supposed to do in raising such a child? He was only a carpenter! He knew the first thing he had to do in the morning was go and see Mary. She must be upset wondering what he would do. She would not have known God spoke through an angel to him in a dream. What a fabulous dream!
As I was thinking about this passage and Joseph, I began to wonder about what it means to be righteous. The people mentioned in the Scriptures who were righteous are those that can be good role models for us. Even Jesus is called the Righteous One often (Acts 3:14, 7:52, 22:14; 1 John 2:1).
I have to tell you, I think righteousness is a worthy goal for us. I know it is a worthy goal for me. I want to hear from God “Well done good and faithful servant” when I die. I want to be a person that reflects what I read in the Bible. I would love to have my outsides and insides match when it comes to my faith. Those are the desires I have when I read about someone like Joseph. His insides and outsides matched! As I look at Matthew 1, I notice two things about Joseph of Bethlehem that I think I can learn from that are important for us.
II. RIGHTEOUSNESS MEANS LISTENING
As I think about what happened to Joseph in Matthew 1, I imagine him waking up from the dream in which God communicated with him and he was faced with a choice. He had considered divorcing Mary in a low-key way and seemed to be the course of action he had decided on. Then he had a dream. In the dream, God commanded Joseph to not divorce Mary, but to take her home as his wife and to name the child Jesus. What would he do? Joseph, the righteous man, listened to God. Joseph accepted the Word of God as truth and believed Mary.
Listening to God is a key part of being a righteous person:
Listening to God implies…
… trust
… paying attention to His voice
… ignoring tempting voices that draw us from God
… quieting our own voice that we can hear
… at times being still and patient
Moses commanded the people of Israel if they wanted to follow God to “listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God” (Exodus 15:26) and says the same thing elsewhere when he said in Deuteronomy 30:19-20, “Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him.” For Moses, paying attention to the voice of God was extremely important if the people of God wanted to be righteous.
Elsewhere in the Old Testament listening to God was important. The old priest Eli instructs Samuel to respond to God’s call by saying “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3:9). 2 Kings 17:14 describes people who reject God as those who did not listen or trust in God.
In the New Testament, the centurion Cornelius in Acts 10:33 understood clearly that to receive Jesus and to understand God he and his household had to stop, be silent, and listen. He said to the Apostle Peter, “Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.”
APPLICATION
What does this have to do with us? If you and I want to be righteous people, we must be willing to listen to what God has to say. We must be in His Word studying to know what He has already said to us. We must cultivate a prayer life that we might hear His voice and be able to recognize it. Let us not forget the words of Jesus:
John 5:25, “I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.”
John 10:27, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”
SEGMENT 3
He could not wait to see his betrothed. Oh yes, she was still his betrothed. Nothing in the whole world would ever change that! The next morning he went to see her and embraced her warmly and tightly. She wept. She wept so deeply. She said that she thought she would never see him again. He comforted her. He told her the exact words of the light-bearing messenger. He told her of his intention to wed. Soon. Immediately. No delay. Obedient. They committed themselves to the path that God Almighty had laid out for them and accepted their role in bringing light into a dark world.
The purpose of it all was to show God’s glory. He saw that now, but only a little. She understood that now, but only a little. He would have to stay the course and be faithful. So would she. They would have to support one another. The child growing in her was to be the Savior and save people from their sins. Not ordinary. Extraordinary. Divine. He would indeed stand the test that lay ahead of him because the end result was that God would be glorified. He had been asked to play a part in the redemptive history of his people and he would not shrink back. He would obey.
III. RIGHTEOUSNESS MEANS OBEDIENCE
Matthew 1 makes it very clear that once Joseph understood God’s Word that he obeyed. Joseph did not divorce Mary as was his plan, but he married her. Joseph had a sexually pure relationship with her until after Jesus was born. This fulfills God’s Word that the virgin was with child and gave birth. I can imagine he felt it was necessary to honor both Mary and God. Joseph also named the child exactly as he was instructed. Joseph obeyed God at every turn and this showed his righteous character.
Obedience is paramount when chasing righteousness. Someone who is righteous is someone that not only hears what God has to say, but acts on it in faithfulness. Jesus had much to say about obedience:
Matthew 19:17, “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments."
Luke 6:46, "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?”
Luke 11:28, “He replied, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.’"
John 14:15, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”
John 14:23, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.
John 15:10, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.”
In the Bible, righteous people are not only those that listen to God on the inside, but that listening changes behavior on the outside. Righteous people act correctly. Righteous people make an effort to change their behavior to be more like God. Righteous people obey the teachings of Jesus.
APPLICATION
What does this have to do with us? If you and I want to be righteous people, we must be willing to obey. That means our opinions are subservient to God’s Truth. It means when what I want conflicts with what God’s Word says, what I want takes a “back seat.” Righteous people strive their hardest to be Godly in attitudes, emotions, actions, and beliefs. It does not mean righteous people are perfect, but do continually persevere to obey.
CONCLUSION
I do not know what it was like for Jesus growing up. I can imagine Jesus was much like other children, but at the same time was unlike any child who has ever been born. His earthly parents had the tall task of raising the Son of God. We do not know much about Jesus’ growing up years. We can know that Jesus had an earthly step-father that was a righteous man who listened to God’s voice and obeyed. No one can ask for more than that!
I challenge us today as we think about the Christmas story to commit ourselves to pursuing righteousness. We pursue righteousness by listening for God’s voice. We pursue righteousness by obeying God’s will. We are in good company if we commit ourselves to that kind of life.
INVITATION
