Sometimes there's words that we just don't like. Sometimes it's because of the way they sound. Some sound weird or sometimes they conjure up something kind of gross. One word that I don't like is the word ‘maggot.’ Really, if you think of maggots, is anything pleasant ever really associated with maggots at all? There’s other words that bring to mind things that give us pause. Maybe it's from a bad experience, maybe something that we've been through or we don't really like the idea of it.
It used to drive me crazy when I worked in the factory when people would refer to me as someone's subordinate. Even though that's what it was, you're in a subordinate position, just the thought of that made me feel like less of a person. The Bible contains some words like this. Words that give us pause, that just bring to mind things that are unpleasant, likely from our experiences or what we've seen around us. Think of the words like ‘submission’ or ‘be subject to’ or ‘enslaved’. They're all perfectly proper because they describe what it is and they come from God's word. But we hesitate because the actions associated with them we really find unpleasant. Sometimes when words won't do, scripture will explain to us what God is telling us to do and uses other actions or the actions of an individual to model certain behavior.
Today we begin our “Christmas” series. For the next three weeks (and then including Christmas Eve), we're going to look at four key figures from the Bible. There'll be the wisemen's worship, there'll be Mary's trust, there'll be the shepherds’ sharing. Today we're going to look at Joseph’s obedience.
‘Obedience’ I think is one of those words that sometimes we don't dig. When I hear ‘obedience,’ sometimes I think of someone barking orders, or you do what they tell you to do because there's going to be a consequence for you not doing them. Sometimes when I hear the word ‘obedience,’ I think of my dog.
But obedience isn't a bad thing. Right? Especially when it's obedience to God. Scripture is filled with examples of individuals that were obedient to God, but sometimes their “yes” wasn’t yes, but rather it was a “yes, but.” Think of how many times God had to tell Moses, “Listen, I need you to lead my people out of slavery.” But Moses was like, “Yes, but I can't.”
Today we're going to see that Joseph didn't do that. God needed Joseph to do something. Joseph didn't hesitate. He didn't say, “Yes, but can I first just…” He just did it. And then we're also going to take a look at how do we respond when God seeks us to be obedient? How can we be prepared to move when God says, “Go”?
Today's scripture reading comes from the gospel of Matthew 1:18-25. Let's stand as we read God's word together.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “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.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.
You may be seated. If I were to ask you who were some of the most obedient individuals of the Bible, who would you say? Noah, Abraham, Mary, Paul, even Moses after a little bit of nudging. And then if we asked who is the most popular, it's probably some of the same people. But really, as we're studying Joseph here, Joseph often gets overlooked. But I think it's important today to look at Joseph to really understand who he is.
So who was Joseph? First in our reading, it says that Mary was betrothed to Joseph. Now, betrothed isn't something that we do in our culture. We go from engaged to married, and if we're in Vegas sometimes we skip from engagement altogether and go right to married. Seriously though. An engagement in biblical times was essentially when the parents of individuals came together to arrange the marriage. This was typically done at a very early age, a lot of times without the knowledge of the kids at all. After this, when they became old enough, there was the betrothal. This is when the impending marriage became legally binding. The man and the woman spent time together getting to know each other. They consider themselves as husband and wife. Being in the betrothal period, even though they were considered husband and wife, it carried with it the same expectations of purity. The only way for a betrothal to end was the death of one of the individuals or if the husband was to issue the wife a certificate of divorce. Then finally, after the betrothal period, there was the marriage. This is when the couple would begin building their home and their family together.
So right now Joseph is in that middle stage with Mary. He's in the betrothal period where they're starting to get to know each other. At some point in the coming year, their marriage will become official and they will start growing together.
Our passage also tells us that Joseph is a just man. Scripture says – Being a just man, Joseph knew that if Mary had been unfaithful to him, it would be impossible to go through with the marriage. As his nature as a just man, he did not want her to experience on any unnecessary hardship or stigma. In his justice, Joseph was also compassionate. He wasn't willing to put her to shame. He just wanted to divorce her quietly.
If we look in Luke's gospel, we see that Joseph was from Galilee. Specifically the town of Nazareth. We also see that he was from the house of David. We also learned that Joseph was faithful to the law. When it came time for the purification, they brought Jesus to the temple to be purified and to be presented to the Lord. We also learned that Joseph was a carpenter. In Matthew 15, they refer to Jesus as the carpenter's son. In the same passage, we see that Joseph had other children. He had James, and Joseph, and Simon and Judas. Scripture also refers to Jesus having sisters. So that's at least two. So Joseph fathered at least six children with Mary.
Joseph didn't always understand his son. When the family had left Jerusalem and Jesus was left behind in the temple, the passage tells us that when Mary and Joseph went back to the temple, they didn't understand what it was that Jesus was talking about.
So here we have, with Joseph, a betrothed Galilean carpenter from the line of David, who honored the law, was compassionate and just, fathered at least six children, raised them all with a stepson he didn't really always understand. I think if someone were to ask me to describe a really good guy, Joseph would be it. Think about it. He was a tradesman who taught his son his craft, raised his family, followed the law, and loved his children. He was a man of incredible character.
Sometimes we say character is what we do when others aren't watching. I think character isn't just what you do, it's what others see in you. I have to imagine if there were anyone out there or if any of us were there at the time of the first Christmas and Joseph, if someone were to say, “Who was a man of character,” I really think it would be Joseph.
There's a lot that we can learn from Joseph’s life. We listed a bit of them here. But the one thing that we're going to talk about today that Joseph modeled at the first Christmas was his obedience.
As we look at our passage here, we have Joseph going to bed and he gets woken up in this dream by an angel. Think about some of your dreams. I think a lot of our dreams we really don't remember. But sometimes we have dreams that are really kind of intense. Think about a time maybe you kicked your spouse. You were dreaming you were a mailman, you were trying to get the ankle-biter off your foot. Or you were craving a double-stuffed burrito with extra guacamole and you found yourself standing in front of the fridge at three o'clock in the morning. I’m thinking for Joseph, maybe he was dreaming about something new for his shop. I'm thinking he wanted a really nice planer. Something to smooth out that piece of furniture he was really looking to sell at the next town they stopped in. He’s in this peaceful dream and all of a sudden this angel shows up.
I’m thinking, what was his response? Was it like, “What are you doing in my shop?” I kind of wonder what he was thinking. I mean, did the angel show up and just say, “Hi, I'm Charlie. I'm an angel of the Lord.” Scripture doesn't say who the angel was, but there's some thought that it was the angel Gabriel, the same one that had come to Mary.
The angel comes already knowing what the problem is. The angel tells him and says, “Look, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. The angel knows what's troubling Joseph. Then the angel gets down really to the heart of the issue when the angel says, “The baby that was conceived in her was conceived by the Holy Spirit.” The angel tells him, “What you think is going on isn't what's really going on. Now I'm going to tell you what's what. Look, the child that you're going to have is going to save His people from their sins.”
How did Joseph respond? It says – When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife.
I'm thinking, “Did he wake up like most of us wake up?” You wake up, you got to sort of wipe the sleep from your eyes, you got to stretch, have a cup of coffee before you start and get off and going. I don't know if that's the case here. But the point is, the angel said, “Go” and Jesus said, “Yes.” I'd like to think that if the angel of the Lord came to any of us and the angel said, “Let's go,” we would all say, “Okay, I'm ready to go.”
Here we have Joseph with an instruction from the Lord, He doesn't respond with “yes, but.” He doesn't ask questions like “what if.” He doesn't say, “Well, I think this is going to be really hard if I do this.” He just goes. He doesn't care how hard or how difficult it's going to be. He takes Mary as his wife. They didn't have any relations until after Jesus was born.
He did just as the angel told him to. He didn't evaluate how hard it was going to be. He didn't evaluate the difficulties. He didn't evaluate or consider how he would be ostracized, or what his family would think. He just went. Joseph did all of that. With all of the confusion, the uncertainty, the disappointment, the anger, he did all of it without hesitation. He just obeyed God.
Wouldn’t we all like to have that type of obedience? Where we just go, despite all of the difficulty? The one where we don't trust in ourselves, we don't trust in others, and we only trust in the Lord.
Who here knows what God wants from them? Scripture tells us that God wants us to honor Him and to praise Him and to bring Him glory. We know that from God's word that we're going to be rewarded for how we honor and do God's work here on the earth. I picture where God wants us to be as a light in the darkness. Where everything is completely black and we just see a light here that we're moving towards. Now when I visualize that, I kind of picture the light at the end of the tunnel. Not the light of the train coming to you (even though that's what life can feel like sometimes), but the light at the end of the tunnel. But see, life isn't a tunnel. A tunnel is typically straight. It’s designed to keep what it goes under or what it goes through out. Life moves left and right. It's easy to be obedient when the path is straight and everything is kept outside. But being obedient to God means trusting Him when life isn't straight, when life doesn't seem fair.
I have to imagine when Joseph went to sleep that night, he was thinking life wasn't fair. This lady that was betrothed to be married to him was unfaithful to him. Being obedient to God means trusting Him. Being obedient to God means trusting Him when you want to go left instead of going right.
Joseph was ready to put Mary out. I'm sure he had it all planned out. How he would divorce her, how he would explain it to his family, how he would go about finding a new wife. He had this plan in his head, but God said, “No, not your way, not that way. But go my way instead.”
Being obedient to God means trusting Him when the short term is going to be hard. Joseph was now going to be the husband of an adulterous and wasn't following the law to deal with her. Or he and Mary were going to be known as having relations before they should have. By following God, he was going to have some serious challenges in front of him. Being obedient to God means trusting Him when we have no idea what the outcome is going to be.
If we look ahead in Matthew 2 after the wisemen visited, starting in verse 13, Matthew writes – Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod.
So picture this: The shepherds had come, the wise men bring their gifts. I think after this, Joseph might be thinking, “Alright, this is not going to be such a bad thing. I'm having this child, now people are coming to worship Him.” Then all of a sudden here comes an angel of Lord saying, “No, no, no. You need to go to Egypt.” I wonder if he's thinking, “Egypt? Really? There's no one there I know in Egypt. There's no connection, no family, no job, no place to stay.” God says,
“Go.” What does Joseph say? “Okay, yes, let's go.”
But this wasn't the only time, was it? Because when the angel came to Joseph, again to say, “It's time to leave Egypt to go back to Israel,” he says, “Okay. We're going to Israel.” Gets partway there and the angel says, “Go to Galilee instead.” Each time Joseph just goes. But I'm wondering if at some point is Joseph saying, “Enough is enough with these angels in the dreams. Just tell me plainly where you want me to go.”
Joseph doesn't get enough credit. Mary gets all the props. She gets all the recognition. She's the one that God chose to place Himself in. She's the one that nursed Jesus. She's the one that changed His diapers. But when Gabriel came to her and told her she was pregnant, Mary didn't need to be obedient. God's work was already done in her. Joseph, on the other hand, had to respond to God in the right way. God said, “Go,” and Joseph said, “Yes.”
Who here wants to be obedient like Joseph? I know I do. So the question becomes, what does it take to be obedient?
I came across the story of a mountain climber who really was desperate to climb the Algonquin Peak in Argentina. At 22,000 feet, it is the tallest mountain in the Americas. He spent years preparing for this climb. Finally he heads out one day and he decided he wanted to do it alone. It was something he wanted to accomplish for himself. So he sets out on his climb. He has sort of a plateau he needs to reach so he could set the camp. He starts climbing. But it's getting darker and darker. Clouds started coming in. There was no moon. Clouds came in and covered the stars. It was completely pitch black. As the man was reaching for the ledge where he was going to rest, he slipped on some loose rocks and began to fall. As he's falling, he can't see anything go past him. The only thing I imagine he's seeing is sort of his life flashing before his eyes. Anyone who has been in a really scary experience, you sort of see the good things and the bad things that you've gone through. As he's falling, finally his safety harness catches and snaps him to a stop. I have to imagine it's quite jolting. One of those sorts of things where you sort of feel around and make sure everything is still attached and where it's supposed to be. But he's hanging there and he's sort of reaching out in the darkness. This is total complete darkness. If you've ever been in the darkness where there's no ambient light, it is dark. Pitch black. Your eyes can't even focus. He is there reaching out. He can't feel anything other than the rope.
He thinks for a minute, “What am I going to do here? Who's going to help? I'm going to cry out to God.” So he says, “God, God, please help me. Please save me.”
God responds to him and He says, “Save you. Do you really believe that I can save you?”
The man says, “Yes. You’re God. I know that you can save me.”
God tells him, “Cut the rope.” The guy sits there and thinks. I imagine silence. He just can't bring himself to do this. He just holds on to the rope tighter and tighter, afraid that he’s going to fall further. The cold finally takes hold of him and he slips into unconsciousness.
The next day when he doesn't check in, the Argentinian government sends out rescuers to go find him. As they start approaching the base of the mountain, they see something off in the distance that they really can't identify. It looks kind of strange. So as they walk out, as they get closer and closer, they see the man in his harness, gripped onto the rope, two feet off the ground.
Being obedient is hard. But if we get anything from Joseph’s life, it’s that obedience to God is always possible. So what do we do?
First, we need to recognize, like I said, that obedience is possible. It's not possible because it's easy. It's possible because we have a loving God that we can place all of our trust in. We have a God that knows all things and works out all things for those who honor Him. It's possible because we have a God with infinite wisdom that's infinitely good, that provides infinite counsel and infinite understanding. It's possible because we don't need to know the why or the how because God has already figured all of that out for us.
Second, we need to recognize that being obedient will be hard. See, we're obedient all of the time. We drive on the right. If we play games, we follow the rules. When we were kids, we listened to our parents (most of the time). We're obedient all the time. But it seems that with God, more often than we'd like to admit, we're unwilling to take that step. Sometimes when God says, “Go,” we respond with, “Well, that's impossible.” It's not that it's impossible. It's that it's hard. It's hard because God's ways aren't our ways. We’re selfish. We're prideful. We want what we want when we want it. We try to rationalize that when God calls us to go.
Imagine if Joseph took the easy route. Imagine if he didn't stay with Mary. Imagine if he didn't flee to Egypt. Imagine if he didn't return. Each one of these instructions for Joseph weren't easy. They were hard to do. Because they had hard, sometimes painful consequences.
There'll be times when we're chugging along, where we feel like the road is flat, we feel like we're in that tunnel, and everything is kept to the side, and we're just moving to that light. And then God says, “I want you to go that way instead.” You look at the path and it looks like you're about to go through a swamp. We can be obedient. Sometimes obedience is hard. But we know that we can do it because God carries us through.
Third, we need to recognize that being obedient takes courage. Courage isn't a natural virtue. We gain courage two ways. One, we learn it. The other way is God provides it for us. Courage is the strength to face consequences of an action.
Take, for example, American football. You need courage to play that game. Picture yourself as a running back. You’re there, the quarterback hands you the ball, the line opens up, you're ready to punch through, and there's a 6’2”, 250-pound linebacker ready to take your head off. You need to have courage to face that tackle. But the courage you've gotten you've learned because your coach has taught you how to move, how to take a hit so you won't get hurt. The courage is developed from years of playing and developing skills on how to move.
The courage that Joseph displayed from God wasn't learned. He didn't have the experience of how to handle the situation, how to keep Mary as his wife, how to move from Egypt, to Israel, and then to Galilee. You see, when you feel God wants you to move in a direction you're not prepared for, that's okay, because God has already prepared you. He has given you the courage to do it. So there's no fear in obeying because God has given you the strength. The courage to face the unknown comes from God.
The final thing to recognize is that your courage and being obedient will impact others. There's nothing in scripture that says being obedient to God needs to be something huge. Like being Jesus’ stepfather. It could be something as humbling as working with ChoiceOne or working with Restoring Hearts. Or it can be something bigger in your lives, like working as a missionary. Either way, your obedience to God impacts others. Because when God says to go, you've said yes. Those are direct impacts.
But there's also an indirect impact as well. Think about how others will view your obedience to God. You may have some friends that say, “You're crazy to do that.” When I've told people I was leaving my job to become a pastor, I had more than one strange look. But there will be others that will see your faithfulness to God's word. They will see that there is something different about you because you're following God. They will see you living out the gospel.
Christianity is not for the weak. Think about the obedience of the first disciples. When Jesus said, “Follow me,” what did they do? Peter and Andrew just dropped their nets and they left. They didn't say, “Yes, but can I just” first. Think about how Jesus responded when someone said that to Him. He said – “Let the dead bury their dead.” Christianity is a way of life that demands us to be obedient to God. Joseph model that for us. Compared to many men in the Bible, Joseph is the one that demonstrated unwavering commitment to the Lord. I think that's pretty impressive for a carpenter.
One thing that amazes me is that we can learn so much from Joseph, yet scripture doesn't say that he spoke a word. Obviously he spoke, but there is no words at all for Joseph. Just by his actions he demonstrated that it's possible to obey God with breathtaking, unquestionable obedience.
In a society where adultery and harlotry had come at such a high price, it would have been easier for Joseph just to put Mary away. How many times do we want to do what's easy? However, we as Christians aren't called to do the easy thing. We're not even called to do the hard thing. We're called to do the right thing. The right thing, as in Joseph's case, is to be obedient to God. Sometimes it's easy. A lot of times it's hard. But we overcome the hard with the courage that we get from God.
Joseph is the unsung hero of Christ's early life. Through obedience, he impacted Mary, he impacted Jesus, he impacted the other children, and I think he impacted Jesus’ entire ministry.
You may be thinking right now, “I don't know if I can. I don't know if I can be obedient like Joseph.” Just remember, when we're obedient, God gives us the courage despite how hard it seems. But all we need to do is listen and follow.
