This is #2 in a series I am preaching called Christmas Originals. This sermon can also be preached as a stand alone without the series with no problem. There are powerpoint slides available. (see notes at the end)
When you think of famous couples who comes to mind?
I have heard a variety of answers this week as I have asked people that question.
Some have said
Ricky & Lucy
Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz…
That’s a famous couple
Someone else said The Regans ..Ronald and Nancy.
From the world of politics they certainly are a famous couple.
Someone else Sonny & Cher was a famous couple.
One young girl I asked even said Ken & Barbie.
Are a famous couple and one young boy said.
Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
And who could argue with answers like that….
All of those are well known couples…
What about from the Bible..
what famous couples do you think of from the Scripture?
Of course Adam & Eve
Samson & Delilah
Ruth & Boaz they are sort of a famous biblical couple
And who could forget Abraham & Sarah -
Or David & Bathsheba
But perhaps there is no more intriguing couple in all of Scripture than the original Christmas couple of Joseph & Mary.
The gift they would share together was a gift of God’s grace in the choosing of these two individuals to be mother and father to the Christ child.
The Savior of all the earth.
The gift and the grace by which God chose them did not come however without great challenge.
Let me invite you this morning to use your imagination and for just a moment imagine what it must have been like to be one of these two figures of this most famous…… original couple of Christmas.
To have walked in their shoes in this most precious thing that God chose Joseph & Mary to do.
(play Josephs Quil Movie Clip _ Use an Optional Movie clip with Joseph and Mary)
What would it be like to have God chose you to parent the Savior of the world.
Let’s see how God was at work in the life of Joseph & Mary…
(Mt 1)
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.
If you think that you have awesome and challenging responsibilities to attend in your life …..imagine
The task set before these two.
A task given to them technically before they were even entirely married…although the Bible tells us they were pledged or betrothed to one another.
So how much do we really know about these two that could be called the most famous couple in all of scripture….The original Christmas Couple
Consider Joseph – We probably know even less about him that we do his helpmate Mary.
Mt 1:16 tells us that Joseph’s father’s name was Jacob.
Mt 13:55 tells us that Joseph was a carpenter…
one working with wood.
The first 17 verses of MT chapter 1 trace Jesus’ genealogy as showing Joseph to clearly be of the family line of David.
Yet perhaps the best thing we can say about Joseph recorded in the Scripture are the words of
Mt 1:19 were the Bible calls him a righteous man.
But what about Mary
Although I would certainly call Mary the most well known woman of all the Bible…We really don’t know a whole lot about the mother of Jesus.
We know that she was the young daughter of a Jewish family, probably a poor family and she clearly was tied to the ancestry of David.
Most agree historically that Mary was likely somewhere around the age of 15 when she was betrothed to Joseph.
We can be certain of the truth about Mary that she was submissive and full of faith concerning God’s will.
When she was told by the angel Gabriel that she would be would conceive a child of God…her response was..
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,”… “May it be to me as you have …said
So God chose these two…
Two individuals full of righteousness and a love for God.
God chose them to be the parents to the child who would truly bring God’s love to all people.
Consider with me three things this morning about the Original Christmas Couple Joseph & Mary.
Consider
The Test of Their Faith
Their Trust in the Father
And
Their Triumph Over the Future.
First of all consider
I. The Test of Their Faith
V 18 says of Mary
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.
Suppose God delivered a message to you…that He was about to do something in your life that by man’s understanding would be
Inconceivable
Unexplainable
and basically just Unbelievable
A Miracle.
What if I shared with you tomorrow that God had given me a message that I was going to be able to fly – to float through the air without the help or aid of any mechanism other than just my own body.
Now some of you would probably say
“I think he’s still a nice guy, but some psychiatric care might do him some good.”
After all people don’t just go around saying that God has given them the ability to fly.
That just sounds pretty crazy….
But to put things into perspective what Joseph and Mary were about to have God involve them in would have seemed to the people around them as nothing less than crazy.
The thought that Mary would be with child without ever having been with a man…
To most the very mention of it would have seemed ludicrous.
The people would have sneered and said
“impossible!”
Yet we need to remember that the Bible says with God…all things are possible.
What would Joesph and Mary believe?
What would they tell their parents?
What would they tell their friends?
Would those skeptics around them have faith enough to believe what God had chosen to do?
God chose Joseph and Mary because He saw the faith they had but he knew through what God was about to do…that their faith would grow even more.
Just because Mary and Joseph would become the parents of the Christ Child…it did NOT promise them an easy road.
As a matter of fact their faith was tested to extreme measure.
God did not create any miracle to exempt them from making that required journey to Bethlehem.
God did not provide 5 star accommodations for this original Christmas couple on that night they needed desperately to find lodging because Mary was about to give birth.
God did not exempt them from some very severe tests in their faith. Yet Joseph and Mary trusted God because they knew whatever His plan was …they could trust it.
Although you and I may have surrendered our lives and we may have chosen to live for God each day it does not promise us that things will always be smooth sailing or a bed of roses.
We too will still see the tests…. of our faith at times.
But we can do like Joseph and Mary did in the Test of Their Faith and we can be certain to
II. Trust in the Father
Joseph and Mary were faced with some magnificent and yet sort of mysterious news in what God was doing through them.
Look again at verse 21
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.”
Can’t you imagine Joseph & Mary introducing their children and saying and this is Jesus, He is our son but He is also the Son of God.
I am sure all the mother’s and fathers around Joseph and Mary would respond by simply saying…
“Oh really , isn’t that’s nice.”
Think about Joseph and Mary as parents for a moment.
They were to raise a son who was the Savior of the world …a son not conceived of man but brought about through the power of God.
Although they were convinced this was God’s plan.
I am quite certain they often wondered just how things would take shape.
There are all kinds of people in the world who will give you advice on raising children.
There are a million and one books on the subject and videos and seminars and all sorts of stuff…
But wait a minute this wasn’t 2005 this was a time and day quite different from ours.
I am sure there was still plenty of advice from others available on raising your children shared in verbal form....but who could lead Joseph and Mary in how to raise….. the Son of God?
When we need to know the way of something my friends…. we can always… trust the father.
What was true of Joseph and Mary’s day is still true of this day … when no one else has answers for us….
When no one else seems to understand…
When no else seems to care….
it is our TRUST IN THE FATHER that will never fail us.
I can almost imagine Joseph and Mary having a conversation and saying to one another …
”Yes’ we know this is all true but how do we
explain it to others…”
“How will others react to us and our Son…of God”
Joseph & Mary could not look to science for security in sharing with others this was real.
They couldn’t look to society for an encouraging word to say them
“well this just has to be God at work.”
They could only look to the supreme maker of heaven and earth and all that is in it. They could look to the heavenly Father and trust Him.
We need to understand this in the life that we each live.
There will be times… that will seem as though no one understands.
There will be times… when no one seems sympathetic.
There will be times… when no one on earth has the answer we are looking for.
The encouragement we seek is absent…
We can still find our hope and our comfort in the Heavenly Father who is our trust in any and all tests we face in life.
There was never a day that went by in the life of Joseph and Mary that they could not look to the Father and trust Him for their needs.
Physical, Emotional and Spiritual
Nor is their ever a day that you or I face where our trust in the Father will ever fail us.
What ever it is… that is weighing you down in this holiday season…wearing on your mind …or wearing our your emotions….
Why not turn it totally over to Him and say
“Through this test of faith…I choose to trust My Heavenly Father.”
Joseph and Mary as that original Christmas couple
Saw the tests in their faith.
They clung to their Trust in the Father
And they found their Triumph Over the Future.
Joseph and Mary found …
III. Their Triumph Over the Future
What Joseph & Mary knew from the words of the prophets…. of a Messiah who was coming…
they now knew with their own eyes and most of all with their own hearts that the Hope of all people …had come.
Now, no matter what they faced in any of the days ahead.
They had seen the face of God in their child of God …who would even deliver them from their sins.
Joseph and Mary had come to the realization that each of us must come to in our lives and that is …
If we have Jesus …we really…ultimately have no problems…but only one marvelous solution.
A Savior whose name is Jesus.
Our only… “ultimate problem”… in life is where
are we going to spend eternity.
I know we have some things that give us a lot of strife here on earth…diseases, debts, day to day disappointments that sometimes come…
But really all of that is trivial…
It is where we are going to spend eternity that really matters.
We all have tough times in our lives but one day time will be no more and it will be our time to be forever with God.
Though some days were tough as nails for Joseph and Mary. They knew now that there was one who had come to free them from their sins and secure their relationship with God forever.
Romans 8:28 says that God is working all things together for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Joseph and Mary knew that God had called them to this place in their lives for a magnificent purpose…and they knew no matter what….
that they were safely in God’s plan.
Do you know… that you are safely… in God’s plan.
Just as Joseph & Mary knew they had Triumph over all things because of Jesus…
Do you know that you have a triumph over all the future.
It only comes through faith in God and trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior …Your Savior..
Have you said yes… to a triumphal future?
Have you said yes to Jesus?
Today is the test of your faith.
Will you trust the Father who sent His Son…
And find Jesus as your triumph over all the future.
One thing is needful…your response.
This is part of the
Christmas Sermon Series
"Original Christmas"
#1 Original Christmas Missionaries - Shepherds Nov 27
#2 Original Christmas Couple - Joseph & Mary Dec 4
#3 Original Christmas Ornament - Christmas Star Dec 11
#4 Original Christmas Announcement - Angels Dec 18
#5 Original Christmas Tree - Cross Dec 25
Their are powerpoint slides available at mtpbc.com and click on the pastors corner link.
None of the material in the powerpoint images or content is copryrighted.
