Satan's Rebellion Or Obeying God's Design: Joseph Obeyed God, What Is Your Choice?

Today we gaze through the window of obedience. And we see the historical Christmas saga in how it plays out for an average everyday human named Joseph. Joseph is a bit of a mystery to us. We get a few mentions of him in scripture. We know he’s a carpenter. We know he lived in Nazareth. We know he was engaged to be wed to Mary. We know he planned to divorce her. And we know that he fell asleep and had a vision of an angel who told him he should marry her, because the child within her was from God.

Does all this seem wild and strange to you? I know it does for me. It’s just odd, the entire historical account. But I know I believe every word of it. It’s interesting, I can’t quite explain it. But I do understand why it’s difficult for some people to comprehend.

I understand why it's hard to believe in Jesus. It's actually outside our common thinking processes as humans. At least it appears that way at first. It's mystical, esoteric, and it "feels" foreign to our thinking. That's by design actually, if you were taught in the public schools, a very secular mindset is programmed into you, developed by people like John Dewey. If religiously based philosophical ideas seem foreign to your mindset, yes, it's by design.

But then again, there's something else at work in religious thought.

This may seem very odd to you, but stay with me, within Christianity, God has placed a catch to displace the arrogant, the self-righteous, and those enamored by their own genius. The Bible calls it a stumbling block. Check this out: It's actually designed to appear fantastical.

I kid you not. It's intentionally playing out in strange and mysterious ways to trip up people who are arrogant and prone to sneer.

Why exactly is this stumbling block set up? I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps to prevent false converts? I can only speculate.

But it's written out like this, in 1st Corinthians, and it helps us to understand why the Christmas saga seems so strange.

"Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. 28 God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. 29 As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God." -1st Corinthians 1:27-29 NLT

That makes it difficult. And it's apparently supposed to be difficult. One could call it a miracle even. And that’s indeed what happened that night two thousand years ago in the middle-east, in a small city called Bethlehem. A miraculous event took place, something that broke the laws of nature temporarily.

I often wonder to myself, why do so many refuse to follow Jesus? Why are so many so determined to live in hell?

But this question, the source of it, it goes to the nature of reality, the universe, and everything.

We are all always answering a question, and making a choice every single day, to either align ourselves with God's master design or to rebel. And to rebel is insanity. There is no escape from God. There is no victory over his power. There is nowhere to go. It's madness. The other choice is of course to obey God. To change, and live by God’s ways. It’s our topic today, it’s called “obedience.” No one likes that word, do they? No, they don’t.

But it goes to the issue of freedom, free will. The fundamental issue is free will: What will I choose? What will you choose? Life or death? Obedience or rebellion? The entire construct of our current fallen reality seems set up to pose the question to us over and over. Life or death? Obedience or rebellion? And we make the choice everyday.

Yet we're caught in a state of fallenness, default, as a rebel. And somehow we must turn ourselves to God, and access that power, and experience a rebirth, in which we follow a new way, the way of truth.

And it does end. Our window of opportunity is between birth and death. Most have already made it.

8 billion people, the question before all of us, what choice shall we make?

When we look to the example of Joseph, we see a gentle, impressive, complete obedience. Joseph simply did what God commanded. And that is astonishing. It’s not the normal. It’s the exception to the rule. He married the pregnant woman. He cared for her. He raised Jesus as his own son. And then he disappeared. In the gospels we see mention of Mary, Jesus’ mom throughout the gospels. But no mention of Joseph. Many believe he died somehow during Jesus’ upbringing. Very interesting.