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Worship Reading:
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Introduction
We are in our Characters of Christmas series, and today we are looking at Joseph.
This is a quiet man in Scripture.
We don’t have a record of anything he says.
But his actions tell us so much about being a godly leader in a home.
Our homes need more godly men.
We live in a society where fatherhood is under attack.
Fathers are often portrayed in comedy shows as dumb.
Over half of marriages today end in divorce, and women are attempting to carry the role of mother and father.
Men are abandoning their responsibilities as husbands and fathers in their households.
Boys are growing up without a man in the home, and generations do not know what it is like to have a godly father in the household.
Our families are in desperate need of godly fathers.
We need to turn this tide, and it can’t wait for someone else.
We need to raise our young men to honor God with their marriages and families.
Joseph is an example we can point to.
He is a picture of someone who led his home as a godly father.
We are going to read in Matthew 1:18-25:
Scripture Reading
Pray
We know a few things about Joseph.
He shows up mainly in Matthew’s Gospel, and Luke mentions him there as well.
We know Joseph and lived and led his family at least until Jesus was twelve.
Many scholars believe that he probably passed away before Jesus’ ministry began, because he is not pictured in Scripture as present during or after Jesus’ ministry.
But Joseph’s example during the early part of Jesus’ life shows us a clear example of how to be a lead in your home.
It shows it in three ways.
First,
Be a leader in your home by choosing compassion towards others.
Joseph led in his home by choosing compassion toward Mary.
Matt.
1:19
Something that stands out about Joseph is his character to choose compassion in a tense circumstance.
Take a look at Matthew 1:18-19:
As you are reading Matthew 1, in understanding Joseph, you need to go full stop after verse 19.
These two verses are an amazing insight into the character and leadership of Joseph.
To paint a picture, Mary is probably a young woman of child-bearing age.
We are not sure of Joseph’s age at this time.
He could have been young like Mary, or likely a bit older.
But what is going through his mind?
We know that he was engaged to Mary.
In first-century Jewish society:
Marriages were arranged by parents.
After contracts arranged, considered married and called husband and wife
They did not begin to live with each other.
Woman continued to live with her parents for one year, and the man with his
Waiting period demonstrated the faithfulness of the pledge of purity of the bride
If she was found pregnant during this time, she was not pure and had been involved in an unfaithful sexual relationship.
The marriage could be annulled.
If after the waiting period the bride was pure, the husband would go to the bride’s parents and lead his bride back to his home in a grand processional march.
There they would begin to live with each other and begin their marriage physically.
Now, when Joseph found out about Mary’s pregnancy, and we don’t know how he found about, probably Mary told him, what kind of emotions could go through Joseph?
He would be disappointed.
He would be upset.
He could be angry.
There are things Joseph could have done.
He could have chosen to make a big show of it.
He could have marched into the parents home, pronounced Mary’s unfaithfulness, talked about it in the town with his friends, spread his anger about the situation and the injustice of what happened to him.
But instead, If you look carefully again at verse 19, It says:
There is a caveat here thrown in about his character.
Joseph was a righteous man.
He was a man of ethics and held to a godly moral standard.
But what was the evidence of his ethics?
Your character is shown by the things you choose to do in your family.
Joseph chose compassion by not wanting to disgrace her publicly.
He could have chosen to spread to others in and around his family stories about her unfaithfulness.
There are three things we see here about Joseph’s choice for compassion:
1.
His compassion was not without accountability.
Joseph’s choice for compassion does not mean that there would be no accountability.
He was not facilitating her unfaithfulness.
It says he decided to divorce her secretly.
What does that mean?
It means that Joseph’s choice for compassion still meant accountability for Mary’s decision.
2. His compassion combined accountability with grace.
Joseph didn’t use Mary’s perceived unfaithfulness to hit her over the head publicly.
His actions show there is a way to combine compassion with grace.
His decision involved, “I need to do the right thing in holding her accountable.”
She would be held accountable.
“Yet, how can I do the right thing in a compassionate way towards Mary”
3. His compassion was shown by considering what was best for Mary.
Here is how he shows compassion.
Joseph is in a bad scenario.
There is no way around it.
This is not a comfortable decision.
Joseph chooses a path where Mary would be held accountable - he is not facilitating her actions by going along with them.
What were the options for Mary?
The option according to the Law was to stone Mary.
She would be a woman considered caught in unfaithful adultery.
The Law in Deut.
22:20-21 prescribed a public stoning for young Mary.
But Joseph chooses compassion by making a decision that chooses the best option out of a bad scenario for young Mary.
He wouldn’t parade her shame around.
He wouldn’t insist on the letter of the law.
Instead, Joseph is a righteous man because he considered a best solution for Mary in a hard scenario over his own hurt feelings.
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