Heart of Christmas-Part I

It is no surprise if you have been at Cornerstone for some time that Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I have always liked Christmas time. Growing up there were always those Christmas favorites that would come out. Rudolph the Red nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, the Grinch, A Christmas Carol, oh and who can forget A Charlie Brown Christmas. Now most Christmas movies and Christmas themes revolve around the idea of one thing, a persons heart being changed. There is always someone within the story who has the wrong impression of themselves, someone else or even just contemplating what the holiday is all about. I have to say there is something to having a heart for Christmas and for the next few weeks we will take a look at what the heart of Christmas is and my prayer through this series as wonderful as it is to commemorate a time or a season to having this change of heart that this heart of Christmas shouldn't just end on December 26th but it should continue each and everyday.

Our study of the heart of Christmas revolves around 5 separate characters involved in Jesus' birth. We will look be looking at Mary, His mother, Zacharias, His Uncle, The Angels, His Messengers, Simeon His Minister and this morning we will begin with Joseph, His Adopted Father. Joseph is for the most part like most men overlooked at the birth of Jesus. Especially in today's society most people would just love to paint Joseph out of the picture and elevate Mary as a women who was strong and didn't need a man to raise her son. Well those people are wrong and I know this because of the passage we are going to look at this morning not only shows us how important it is to have a husband and a father but it also shows us God's character along with the character all people should have when it comes to serving God and man. The heart of Christmas is one of Faithfulness

Have a Faithful heart for serving God and protecting His People

Let's go ahead and look at Matthew 1:18-25;

Matthew 1:18–25 NASB95

18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. 19 And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. 20 But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21 “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” 22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.” 24 And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, 25 but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.

The beginning of this chapter is a genealogy of Jesus that begins with David the King of Israel. From David we have this long line of people that brings us to Joseph. This is to trace Jesus' lineage back to David, to His royal line. The gospel of Matthew provides the theme of Jesus as King. So naturally we begin with tracing His royal lineage. Luke is the only other gospel that provides the genealogy of Jesus and Luke's intent is to trace Jesus back to Adam, because Luke is providing for us Jesus' humility. So it comes as no surprise that Matthew goes from providing the royal line to coming to the next in line which is Joseph.

Look with me at verse 18, "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit." Here we have the Matthew's birth narrative and it is different from Luke's in the fact that Luke's provides more detail about the conception and the birth of Jesus because he focuses more on Jesus' humility but since Matthew is more focused on Jesus' Kingship so there is little detail about His birth we have one sentence at the beginning about His conception and one at the end of this passage about His birth and the flow and the importance here is the calling and commissioning of a faithful man of God, Joseph.

Joseph in this passage proves to be a man who is a faithful servant and faithful to God's word. That is the first element of a faithful heart I want to look at,

Being Faithful to Serve.

Being Faithful to Serve

Let's look at verses 19-21, Matthew writes for us, "And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. 20 But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, 'Joseph, Son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in here is of the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.'" Now we Joseph as a faithful servant to God in verse 19 when Matthew describes him as 'being a righteous man.' The idea behind this description puts Joseph in the category of a man you trusted and served God and His commandments. Joseph knew the Law and he knew what he should do. In fact he was well with in his right to have Mary stoned to death because of her infidelity but as the text tells us he didn't want to 'disgrace her.' This is an incredible godly character. Joseph was showing Mercy on Mary.

That is what a faithful servant does. Yes God has provided for us instructions in Deuteronomy to stone people caught in adultery,

Deuteronomy 22:23–24 NASB95

23 “If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her, 24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.

So here we have the prescription and now we don't know how Joseph found out she was pregnant, we don't know if she was starting to show by now, or if Elizabeth had something, or even if Mary had told Joseph herself. It doesn't matter how he found out it only matter has he reacted to the news and how he saw Mary, being a faithful man of God he didn't just blindly follow laws but thought through the situation and demonstrated mercy on the woman he loved.

It is funny and a bit ironic, I find God uses irony a lot. The religious leaders of the day tried to use a similar situation to trip Jesus up. In John's Gospel we find this situation;

John 8:2–11 NASB95

2 Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, 4 they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. 5 “Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?” 6 They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. 7 But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. 10 Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.”

There is so much wrong here with the trickery. first of all they are all in the temple when they bring the women in who they caught, question, where is the man? They aren't holding to the law they only bring in the woman. Jesus says it so well and we see the mercy of God on the woman in verse 7. Here is the man who is considered a product of adultery and still He puts this so called righteous people to serious shame. They have no ground to condemn and neither did Joseph. He understood his own stance and position before God and he also understood his stands and position before God was the same as Mary's, sinners. Still Joseph demonstrated a heart of faithful serves to his God and didn't have her stoned but planned to send her off in secret.

It was only after this decision was made that God sent his angel to Joseph in a dream to instruct him on what to do. The instruction are difficult for man to take or at least in Joseph's day because it was a serious stigma for her to have a child out of wedlock and for him to claim paternity of the child. Listen that is how it goes with God, God is counter cultural and He asks us to do things that go against the norm of societal ways. If He didn't ask us to do difficult things like, for Joseph to take Mary as his wife and raise Jesus as his own, then it wouldn't require faith and trust that God is sovereign and in complete control of all things. A faithful servant will serve God even when it will be tough, even when they are bucking the trend.

Being Faithful to His Word

In verses 22-23 Matthew gives us a little side note here. He writes, "Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet; 23 "Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel," which translated means, "God with us." The side note comes from Matthew but you can be sure that a righteous, faithful servant like Joseph would have known what God's word said. I don't want you to miss this though. Joseph's faithful heart is in God's faithful promise. God in His Word has made this promise of the coming of His chosen One, Messiah or Christ which both mean the same thing anointed which simply means chosen. God had spoken through the mouth of Isaiah that a there will one day be a sign, here is that sign look with me at the original prophecy;

Isaiah 7:14 NASB95

14 “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.

This is a sign, it is a miraculous sign because outside of modern science how can a women who is a virgin, meaning never being with a man at all, bear a child. This is the child they have been waiting for. He is not just some man who comes speaking for God like the prophets of the passed He is the incarnate Christ, God who took on flesh. Not God speaking through a man with dreams and visions but God Himself walking and talking with the people of Israel. He is the fulfillment of God's word and He is God's word and Joseph is a faithful man to God's word.

He is faithful in the respect that he knows what God's word says, he knows what God's word is pointing to and he knows that God has sent him a message to continue to faithful serve Him by being faithful to His Word.

God didn't tell Joseph how things would turn out, God didn't spell out for him exactly what would happen. He didn't say follow me in this and life will be easy. No, God simply told him what to do and Joseph was faithful to God in serving Him and faithful to God knowing that His Word is true and righteous. He know it would be difficult but he also knew God doesn't lie and He always keeps His promises. Here was God's promise coming forth through the baby Jesus and Joseph was asked to be faithful in serving and to be faithful to Mary as His wife and to Jesus as His Father.

Being Faithful to Protect

That is exactly what Joseph did and in this he also proved to be a faithful protector. Verses 24-25 read, "And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angle of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, 25 but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus." Do you see the heart of this faithful man. He took Mary as his wife. This means her took her under his care and took on the responsibility of being her husband and drawing on himself the stigma of being an adulterer. Now he had to protect his wife from the community because he knew the truth but how does one go about protecting someone who is pregnant with the Savior of the world. Well later in Matthew Herod puts out an order to have all the male boys two years old and younger, but God sent an angel to Joseph to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt and of course they were protected. He also raised Jesus, providing him with a trade and lesson in righteousness, not that Jesus needed that but it is important for men to be the spiritual leaders and protectors of their homes. God made sure Jesus had not only a mother but a father too. This father is the one who leads and teaches and he does this from a faithful heart.

We can all learn a lot from Joseph in being faithful. We need to be faithful servants of God, we do this by being faithful to His Word and that simply means reading, and studying it. Knowing His promises and knowing what He asks of us. We need to also protect His word and we need to protect those in our lives by being faithful to them. Being around when they need us and being an ear to listen to and being an encouragement when they are down and correcting them with God's word not your own opinion when they are in sin, do with mercy and love not with stones and spears.

As we are now entering this Christmas season see examine your heart in faithfulness.