JOSEPH: TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL

JOSEPH: TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL Matthew 1:18-25 December 17,  2000 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introductory There was a story published a couple years ago about a woman who was quite upset that the time had gotten away from her and now, with Christmas only about a week away, she had not sent her Christmas cards out. So she hurried by the card shop on the way to work, thinking she might be able to get the cards, sign and address them and mail them over her lunch hour. She dashed in just as the store opened, quickly found 2 boxes of nice cards at a good price, with a picture of a snowy village, a horse and sleigh sauntering through the scene, and lots of red and green splashes. As planned she was able to sign and send 39 out of the 40 cards before her lunch break ended. And a co-worker who was going to the post office agreed to take them for her. She felt quite goo about her accomplishment until that night at home. She opened the one remaining card and read the message on the inside: "Sending this little note to say.a special gift is on the way. Merry Christmas!" This morning's message is the third in a series I've chosen to call "Touched by an Angel." We've noted how popular the whole idea of angels is these days, mentioning as evidence the high ratings the TV show by that name has enjoyed. I want to mention that this evening's episode of "Touched by an Angel" features the wonderful work of the "Angel Tree" program, which is sponsored by Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship ministry. Many of you in this room have participated in this program this month by purchasing gifts for the children of prison inmates. Even as your gifts are being delivered by the local volunteers, the Angel Tree ministry will be featured tonight at 7:00, on CBS. Hebrews 1:14 - "Are not angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who sill inherit salvation?" In several instances, visiting with folks lately, I've heard fascinating stories about encounters with angels who have helped individuals. Once again, in our text today, we find an angel about his principle work-delivering a message. An angel has come to Joseph, a carpenter in Nazareth to bring him a message that is arriving just in time-a message that will keep him from divorcing his betrothed. Consideration of the Narrative Matthew 1:18-19 - "This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they come together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace he had in min to divorce her quietly." Joseph has been called "the forgotten man of Christmas" because even though he plays a key role in Mary's and Jesus' life, you don't hear much from or about him. In fact, did you know that not one word of dialogue from Joseph is found in the biblical record? Even when the angel brings this word of reassurance to him and tells him to take Mary as his wife, there isn't a word out of him-simply quiet acquiescence. 1. JOSEPH WAS A RIGHTEOUS AND REASONABLE MAN Now Joe had found himself in quite a dilemma. His fiancée was discovered to be pregnant, and he had nothing to do with it, because their relationship had been completely chaste. The law allowed-and virtually required-Joseph to divorce her. (In fact, the law allowed that the disgraced bride was to be taken out of town and stoned to death, although there is no record of that ever actually taking place.) Remember now, that betrothal in those days was a lot more serious matter than being engaged today. If you were betrothed, it was just as if you were husband and wife already, but you were waiting, usually many months, for the day of the wedding. At that time the bride and groom began to live together in conjugal relationship. Betrothal, though was held in high regard and the commitments agreed to were so binding, that to break off the wedding actually required a divorce. As we catch up with the story at verse 18, Joseph is considering how he can divorce Mary quietly so as to minimize the disgrace she would face, even though she had evidently cheated on him. In fact, he thought, she not only cheated on me, but she also made up this incredible story about a divine conception. This was not the Mary he knew, he kept saying to himself. He had made up his mind; he was regrettably going to sever the betrothal, but he didn't want to hurt Mary in the process. Verse 19 says he was a righteous man and that was why he was being so kind to her. I think we're given this bit of insight into Joseph's character so we can know what kind of a man God can count on. The job God had carved out for Joseph was not going to be an easy one. He needed to be the kind of man who would be able to face trials and not lose his cool, a reasonable man who would remain level-headed in a crisis. He would have to be the kind of a man who was more interested in fairness than retaliation. Somewhere along the line he had learned the important lesson taught at Deuteronomy 32:35, where the Lord says, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay." Though as far as he knew Mary had scorned and cheated on him, he still didn't want her to be hurt-he knew vengeance was not his but the Lord's. So Joseph had pretty much made up his mind what he was going to do. Enter the angel of the Lord who was about to appear to him in a dream and outline a different plan. Verses 20-23 - "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. 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.' All this took place to fulfill what the Lord has said through the prophet: 'The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel'-which means 'God with us.'" Our angel in this account is not named. It could have been Gabriel again, who had appeared to Zechariah and to Mary, but we're not told. But there is another difference between Joseph's angel encounter and the other two. This time the angel comes to him in a dream. This was not unusual-Jacob had seen angels in a dream going up and down a ladder into heaven. This is apparently God's chosen method for Joseph, though, because an angel would visit him in dreams twice more in Matthew 2. Maybe Joseph just heard better in his dreams? How do you deal with dreams? If you can remember them at all, is there ever any valid message from God in them? I had someone about a month ago call me and relate the details of a dream he had had. It was bizarre! After the dream was fully described the individual said, "What do you think God was saying through that dream?" I had to confess utter ignorance. God does not usually speak to us in dreams. But He can and does sometimes. How do we know when it is God? I don't have a precision answer to that question, but one thing is sure-when the angel appeared to Joseph in the dream, he was convinced it was real! And I suspect that if any of us had an angelic visitation while we were sleeping, we would be certain as well. May I add another comment concerning the many and varied ways God communicates to us. You may hear from God in ways unique to only you. God may make impressions on others in completely different ways. If you know God has spoken to you, that is for YOU. No one else is obligated to believe your story. And you are not obligated to run out and share everything God speaks to you. Sometimes I wonder if we aren't so starved of hearing from God because we never stop and listen to Him. Then when He does speak to us we're so surprised we feel we have to run out and brag about it. Listen, what God says to you is for YOU, and not for others. He never speaks to us so that we can impress others with our revelation experience. Paul said he had many spiritual experiences that were quite extraordinary, but it was not his place to share all those with others. Why? Because that kind of response brushes very close to pride and arrogance. You who are prophetically gifted and particularly proned to hear from God, watch closely, because not everything you hear is something for you to share with others. Much of what you hear is for you only, for you to pray. When He has given you something to share with others, you will know it, and you are obligated to share it, but not in such a way that draws attention to yourself. God alone deserves glory. 2. JOSEPH WOULD BE A GOOD FATHER Before we move on from verse 21, would you notice what the angel says about Jesus' name? Gabriel had told Mary that her son would be great and would be called the Son of the Most High, that he would be given the throne of his father, David, that he would reign over the house of Jacob forever, and that his kingdom would never end. But, to Joseph, God sends a more specific message, "he will be named THE LORD SAVES because he will save his people from their sins." I want to look at the meaning of that specific message more in a moment or two. But first, why would God entrust this important element of the mission of Jesus to Joseph? Could it be because Joseph, like other men around him, might have been tempted to see his son, the Messiah, and Israel's political deliverer? That Jesus would establish an earthly kingdom? That Jesus would be their ticket out of the cruel Roman domination? Could it be that Joseph might have otherwise been tempted to treat his son as a privileged royalty instead of raising his as a son? Many other men would misunderstand Jesus in this way in the next thirty years! But God had chosen Joseph, this man of character, because He wanted such deep and genuine godly character chiseled into the boy Jesus, so that the man Jesus would be fully mature and obedient to His real Father. Picture the carpenter's shop. There is Joseph working hard and modeling as every Jewish father taught his trade to his sons. And there is Jesus, every day, not as God, not as a divine being in a little body-he divested himself of such privileges when he left heaven-he was fully human and needed human instruction. There is Jesus, fixing his eyes on his stepfather, watching how he handled difficult tasks, learning the trade from him. He is watching how Joseph handles obnoxious customers and pressing deadlines; he's watching how his earthly father handles the temptations to cut corners on quality and pad the bills. But because he was a righteous man, Joseph raised his stepson as if he were his own. The Bible says precious little about Jesus' boyhood, but the Holy Spirit did go out of his way to record this comment at Luke 2:52 -"Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." Gentlemen, for sons and daughters to mature in healthy ways, they need dads, real dads, dads who live righteousness, model righteousness and expect righteousness from their kids. Don't believe the world's lie that kids don't need dads. God made us, and he knows us through and through, and he went out of His way to provide for His own son a righteous stepfather, a man of character. 3. JOSEPH WAS RADICALLY OBEDIENT There is another quality about this man Joseph that I believe we need to consider-he was radically obedient. What do I mean by "radically obedient"? I mean that Joseph's response to God was immediate, complete and without wavering. Look at verses 24-25. Verses 24-25 - "When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus." Joseph's response to what he was told was immediate. You almost get the idea from reading verse 22 that Joseph jumped out of bed, changed clothes on the way out the door, went right to Mary's house and picked her up and carried her home that very morning! Joseph was not the kind of man you had to connive, beg and cajole. Once he knew what was right, he did it, no questions asked. No foot-dragging, no "ifs, ands or buts". Joseph was the kind of man who didn't hang around in indecision long enough to grow doubts. He had a heart to do what was right and he would not delay or compromise. He learned that kind of character, I think, at the carpenter's bench. Through long hours of tedious carving and measuring and working the wood. He learned young what made customers come back-it was quality workmanship, and if it took him all night to complete a job well and on time the next morning, he stayed with it, missing meals and sleep, just to do it right. He meditated on the truths of the Word of God at night as he sat by the candle picking splinters out of his rough hands. Here is a man of character-a man who wanted to please his God. Men, there is nothing wrong and everything right with hard work. God made you for it. He designed meaningful work for human beings as He crafted them from clay. Ever since the Fall it has not been as easy, because we do what we have to do by the sweat of our brow. But if you want to learn character, you learn it by working hard. When you work hard (and I'm not talking about workaholism-that's a sickness that only feeds poison to wounded egos), you learn what righteousness and character are down deep in your soul. You also present the kind of godly witness to others that honors God and draws them to righteousness. There is nothing more hideous than a Christian shirker. When you cheat your boss you cheat yourself, and you cheat your God. No one wins when you wimp out of hard work-lest of all, your kids. If you will model the good things of God for your kids, you will model hard work. There is nothing more satisfying in life. Listen to the spiritual counsel Paul gave to the Thessalonians in the first letter, chapter four: 1 Thessalonians 4:1, 11-12 - "Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord to do this more and more..Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody." Just as a matter of statistics, hard-working people make more money, get more promotions, a much higher percentage of them own their own companies, they have fewer addictions, live longer and die happier. Why? Because they are living according to God's design. I want to challenge the men in this congregation this morning to pick up on the character of Joseph. He's the kind of man God chose to raise His own Son. Begin now, by God's strength and grace to live godly lives that are marked by character, reason, good fathering and radical obedience. Do you think that would honor God? Do you think that would bless you? Bless your family? I wonder if I am speaking to any men, or women, here this morning who are saying in their hearts, "I know what I ought to be, and I try, I really do, but I just can't get there!" Let me be honest with you-without the Lord, you'll never get there! You need a savior who will take care of your biggest problem and set you free from it, in order to be enabled for such a good life. That problem was identified back in verse 21, where the angel promised that Jesus would "save his people from their sins." If you've not been saved from your sins, you're not His people; and if you are His people, He takes your sins away. He gets rid of them and all the guilt that rides piggy-back on them, and he nails them to the cross with his dying human body which was the sacrifice that paid your debt. Sin is your problem if you're a human being. Hear what the Bible says, though, at 2 Corinthians 5:21 - "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."       [Back to Top]