Good Guy Joseph
Notes
Transcript
Step Dad
Step Dad
<Brandon’s Testimony. Immanuel - God with us.>
Next week I celebrate 16 years as a Dad. That’s is what we should be celebrating on birthdays. Logan “turns 16”. But Mom, Anna, did the hardest work 16 years ago. We kept him alive all these years, despite many of his best efforts.
Why does he get the party?
It is a beautiful and wonderful thing to be a Dad, to be a Father, to pour out your life for the sake of your kids.
I am learning a new thing. I am learning to be a Step-Dad. It’s a different thing. It is sometimes friend, sometimes like a camp counselor. All the love and support of a Dad… while always recognizing, affirming and supporting a relationship with their Father.
I get to be an important part of their lives. I am a part of their story.
That is an incredible privilege… and it has me thinking in this Christmas season about Joseph.
This is our new Christmas decoration. We call it a “nativity” scene. We made that up. KK tagged me on Facebook, but accidentally instead of tagging me on Joseph, she tagged the donkey.
… but she didn’t call it a donkey. I’m sure that was an innocent mistake.
Joseph. Step-Dad to Jesus.
Why did God choose to do it that way?
And Why Joseph?
We might be tempted to ask why Joseph above all other men. Was he the most worthy, the perfect candidate, selected out of all the options?
Or was he created for the purpose?
We don’t get to see much of Joseph. There are mysteries there. We don’t get to hear his story, his perspective. But we get some glimpses into his character.
A good man in a tough spot. Faithful.
A good man in a tough spot
A good man in a tough spot
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
Months before Christmas. There was an “advent” season from the very start. Of course, for 100s of years, all the way back to Adam and Eve really, there has been expectation for the Messiah. But at the least, for, oh… roughly 9 months, there has been VERY specific expectation.
“Betrothal” was a bit different from how we think of it. Generally marriages were arranged and when a future bride had been chosen, negotiations began for the bride’s dowry. Then arrangements were made for the week long celebration… and consummation.
This was scandalous in a way that is hard for us to appreciate. Not an old-fashioned tsk tsk don’t tell Grandma… this is adultery and Mary could be lawfully stoned to death.
No one’s likely to buy the “Holy Spirit” story.
What are the options here?
And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.
He will spare her public censure… and the legal proceedings of adultery, but Jewish laws kind of require him to divorce her, so he will do it “quietly” or some translations prefer “secretly.”
But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).
Now recall that this is a dream. How many visitations have you had of angels in dreams? Maybe you had some bad sushi, who knows?
How many dreams had Joseph had along these lines?
What the Fork
What the Fork
What’s in a dream?
A few months ago KK is dreaming and suddenly, middle of the night, out of nowhere, loudly and angrily, she yells “What the fork, fork!”
I lay there chuckling. It wasn’t the first part that really got me, though that’s a funny thing to say. Possibly inappropriate for a sermon… but oh well.
It was the “, fork”… which implies that she was talking to a fork. Crazy.
Here’s the craziest part.
Two days later I get this in the mail. It’s an embossed fork. This is a true story. It has the Faithlife company logo on it.
I was wracking my brain trying to figure out… did I tell someone at work the story??? and they came up with the an amazing prank?
Apparently I had won an “Awesomeness Award” from work and the unexplained fork came separately from the plaque.
… and for some reason KK had a prophetic dream about it??? Maybe??? Delivered by a talking fork?
If any of you have the spiritual gift of interpretation please speak up!
Where were we? Dreams!!! Dreams are weird. Goats are weird.
Joseph had a crazy angel dream!
Do you think he questioned its veracity? This is a Major life choice he is about to make… based on a freaky angel dream he had. With some wild and crazy claims, that his fiance’s out-of-wedlock baby would be the most famous child of prophecy.
We don’t hear about any kind of wrestling or questioning… the proof is in Joseph’s actions.
When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife,
but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.
Three miracles there. I’ll let you figure that one out.
On the basis of a dream Joseph completely alters his life plan. He had been going to divorce her, how that decision must have already wounded him… now he is putting his righteousness on the line, his trust and relationship with his wife, all the things… because of a dream about an angel.
That’s incredible! I think I would need some verification or something. A single glowing feather left on the pillow. Something!
Jacob believed… and so stepped into the role of Jesus’ Step-Dad.
Second dream
Second dream
When the wise men departed...
Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”
Baby Jesus is possibly nearly two years old by this time. (That’s why some people get mad when the wise men show up in the stable nativity. Presumably Joseph obtained some better lodging in the passing months and/or years).
And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt
Another huge life change. Fleeing the city at the drop of a hat. Why didn’t the wise men tell him??? That’s messed up.
So an angel did, in another dream. After everything with the angels and the shepherds and the baby in a manger and the wise man… it isn’t a surprise to me that Joseph pays a LOT of attention to his dreams now.
They’ve been in Bethlehem for weeks… or months… or as long as two years. But they drop it all and flee just in time. And Herod massacres every baby under two.
Third dream
Third dream
But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt,
Isn’t that funny. Always a dream. Angels are appearing to everyone else in person, but Joseph gets the dreams. Maybe it’s a “Joseph” thing. Maybe that was how Joseph needed to hear. It doesn’t say, but God was creative, maybe even adaptive in the way he spoke back then… just as He is today.
saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.”
And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.
Herod died in 4 B.C. Jesus was born sometimes between 4 and 6 B.C. So it may have just been weeks or months in Egypt, but it could have been as long as a couple years.
And we aren’t taking the heart of Egypt, cruising the pyramids, but the border of Egypt, around 30 miles south of Bethlehem.
And yet still...
This is a man willing to radically alter his life, where he lives, from town to town, from nation to nation, his marriage… in obedience to what God is telling him.
It isn’t dramatic one-off acts of sacrifice. This is live lived where and how God’s commanded. Three dreams that change the course of Joseph’s life… and then create the whole setting of Jesus young life.
It is crazy the way the gospel of Luke skims over these events. He isn’t concerned about the drama and moving around in Jesus’ earliest years.
And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.
here is the living in Bethlehem for awhile… then fleeing to Egypt?
“When they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord...” I guess that says it all.
Not a great scribe or a great scholar. Neither rich nor influential.
“Carpenter” is just craftsmen, as likely to work with stone as with wood.
Joseph was chosen to be step-father to the Son of God. He shows radical obedience in reshaping his major life decisions in response to three angelic dreams.
He shows persistent faithfulness in living every day, and every year obeying the laws and customs God had given. And in simple and faithful obedience, he becomes an integral part of Christmas - the origin story of the King of Kings.
We tell the story over and over… because it’s a good story.
We tell the story over and over… because it happened.
Shaping our Life after His
Shaping our Life after His
We tell the story over and over… because it’s our story.
We get to be an integral part of the King’s Victory story… in simple and faithful obedience.
Now here is a thing I know and love about so many of you. You have and are even now shaping your lives around what Jesus is asking you to do.
Maybe in a dream. Maybe in a sermon. Maybe in your reading of Scripture. Maybe in your prayer time. Maybe through wise counsel from a brother or sister in Christ...
I think of the times God has reshaped my life. He intervened directly and miraculously to reveal my own pride and arrogance to me, literally talking through my mouth without my volition. It was awful… but it reshaped me.
God redirected my life into seminary. Pulled me out of California to Colorado. The way God put KK and my pieces together, continues to do so.
If God called me to flee to Egypt… oh that would be hard. But I would obey. Also, God please don’t call me to Egypt, literally or metaphorically!
I see that level of commitment in so many of you. The desire to be faithful, even radical in chasing after Jesus. The excitement that maybe, just maybe, we can do and be that as a church together.
What is He calling you to do next?
And are you ready and willing to drop everything, do anything, go anywhere for His story, for His glory?
But here is the other thing I love about Joseph. Three dreams shape his life… and then he faithfully follows through on those things for weeks, months or years. The rest of his life for dream 1 and 3. Marry Mary. We can fall in to the trap of wanting God to give us updated daily instructions when He is still calling us to be faithful to the last call or nudge or conviction He gave us.
What did He call you to last?
We are a part of the story of the King of Kings. We have been a part of people being rescued from darkness into eternal glory.
As Eugene Petersen called it: discipleship is “long obedience in the same direction.” Like Google maps
More of that.
May we listen, obey and follow like Joseph.
The greatest honor Joseph could possibly get? I like to think he receives this by faith, by grace. It isn’t that he gets to call Jesus son or step-son. It isn’t that He got to see Jesus’ first words or first steps.
It is that He gets to call Jesus Savior. King. and Lord.
I believe Joseph will get to see Jesus in all His glory.
And that will be the highlight of my life. Let’s worship the King of Kings.