The Long-Awaited Unexpected Guest

Scripture:

Matthew 1:18–25 NLT

18 This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. 19 Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly. 20 As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. 21 And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet: 23 “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’ ” 24 When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. 25 But he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus.

Choices

Jobs

Relationships

Spending

Giving

Mary in one verse

Matthew 1:18 NLT

18 This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Mary’s life and faithfulness cannot be summed up in one verse any more than Peter or Paul could have their lives summed up in one verse. Matthew and Mark do not devote as much of their gospels to tell about Mary, the mother of Jesus, as we find in Luke, or even John. Lots of people wonder why some accounts made it into certain gospels and others did not, and I’m one of them. The short answer is that, in the gospels, Jesus is the main character, and everyone else is a supporting person. They weren’t writing about Peter, or Paul, or Mary. They were writing about Jesus.

Does that make Mary unimportant? No. Mary is a part of the story of Jesus. Peter and Paul are both part of the story of Jesus.

And you are part of the story of Jesus too.

The deeper question is: are you going to be a supporting character or just an extra?

Mary, bet her life that Jesus was the Messiah, put her own hopes and dreams on hold for God, and followed through with what she said she would do for God. She believed that Jesus was the hope of all nations, and you can tell just by looking at her story.

Thesis: We have to decide if Jesus is our hope or if we are waiting for something else.

The Call

Matthew 1:19 NLT

19 Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly.

Joseph

I’m glad that Matthew takes the time to tell Joseph’s side of the story here. Not because I’m a guy. I think Joseph is one of the more invisible heroes of the story of Jesus.

In fact, I would compare him with Sarah, the wife of Abraham, from Genesis 12.

Genesis 12:1–5 NLT

1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” 4 So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. 5 He took his wife, Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all his wealth—his livestock and all the people he had taken into his household at Haran—and headed for the land of Canaan. When they arrived in Canaan,

Trusting others

Both Joseph and Sarah were approached by their spouse (or fiance) and told that God had come to them with a life-changing mission, to which they had said yes. Neither Joseph or Sarah got a vote in the matter. It was either leave with me or this is goodbye for good. That is pretty disruptive to relationships, but that is what God did.

Joseph was ready to say goodbye to Mary.

I imagine that he yearned for the Messiah to come and set things right in his world, but not this way. Why couldn’t God have picked someone else? Why couldn’t the child be his own? Why should he go through the shame of hearing people talk about his bride-to-be and what kind of man he was or was not showing himself as to everyone?

I think it is important for us to recognize that Joseph was not an eager believer. He had enough questions and doubts to say no to a God he never met personally, even if he put on all the appearances of being a godly and righteous man.

He liked the idea of God, but he was pretty sure the real Jesus was not something he wanted. Jesus was not set to fulfil his hopes and dreams of a marriage and a family. Inviting Jesus into his life could destroy those hopes and dreams.

Consideration

Matthew 1:20–23 NLT

20 As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. 21 And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet: 23 “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’ ”

God Met Joseph

God met Joseph in a dream, while he tossed and turned over this decision he had to make. He was at a crossroads and this decision would change his life forever. There was no going back.

I wonder why Joseph met the angel in a dream while others met God’s messengers in real life? Again, these scriptures are about Jesus, not primarily these supporting people, so we can’t be sure that God did not send an angel to Joseph and he called it a dream, or that he sent Joseph and angelic messenger and Joseph wasn’t paying any attention and missed it. Many of the appearances of angels of the Lord appeared somewhat human, as was the case with the angels that visited Abraham and Sarah. She encountered them and heard about her own upcoming pregnancy and laughed at the thought of having a baby in her old age. Not everyone who saw God’s messengers recognized them as such.

The angel came and invited Joseph into his own role in this mission from God: naming and raising the Messiah.

Then they pointed back to the ways Joseph had been told of this plan before.

God helped us then.

Whether we love them or hate them, we learn the scriptures by looking for the stories and the laws. We divide them up as stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus, with laws to learn interspersed between those stories. When we get to the Old Testament prophets, we read them as weird stories (harder to remember) about what God is going to do.

In all of this reading though, we often miss that God does not divide up the scripture that way. There is always a part that God does and there is always a response that He is inviting us to give. That is how a relationship works. It takes two. Joseph probably knew that prophecy by heart, but he never dreamed that he would have to do something himself to help bring the Messiah into the world.

Those scriptures stood for Joseph as a testimony of God’s faithfulness, that got his people through some dark times. They do the same for us. What Joseph had to realize, and we do too, is that what God has done in the past speaks to us today. Most of us don’t need an angel to come and visit us to hear from God. Most of us have already heard from God by reading or hearing the scriptures, but we have chosen not to do what they say. We have too easily written them off as words for other people, but not us.

It’s not about the same rules applying then and now. That again is focusing on the rules. It is recognizing that God is the same. When we pray, when we go into God’s presence, it is the same God that Moses met on the mountain, that taught Noah to build the ark, and that chose to enter our world as an infant out of wedlock with a couple who could have said “no, thank you”.

God speaks to us through the scriptures and reminds us of all the times He helped us then.

Can God help us now?

That’s the real question. That’s the question we have been asking all year. Some of you who aren’t even believers have been wondering if God could help us out of 2020 into something better. Those of us who are following Jesus have had good days and bad days, and some of us have been recognizing that we have as many or more questions now at the end of the year than we had at the beginning.

Can God help us now?

With the whole of history that testifies to God’s perseverance in working in, around, and through us, we would have to shut our eyes away from God and plug up our ears to convince ourselves that God was helpless or without a care for us. We are just like Judah, whom God sent Isaiah to preach to when he said:

Isaiah 6:9–10 NLT

9 And he said, “Yes, go, and say to this people, ‘Listen carefully, but do not understand. Watch closely, but learn nothing.’ 10 Harden the hearts of these people. Plug their ears and shut their eyes. That way, they will not see with their eyes, nor hear with their ears, nor understand with their hearts and turn to me for healing.”

It’s not a question of “if my people would pray...”. It's a question of if my people would open their eyes and ears and hearts so they know who they are praying to.

Joseph knew about God, amd he probably knew how to pray some prayers. Having a relationship with God was going to cost him though.

The Cost

Matthew 1:24–25 NLT

When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. But he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus.

The cost to Joseph was greater than waiting a few extra months to start a family of his own with Mary. The government would be after them. He would become a refugee in Egypt and he wouldn’t even have the chance to go back home to Nazareth to tell his friends and family their goodbye. Mary wouldn’t either.

Giving up his home meant giving up his job and all his regular customers. Whatever tools he didn’t pack with him may have been lost. Whatever kind of comforts of life he had worked to set up when they got engaged were all upended when Joseph said yes to God.

Perhaps they had more in common with Abraham and Sarah than they even realized. They left home for the sake of a promised child. They did not ask for this, or at least they thought they had not asked for it. Yet they would give and live their lives for this baby that would be the hope they, and the rest of the world, begged for since the fall of creation.

Joseph was willing to give his life to Jesus, before he even met him, and because he did, he became part of the story of Jesus.

CTA

Jesus has a place for us in his story too.

He wants us to remember God’s faithfulness throughout time and throughout our lives.

He wants us to recognize that God can help us even now.

We need to be willing to put our hope in Him though, and that means taking our hopes away from the other places we have put it.

Will you choose to place your hope in Jesus, or are you waiting to see if something better comes along?