Joseph - The Dilemma of Doubt

Series Introduction

Good morning how are we doing this morning? Welcome to the Christmas season. As we have recover from our Turkey coma’s many of us see this as the launch of the Christmas season. It is time to start getting serious about our Christmas shopping Christmas decorating, Christmas party plans and celebrations.

In line with our anticipation of Christmas we are beginning our Christmas series this morning called, “The Christmas Dilemma”.

Now you might be wondering, ‘What kind of title is that?” I mean, you would have to be some kind of “Scrooge” or “Grinch” to think that Christmas and “Dilemma” belong together in the same title. Everyone knows that this is season of lights, love, joy, giving and family gatherings…what is this “Dilemma” stuff?

So let me officially go on record as saying that “I love Christmas!” I always have. I look forward to it every year. I love the many traditions and memories and experiences that make this time of year so special.

Growing up it was always our families tradition to put up our Christmas Tree on or shortly after Thanksgiving and then we each of my 5 siblings and I had our own set of ornaments. One for each year and I still have mine. Going all the way back to 1976. I don’t know if it was because it all started in the 70’s but here is a lot of bling in this box. A lot of sparkle and sequence.

To prove what a Christmas sap I am, I have even kept the lid from the original shoe box because I have each ornament listed in my childhood handwriting. I just can’t throw it out, especially because it also reminds me of when I owned knock-off Jordache basketball shoes. Same as the Air Jordan’s but about 1/100th the price.

These things and so many more help me remember Christmas gone by so I work hard to try and make each Christmas as special for my family.

Tension

But growing up in the age that I did, I noticed a drifting divergence between some of the things that my family and I loved best about Christmas and how I saw it celebrated all around me. Especially when I worked in sales at a small store in a large shopping mall. If you have ever worked in retail sales, then you know how you plan for the “Christmas rush” all year long.

After Thanksgiving the Mall Christmas decor was increased and so were our hours. The number of shoppers increased and so did our sales. And their was just a clear shift in the energy of the place, and the truth was it was infectious. It was so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of it all. In fact I remember a 6 hour shift in the summer would just drag on but a 10 hour day at Christmas time would fly by. The Christmas season seemed to change everything and it was fun to be a part of it…most of it anyway.

Because there was probably no better place to observe the “secular shift” of Christmas than at a shopping mall in mid to late 90’s. And it has been a while since I have worked retail, but from what I can see from the outside looking in - things have only drifted further away from what I always knew to be at the heart of the season that celebrated peace and joy.

Tim Keller begins his new book “Hidden Christmas” with the following:

Christmas is the only Christian holy day that is also a major secular holiday - arguably our culture’s biggest. The result is two different celebrations, each observed by millions of people at the very same time. This brings some discomfort on both sides. (He continues to say…)

Many Christians can’t help but notice that more of the public festivities surrounding Christmas studiously avoid any references to its Christian origins. The background music in stores is moving from “Joy to the World” to “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas.” The holiday is promoted as a time for family, for peace and for giving in the world. ‘Christmas is a wonderful secular holiday,” wrote one enthusiast at the popular Web site Gawker.’

On the other hand, nonreligious people can’t help but find that the older meaning of Christmas keeps intruding uninvited, for instance, through the music of traditional Christmas carols. It can be irritating to have to answer their child’s questions, “What does that music mean - “born to give them second birth?” Tim Keller Hidden Christmas p.1

This is a great description of the Christmas Dilemma. As Christian believers we can see genuine value in much of what is called “The Spirit of Christmas” as is celebrated by a secular world. We cannot deny the good it brings our society to come together and celebrate a festival of lights that brings families together and leads people to be authentically generous with their time, finances and various other gifts.

These are all good things, but sometimes “good things” can get in the way of the “best things”.

To pursue these things without considering their foundations often leaves people feeling more empty and hopeless on the other side of Christmas. When the parties have ended, the lights are put away and the trees start showing up at the end of driveways, the great build up - can lead to a great let down...because their is nothing found on the other side.

When a celebration of any kind drifts away from it’s roots then it will produce no lasting fruit. It becomes an exercise in celebrating the art of celebration…but when the celebration ends…there is nothing there. So the borrowed declaration of “Peace on earth, good will toward men” has no lasting substance and “Joy to the World” doesn’t go any further than the day we all return to work and school.

I don’t want that for your Christmas. I don’t want that for my Christmas. I don’t want that for anyone’s Christmas. There is true true Joy that is worth celebrating at Christmas Time. There is lasting Peace that can be trusted long after the pine needles turn dangerously brown.

But it isn’t found in the “Joy of the World” or the “Good will of men”. It was given TO us. It was given FOR us…and to lose track of that “good news” is loose track of the whole reason for this season.

That is why each Christmas season we return to teach on the story of Christ’s birth. We aren’t looking to just dust it off along with our other traditional Christmas stories of magical elves, snowmen and flying reindeer. There is nothing wrong with those, but we will lose Christmas is we lose the story of the Christ.

The story of Jesus’ arrival on earth should be the story that transcends and overwhelms every other story at Christmas. Every story we read, every story we tell, every story we live through our traditions, memories and experiences. [Point to the Christmas Ornament Box]

Webster defines “Dilemma” as “a unusually undesirable or unpleasant choice” or “a problem involving a difficult choice”. So to have a Christmas Dilemma is to have a choice to make, a difficult one. We will have to choose to be intentional about the focus of our Christmas Season - otherwise the “secular shift” will draw us into a hopeless celebration of celebrating.

But making difficult decisions is a major theme throughout “The Christmas Story” the one is above every other Christmas story, and so that in this series we will be learning from the “Dilemma’s” of the ones who lived the story.

This morning we will be learning from the “Dilemma” of Joseph. We don’t know much about Joseph, but we can imagine that his part of the story might have felt something like this...

Christmas Dilemma: Joseph (3:20)

Truth

The story is recorded in Matthew 1:18-25 (ESV) [Read From Bible]

18 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. 19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 20 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. 21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). 24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

Let me ask you, which describes you best? The attitude of “Ready, Aim, Fire!” or… “Ready, Fire, Aim!”

Quite the question to ask on the last day of the deer hunting, hopefully you all ascribe to the first one when it comes to hunting... but

In life some of us just naturally planners and analyzers and others are…more spontaneous. Kind of just “go with the flow” kind of people. From what we do know of Joseph, the soon to be adoptive father of Jesus, he appears to be more of a planner.

Joseph was by all acounts a blue-collar handy man, the kind you would see with a tool box in one hand and lunch box in the other. He was a craftsman, a carpenter, who had to live by the old standard “measure twice and cut once”.

Remember that He would not have had the modern advantages of power tools, pneumatic nail guns and construction adhesive that we have today. Everything was hand cut, hand planed and pegged in place. He did not have the luxury of finding out later in the project that this board wasn’t going to work - because he had just spent the last 3 hours cutting and planing it by hand.

Work like this required him to think ahead. To examine each board and be able to see how it would or would not work in the situation. To be a “Ready, Aim, Fire!” kind of man.

It’s not that we know him to be inflexible; it’s that he was intentional. He had plans in his mind that made sense. Plans that were designed to lead to good and godly outcomes, while still recognizing a dependence on God’s providence and God’s purposes.

Our first theme for the week is...

It is good to have a plan, but sometimes our plans are not as big as God’s purposes.

Proverbs 19:21 tells us “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.”

And especially for the planner, it is not uncommon for doubt to creep into our minds before we can even ask ourselves if maybe God is introducing a needed detour into our plans for His bigger purposes. That doubt can cast a shadow that creates a dilemma…a problem involving a difficult choice.

Joseph faced his Dilemma of doubt when the plans in his mind were overshadowed by the shattering news that his betrothed wife, Mary, was pregnant. Her pregnancy invaded his plans that already were solidified in his mind.

While the Scripture specifically does not state how Joseph felt when he found out about his betrothed wife’s pregnancy, it is not difficult to put ourselves in his sandals and try to imagine how we might have felt. Things like...

Betrayed Hurt Angry Sad Embarrassed Confused Frustrated Defeated.

We can watch out for these kinds of emotions, because these are all legitimate feelings anytime we see our “good” plans get blown up in a split second.

Joseph had lived his life as one with impeccable character and integrity. He had waited and planned for this moment…the start of a new marriage and then a family with this woman.

According to their custom, He would have been preparing their home that they would soon move in and enjoy together…after the marriage ceremony and honeymoon took place.

Joseph had planned all this work and was working his plan.

But now…all that was gone when he found out she was carrying a baby in her womb. It wasn’t his…and neither was she going to be much longer.

According to Jewish law, Joseph had rights to dissolve the marriage and could have had Mary prosecuted, even put to death for what he perceived that she had done. However, verse 19 shows us something about who Joseph the planner was at the core.

Matthew 1:19 ESV

19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

This was Joseph’s response to his dilemma, to his difficult choice. And understand that these two characteristics of Joseph are not compounded but contrasted. The fact that he was a “just man” meant that he could not marry this woman who carried someone else’s child. God’s law declared that a woman who had a child with a man who was not her husband was unfit for holy matrimony. So because he was just man - he knew he could not marry Mary.

But on the other side of his dilemma, he was also “unwilling to put her shame”. I believe that Joseph genuinely loved her, even after this seeming betrayal. So his choice was to take the least painful route of quiet divorce.

Biblical scholar D.A. Carson says:

“The law allowed for private divorce before two witnesses. That was what Joseph proposed. It would leave both his righteousness (his conformity to the law) and his compassion intact.” - D. A. Carson

Since Joseph’s plans were obliterated, like every good planner does, he re-grouped, considered the new variables and made a new plan. This time he was....Ready. Aim. Aim. Aim a little more...He wasn’t going to fly off the handle, but he was going to make sure that new plan was aimed more accurately before he pulled the trigger on it. Remember Proverbs 19:21.

Proverbs 19:21 ESV

21 Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.

As Joseph slept on his plans, God showed him His purpose for the pregnancy and how Joseph fit into the bigger story God had all along for both Mary and Joseph.

Our second theme for the week is...It is good to have a plan, but...

When our plans change, we should look and listen for God’s bigger purposes.

Note how God clearing communicated His bigger purposes to Joseph. Listen for how God gave Joseph much more than just a green light to go ahead with the marriage to Mary:

Matthew 1:20–21 (ESV)

20 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. 21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

That is a serious, God-sized purpose for an “unplanned” pregnancy. Everything up to this point told Joseph that something had gone terribly “wrong” with his plan to marry Mary. He doubted that anything good could happen now - only to find out that not only was his marriage blessed by God, it would play a significant role in the greatest blessing God has ever given to the entire world.

It was God’s plan and purpose to work through the marriage of Mary and Joseph to bring his very own son into the world - and the reason for his arrival? The salvation of the entire world from their sin!

The naming of a Son was the honor and responsibility of a father, but among the many privileges that Joseph was given as Jesus’ adoptive Father, this was not one of them. God the Father declared the name of His Son.

But it was about more than just giving Him something to write at the top of His paper in Torah school. The name Jesus means “Yahweh saves” or “Yahweh is salvation.” It is from the Hebrew name “Yeshua” (ישוע‎ which is a combination of Ya, an abbreviation for Yahweh, and the verb yasha, meaning “rescue,” “deliver,” or “save.”) So the messenger was explaining why Jesus would be named such when he said: ...you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

And the meaningfully link between those two phrases brings us to our final theme for the week:

It is good to have a plan, but no one can make a plan like our God can make plan.

Matthew 1:22–23 (ESV)

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

Some of us think that we are ahead of the game if we start our Christmas plans in November - but the Lord had been waiting to fulfill this Christmas promise for 700 years.

These words are from Isaiah 7:14 and Joseph most likely would have known this passage. Most Hebrew scholars at this time and many today believe that Isaiah must have been speaking figuratively here. How could God ever actually be “With us?” The same God that appeared as a bush inferno to Abraham, a pillar of fire to Israel, a hurricane or tornado to Job, and whose glory Moses was sheltered from in the cleft of a mountain is now going to just be “with us”?

That was the Christmas Dilemma for every Hebrew in this story, but this angelic messenger and the baby that Mary carried with in her affirm this message. God was able to see ahead in time and perfectly accomplish his purposes through His plan. No one an plan like our God can.

And what will Joseph do with the dilemma brought on by this “new plan”?

Matthew 1:24–25 (ESV)

24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

It is good to have a plan, but sometimes our plans are not as big as God’s purpose.

So when our plans change, we should look and listen for God’s bigger purposes.

Because no one can make a plan like our God can make a plan!

Gospel Application

So here we are, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The last Sunday of November and we are all looking forward to what God would have for our Christmas season. What plans do you have already in place for your holiday season?

A day to get a tree?

The date of the big family get together?

The “Secret Santa” exchange at work?

The toy catalogs with all kinds of things circled?

The Scheels catalog with all kinds of things circled for that matter?

Those can all lead to good things, but the question is do they? Are we intentionally listening for God’s bigger purposes in them? And especially, if somewhere down the road, we find that our plans hit a drastic detour… as they did last year for example… can we trust that the God who saw it all coming has His bigger purposes in it.

God knows exactly what we will face this Christmas season. He knows exactly what we need to be able to have a Christmas that is not just a good seasaonal memory but an intentional celebration of the one who brings life and light all year long.

He may have different plans than we do - but His purposes are worth the change. Let’s follow our heavenly Father into them.

Landing

And speaking of changes…one of the changes that we are making for the Christmas season is that we will not be having our regular “Table Talk” and Sunday School hour. Instead, we will extending our fellowship time in the lobby with one significant difference.

On the backside of your notes page is a list of questions called “Take-Out” questions. These are designed to provide you with conversation starters that you can “take-out” of your experience at Church today and into your conversations with family, friends and co-workers. The hope is to spark a conversation that may begin on the surface, but eventually dives deeper into real questions, ideas and needs when it comes to the role of the Christ of the Christmas Story.

These are just some of my ideas, feel free to tweak them or come up with better ones but then feel free to ‘test drive” them on your Church family in the lobby before you bring them out in to your Christmas parties, shopping adventures of conversations of any sort.

With that I will invite the Worship Team to come forward to lead us in a Traditional Christmas Carol “Angel’s We Have Heard On High”. I encourage you to not get lost in the nostalgia of the song but to consider the depths of the words and what Dilemma’s that they might introduce to your Christmas this year.

While you are doing that I will get ready for the baptism, but before I do let me pray (or have Nick pray?)