Joseph: The Song of Trust

INTRODUCTION

In the 19th century, one of the greatest tightrope walkers was a man named Charles Blondin.

In June 1859, he became the first man to walk across the raging waters of Niagara Falls, on a tightrope.

25,000 people gathered around both shores of the falls to marvel at him as he walked the 1,100 feet across on that tiny little rope. The rope stretched 160 feet, yes, 16 stories right above the place where millions of gallons of water raged over the falls.

He worked without a net or safety harness of any kind! When he reached the Canadian side, the crowd burst out with a mighty roar of approval! Blondin yelled, “I’m going to do it again”! But this time he grabbed a wheelbarrow full of rocks. He crossed on the rope, backwards and forwards, several times for the adoring fans.

The crowd continued to go crazy each time he successfully arrived on each side. Finally, Blondin looked at the crowd and yelled, “How many of you believe I could take a person across in the wheelbarrow?” They all cheered and clapped as a sign of their belief. Blondin then pointed to one man in the crowd, and invited him to hop in. The man refused. Blondin then asked for any volunteers from the crowd. The crowd fell deathly silent.

Trust. We can say that we believe and that we have faith, but when it really comes down to it-- do we trust that the Lord Jesus is indeed who he says he is? To hop into Jesus’ wheelbarrow takes some trust, and it takes courage.

Trust: firm belief in the reliability, ability, or strength of someone or something

“Learning to trust is one of life’s most difficult tasks.”

Isaac Watts

This morning we will look at one of those moments again where an ordinary man, a simple hardworking, faithful man -- in a way-- was asked to jump into the wheelbarrow. And we thank God that he did just that.

This young man is that shadowy figure we see walking alongside Mary, leading the donkey, facing the rejection that there was no room at the Inn that 1st Christmas night-- the man who led his betrothed wife to a borrowed stable, and helped her deliver the baby Jesus. In nativity scenes he stands silently next to that manger in which the baby Jesus is laid. His name is Joseph and it seems he plays a secondary role in the nativity story. He disappears completely from the scriptures after the teenage years of Jesus.

And yet the courage and trust in God of Joseph was what made it possible for the child to be born in Bethlehem and to survive the life-threatening first years of his life. Joseph was the man to whom God entrusted the task of protecting the mother and her child from the time she conceived Jesus. He was the rugged and brave man who led Mary safely along the dangerous roads to Bethlehem, to Egypt and eventually back home to settle and raise Jesus in Galilee.

Turn in your bibles to Matthew 1:18-25

What we will see here is a story of a regular guy who shows a tremendous trust in God:

Joseph trusts God and displays the courage to:

· Live a morally upright life in an immoral world

· marry a pregnant woman who was not carrying his biological child

· protect his wife and son in their flight to Egypt and then again upon their return to Nazareth

God has included the story of Joseph to encourage each one of us to live courageously, and to trust God even if it means facing danger. We must remember that Joseph was not some kind of super human. He was an ordinary man.

Joseph was an ordinary man.

In the midst of this story of the miraculous birth of Jesus, one that features visitations from angels, we find this ordinary man by the name of Joseph. One of the themes of the Bible is that God uses ordinary people to do His work – people like you and me. He chooses the ordinary, regular people.

Joseph was the kind of man God could trust to be strong in the midst of a crisis. He was strong and resilient enough to protect his family during hazardous journeys to Bethlehem and Egypt, before they were finally able to return home to Nazareth years later.

The reason Joseph had such courage was because of his relationship with God:

Joseph lived a righteous life.

Matthew 1:18 ESV

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.

Joseph was known as a righteous man. This means that he had a strong relationship with God and he intended to become like God in character. This means that Joseph was courageous enough to stand up against his own sin nature. He had disciplined himself to live the way God wanted him to do, he desired to please God.

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.

Joseph chose to treat Mary with love.

We can only imagine how Joseph reacted when he found out that Mary was pregnant. The only way he could explain her pregnancy, since he and Mary had not consummated their marriage, was that she had been unfaithful to him with another man.

A scene from the movie “The Nativity Story” shows how Joseph must have agonized over what to do about Mary.

Any man would respond under the circumstances with:

· Shock. Joseph thought that Mary was a pure and chaste girl. He must have been shocked to the core.

· Deep sorrow. His dreams of marriage to this young girl now seemed to be forever shattered.

· Anger. Joseph must have felt betrayed. His manly pride would have made him want to punish somebody! No one would have blamed him if he had caused a terrible scene in the village.

But Joseph’s godly character enabled him to rein in his anger. His love for Mary, even under these unbelievable circumstances, compelled him to seek for a way to protect her. Love covers over a multitude of sins!

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Joseph resisted societal pressures.

As Mary’s pregnancy would become obvious to the people in their small town, Joseph knew that he also would be publicly embarrassed. To save face, Joseph would have been justified in publicly divorcing Mary. In fact, the society he lived in expected him to express outrage and to punish Mary.

But because of his strength of character, he had originally decided to divorce her privately and protect her from public disgrace. But, after an angel explained to him that Mary was pregnant because of a miracle, Joseph decided to marry her.

Joseph obeyed God.

When the angel told Joseph that the child was conceived by the Holy Spirit, it is likely that Joseph would have remembered the prophecies. So the Word of God reinforced the word of the angel in his dream. Remember that when you feel like God is revealing something to you-- he will never contradict what He has already revealed to us in the past, or through scripture.

But even now, with the Scriptures, those prophecies and an angel in a dream to direct him, Joseph had to make a courageous decision. He had to take for his wife a woman who was not bearing his biological child and, in so doing, share in the unjust shame that was heaped upon her. He would be also undertaking the responsibility to provide for the child and function in a fatherly role as he and Mary raised him.

Later in the life of Jesus, we would see this ugly circumstance and “shadow” be revisited by the Pharisee’s:

In John 8:41

John 8:41 ESV

41 You are doing the works your father did.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.”

The conversation takes a nasty turn. Prior to this, the crowd's attacks on Jesus have been somewhat formal. They have disputed His claims, condemned His words, and even tried to have Him arrested and killed. In this moment, though, they resort to outright personal insults. The statement "we were not born of sexual immorality" is a direct slur against Jesus, whose birth was a subject of controversy. In short, the critics are smearing Jesus' reputation by calling Him an illegitimate child, born to parents who weren’t married.

But Joseph did what the angel commanded him. Joseph’s trust in God was what enabled him to overcome the stigma of becoming the husband of Mary and to accept the responsibility of the child.

Matthew even adds a comment that displays the integrity of this man. Although he had the legitimate right to it, he did not have sexual relations with Mary until after Jesus was born. And this simple fact underscores the truth of the virgin birth of Jesus!

Joseph trusted God with his life and his future.

Joseph’s courage was tested again after the child was about two years of age. Wise men from the East had visited the family and had worshipped Jesus! The night after their visit, Joseph was again visited by an angel who commanded him to take the child and flee to Egypt for Herod was seeking to kill him.

Matthew 2:13–14 ESV

13 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.” 14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt

Matthew 2:19–20 ESV

19 But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, 20 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.”

An angel of the Lord commanded Joseph to take the child and his mother first to Egypt and then later back to northern Israel. This meant months of dangerous travel over hostile terrain. Joseph probably walked most of the way! But God knew that Joseph was courageous enough and strong to handle the task.

Summary:

Joseph was a courageous man because of his trust in God. God also trusted Joseph with a very important assignment in life.

There is a lot of controversy in the world today surrounding the role of men. We don’t have time to get into all of that, but I do want to briefly give you some of my thoughts:

Our enemy the devil wants to distort and destroy the role of husbands and fathers in the world today. God calls us to partner with our spouses, provide for our families, and protect them against danger and things that would harm them. Partner, Protector, Provider. Joseph is a wonderful encouragement to me as I consider my role in my family— as well as in our church.

Joseph expresses courage in his personal life, by being morally and spiritually strong in a corrupt world. He built trust with God over time, and in turn God entrusted him with a most difficult, but honorable and godly assignment.

He demonstrated his courage when, despite personal embarrassment and in the face of social criticism, he believed in God and took responsibility for Mary and Jesus.

He revealed his sustaining trust in God alone in obeying angels and travelling to protect the mother and child during the life-threatening years of Jesus’ childhood.

God is still at work creating courageous and trusting men like Joseph. Men with moral courage who trust God and live out their faith in tangible ways everyday.

I want to end today with another example from our more modern day— Chris Spielman is one of those kind of guys.

After a tremendous HS and College Football career right here in Massillon, OH and at THE Ohio State University. He played 11 years in the NFL, known as a committed, leave it all on the field style of player.

When Chris Spielman played for the Buffalo Bills, he was everything a middle linebacker should be: tough, strong and smart, with passion, total commitment and loyalty to the game. He played the entire 1995 season with a torn muscle that he sustained in the season opening game.

But the game took a distant second place in this thinking during the 1998 season. He chose to stay home. He cooked, took care of his kids, and cared for his wife—by choice. Stephanie, Chris’s wife, was struggling through the stark realities of breast cancer. Surgery, chemotherapy and all the side effects were Stephanie’s opponents. During her fight to the very end, Chris was at her side; his actions supported his "family before job" creed.

Asked by a reporter from the Rochester NY news paper--- if he’d consider a return to the Bills late in the season, Spielman said, "I’d play in a heartbeat, but what kind of man would I be if I backed out on my word to my wife? To leave her alone during a time like this? I wouldn’t be a man at all."

Football fans saw Spielman as a man because of his aggressive, passionate and sacrificial style of play. But what really makes him a man? It’s his personal sacrifice and unending commitment and loyalty to his wife and family.

For us, that is what the Joseph story can highlight. More Trust in God equals God trusting in us for His special assignment.

God may challenge us this coming year-- to trust him, and hop in the wheelbarrow. I hope you can courageously trust him no matter what, just like Joseph did.

Let’s pray.