I believe it was the great theologian, Forrest Gump.
Y'all, y'all have read him?
Okay.
Who said, life is like a box of chocolates.
You never know what you're going to get.
Another way people convey that same truth is by saying to expect the unexpected.
And my youngest son Ezra, y'all know him too?
He has taught me to embrace that truth like no other.
Because I've literally come home and you just, you never know what you're going to get with
Ezra.
You never know what he's going to do.
You never know what he's going to say.
You never know what he's going to be wearing.
Like I came home one time and I found Ezra wearing Ninja Turtle pajamas with snow boots,
work gloves, swimming goggles, and Anna's scarf around his neck.
And that was in summer.
You just never know what you're going to get.
And honestly, he's kind of taught me to embrace the unexpected things in life.
And what I think is so cool about the Christmas story is even though it's a familiar story,
when we think back to what happened over 2000 years ago, God did something that was expected
and unexpected at the same time.
Because every Jewish person expected God to send a Messiah.
They expected that the Messiah would come, that he would be born from the line of David,
that he would be in the tribe of Judah, that he would be born in Bethlehem and born of
a virgin.
They didn't have all the details as to the timing of when that would take place.
But they had a lot of expectations.
But the thing is, no one at the time expected that the Messiah was going to be born into
their own family.
No one expected him to come, no one expected to be the family that would bring forth the
Messiah into the world.
It was fine to think about the Messiah coming in a very general way, in a very global way.
It was another thing entirely to think about the Messiah coming in a personal way.
You know who definitely didn't expect the Messiah to come from their own family?
An unmarried virgin named Mary, and an unknown carpenter from a small town named Joseph.
Mary knew that the Messiah would be born of a virgin, but she never once thought that
she would be that virgin.
Joseph knew that the Messiah would come from the line of David, but he never thought that
he would get to serve as the earthly father of the Messiah.
And this is just one reason why the Christmas story is so wonderful, is because God did
something that was expected and unexpected at the same time.
And this baby that Mary was going to give birth to, Jesus, he would change their lives
forever.
Nothing would ever be the same, and his presence in their life would change everything for
them.
And in the same way, I want you to understand this morning that the birth of Jesus is not
just global news for us, the birth of Jesus is personal news for us.
His birth directly impacts our lives today, and not only that, but his presence in our
lives changes everything.
That's why the Bible says that Jesus is Emmanuel.
Notice this, it means God with us, not God with the world at large, not God with everybody
in general, not God is here, God with us.
It is a personal pronoun, and it means that God is with you and his presence in your life
changes everything.
So here's what I want you to understand about this.
As we look at what was happening here in this Christmas story, as they're about to embrace
something that was completely unexpected for them personally, I want you to understand
that when God is with us, he enables us to navigate life's unexpected circumstances.
When God is with us, he enables us to navigate life's unexpected circumstances, which means
you have to have God in your life and his presence in your life to be able to navigate
those unexpected circumstances that you know you're going to face in life.
I mean, you don't know exactly what's going to happen in the future.
You don't know what the future holds or what circumstance you're going to face, but you
know that things are going to catch you by surprise, and I'm telling you this morning
that the only way for you to navigate those times is to have Jesus in your life.
The question that we should consider is, well, how does the presence of God enable us to
navigate life's unexpected circumstances?
It's one thing to say it, but how does that actually work?
That's what we all want to know.
How does his presence enable us to do that?
I want you to see how his presence enabled Joseph to navigate this unexpected circumstance
in his life.
If you would look with me at verses 18 and 19, the Bible says, 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, and her husband, Joseph, being a just man
and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.
Now, I know we're all familiar with this story, but we do need to get a little bit of cultural
background here, because a lot of people get this wrong.
Joseph and Mary were not engaged.
I was actually reading a devotion to my oldest son, Judah, last night, and the devotion said
that at this time Joseph and Mary were engaged.
That's not right.
They were not engaged, they were betrothed to one another.
Betrothal was more serious than engagement.
I know we like to think of them as being the same things today, but they were not.
You see, in those days, most marriages were by arrangement.
Basically, a couple of families would come together, and they would have kids of their
own, and they would talk with one another and say, hey, let's come into some sort of
agreement and let's marry off our kids.
Let's pledge them to one another.
When they are of age, they'll get married.
It's much the same thing that I'm trying to do with the Brites, with marrying off Judah
to Clara and Ezra to Charlotte, because we just want to see the world burn.
That's why we're trying to marry those two.
We're still in negotiations, so it's not quite there yet.
But that's what families would do.
They would say, hey, we've got some kids, let's come to some sort of agreement, and when they're
of age, they'll get married.
These people would be pledged to one another for most of their lives, and at some point,
they would enter into the betrothal period.
Now, the betrothal period lasted one year, and it was a legally binding agreement, which
is interesting, because at this time, if you were betrothed to someone, you were legally
considered to be husband and wife, which is why the Bible in this passage, if you look
back, it talks about Joseph and Mary, it talks about being wife and husband, and that they
needed a divorce.
I don't know if you noticed that.
And it's interesting to think about today, because again, when we think about engagement,
and if engagement is called off, no one says, well, that couple got divorced, right?
We just say, oh, they called off their engagement.
But at this time, the only way to legally end a betrothal was by divorce.
It was that serious.
And based upon Deuteronomy 22, if a betrothed woman was found to have been indecent or to
have slept with another man, she was to be killed by stoning.
Although at this time, the Romans were like, yeah, we're not going to do that.
But here's what you can do.
If your betrothed cheats on you, then you are allowed to not only divorce that person,
you are allowed to publicly shame that person.
And so I know that this is a Christmas story, and because of that, we don't always think
about how scandalous this story actually is.
But it is actually quite scandalous.
I mean, for a moment, imagine that you were Joseph, and you've been pledged to Mary for
your whole life.
And you have grown to love her, and she's the love of your life.
And she's probably your best friend at this point.
And you're entering into that final stage before marriage.
You're betrothed to one another.
Your excitement is building, and one day you go to see your wife, and you find out that
she's pregnant.
Now, I don't know if you've ever been cheated on, but I have multiple times, and it's not
fun.
It's one of the worst feelings that you can experience.
It is ultimate betrayal.
And so if you're Joseph here, you're angry, you're hurt, you've been betrayed, and then
Mary, you go to her, you find out she's pregnant, and she tells you, hey, it's not what it looks
like.
I haven't been unfaithful to you.
This baby is actually from the Holy Spirit.
So let's just take a poll real quick.
How many of you would believe her?
All right, I was going to call you out.
If you raised your hand, I was going to call you out from the pulpit.
No one's believing her, right?
Like, imagine you were a soldier, and you had been away on tour in Iraq for three years,
and you come home to see your wife, and she is pregnant, and she tells you, hey, I know
what it looks like, but don't worry, I haven't been unfaithful.
This baby's from God.
Are you believing her?
No, of course not.
And Joseph didn't believe Mary.
He fully believed that she had been unfaithful to him, and so he decides to do something
about it.
I want you to notice this.
The Bible says that Joseph resolved to divorce her quietly.
And so notice this.
Joseph had every right, according to the biblical law, and according to Roman law, not only to
divorce his wife, but to publicly shame his wife.
And I'll be honest with you, if this option had been available to me all those times I
had been cheated on in my past, I would have taken them up.
Joseph's a better man than I.
I would have taken it up and publicly shamed every single one of them, but I digress.
Because here we see something very interesting.
We see the character of Joseph on display.
Because although he was entitled to this, and although he had every right to publicly
shame Mary, the Bible says he resolves to divorce her quietly.
I know that tough times will build character in us, but I want you to understand something,
church.
Before these difficult times ever build character in us, they reveal the character that is in
us.
And so you need to understand that Joseph, he didn't become a righteous man at this time.
He didn't become a just man at this time.
His character was revealed, not created.
And it's interesting this word where the Bible says that he was a just man.
It's the Greek word, the kiosk, which means righteous.
In other words, Joseph was a righteous man in the eyes of God.
He was someone who walked with God closely.
He was someone who was a devout follower of God and had been made righteous by God.
And because he had been made righteous by God.
And because God was with him, Joseph was able to do the righteous thing, even when the righteous
thing was the hardest thing.
And here's what I want you to understand this morning.
God's presence enables us to show grace when we've been disgraced.
Joseph had been disgraced by Mary, at least he thought at the time.
And it was because of the presence of God in his life that he was able to show grace
and extend grace when he had been disgraced and hurt and betrayed.
And I got to see a really cool story about this last year.
Anna and I had some fall pictures taken and it was with a photographer that we had never
met before, but we were talking with her and I found out she was a Christian and she was
going to another church and so we had a really good conversation.
So what was interesting is afterward I was telling my sister about these pictures and
she's like, oh yeah, I know that photographer.
Did she tell you her testimony?
And I said, no, I mean, she just told us she's a Christian, but I don't know anything else.
And she said, well, she's got an amazing testimony because basically here's what happened.
Basically after they had their third kid, her husband left her for the caregiver of
his father at the time.
And so he entered into this adulterous affair with this woman and abandoned his wife to
take care of three kids on her own while he went and actually started living with this
other woman.
Now at this point, this lady had every right according to the law and the Bible to divorce
her husband and be done with him.
But because she was a devout follower of Christ, she began to pray.
And she said that she had this overwhelming sensation that God was telling her her marriage
was not over and that he could reconcile it.
And so she decided by God's grace to do the hardest thing to do in that situation, which
was continue to pray for her husband and for their marriage.
And so she continued to pray that God would convict him of his sins and show him the errors
of his way and that ultimately God would bring him back to her and restore their marriage.
And so she kept praying and praying and eventually the Lord answered her prayer and her husband
showed up at the house one day.
He confessed all of his sins.
He repented to his wife and he begged for her forgiveness.
Now at this point, if you're the wife, you've got to be feeling pretty good, right?
Because he's come, he's admitted that he was in the wrong, he's asking for your forgiveness.
But it's one thing to see that forgiveness and have it be asked of you.
It's another thing entirely to actually extend the forgiveness, is it not?
The hardest thing to do in that situation is the righteous thing.
And yet because this woman had been praying and because she felt certain that God was
telling her that he was going to restore her marriage, she decided to extend grace when
she had been disgraced.
She decided to extend forgiveness and God actually did restore them and reconcile their
marriage and they are happily married today and use this story as a testimony to God's
goodness and to His grace.
Now listen, I don't know if your situation is that drastic.
Personally, I hope that it's not.
I pray that you never have to experience that type of situation, but I think that we can
all agree this morning that everybody in this room knows what it feels like to be disgraced
by someone else.
I think we all know what it feels like to be hurt and betrayed by those that we thought
we could trust and those who were closest to us.
I still remember one of the worst times I was ever betrayed was by someone in the church
that I considered to be one of my best friends at the time and I thought there's no way
this person did this thing and I could not believe it.
And yet we all have experienced something like that.
Have we not?
Or someone's hurt us and betrayed us and let us down?
And I just want to tell you this morning, if that has happened to you, you have every
right to be hurt.
You have every right to be angry and upset and distrustful, but I want to warn you and
say that I personally know that when we're in that spot, when we have been disgraced,
it's very easy to begin to try to be petty, right?
It's very easy to meet disgrace with disgrace because when we've been hurt, we want to lash
out.
We want to publicly shame people.
We want to put people in their place.
We want to return the favor.
We want to get into this contest of who can out petty who?
And we'll see who gets the last laugh in this situation.
And when you're hurt and when you've been betrayed and when everything in you wants
to lash out and dish it out in return, I can just tell you this morning, the hardest thing
to do in that situation is the righteous thing.
It's to lay aside your rights like Joseph did here.
To lay aside what you're entitled to and extend grace when you have been disgraced.
And I can just tell you this morning that the only thing that's going to let you do
that, the only thing that's going to let you put aside your rights and what you're entitled
to and extend that grace is the presence of God in your life.
He makes all the difference in our lives because yeah, I might have been hurt by other people
and I might have been betrayed by other people and I might have thought I could trust someone
and they proved me wrong, but then when I remember how many times I have hurt God and
I remember how many times I have publicly shamed God and I remember how many times I
have betrayed God and done things that I swore I would never do and how many times I have
disgraced him and I remember how every single time I did that God forgave me and God met
my disgrace with his grace and God extended his love and his mercy towards me.
It actually frees us to be able to extend that grace and do the righteous thing even
when it's the hardest thing.
You cannot do it on your own, you cannot do it in your own strength, but when you are
able to extend that grace, it is a clear evidence that God is present in your life and that
he has changed you for the better.
And so it was the presence of God that enabled Joseph to act righteously and extend grace
here and I want you to notice what happens next.
Look at verse 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.
And she will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people
from their sins.
And all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.
He called the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel
which means God with us.
And so notice what happens here.
God through this angel gives Joseph all the information he needs to alleviate his fears.
He is telling Joseph that no, Mary has not been unfaithful.
She is not lying to you.
She is telling the truth.
The baby that she is carrying is from the Holy Spirit.
The baby is going to be named Jesus.
This is God in the flesh.
This is Emmanuel, God with us.
And so Joseph, you don't have to be afraid to take her as your wife.
He says that God is fulfilling his prophecy here.
But notice what he does to alleviate his fears.
He is reminding him of all of his previous promises to show Joseph that he can trust
him in this present moment.
And that's exactly how God works with us church.
When we are fearful of the future, the presence of God calms our fears by reminding us of
his past faithfulness.
When we are fearful of the future, God, the presence of God calms our fears by reminding
us of his past faithfulness.
God was saying to Joseph, essentially, Joseph, I know what I'm doing.
This has been the plan since before I ever even formed the foundation of the world.
You might not have known you were going to be included in those plans.
But this has been the plan from the beginning.
And he says to him, essentially, Joseph, have I ever failed my people?
Have I ever failed to bring even one of my promises to pass?
No, then I'm asking you to trust me now in this present moment.
And we need to remember this in our lives too, church, because I know if you're anything
like me, you can get pretty fearful about the future.
When you start thinking about potential circumstances that could possibly happen, if all these other
things happen, then this could happen.
I mean, my wife will tell you, attest to this.
My mind will run away with these possibilities.
Okay, my mom is not in her head more than my wife.
Chill, mom, I said, Anna, not you, okay?
All right?
But this is what my mind does.
My mind will just race to all these possibilities, and I start getting anxious about, well, what
if this happens, and this happens, and this happens?
And we can get so fearful about what might happen in the future that we fail to recognize
the presence of God right now in the present moment.
And like Joseph and Mary, you might not have all the details of what's going to happen
or what might lie ahead, but you can trust that the same God who has always been faithful
to his people and never once failed his people is the same God who is going to be faithful
to you and not fail you.
You know, there's an old saying, and I actually heard it recently in a funeral, and it took
everything within me not to correct this person, but it was at a funeral, so I restrained myself.
But there's an old saying, and it's a popular saying in our time, where people will say,
God will never give you more than you can handle.
That comes from Second Opinions, Chapter 3.
God will never give you more than you can handle, folks.
I just want to tell you that that is an absolute lie, and you will not find that anywhere in
the Bible, because let's be honest, this was more than Mary and Joseph could handle on
their own.
They were not, but the thing is, they were not on their own.
God was with them, and because God was with them, they were going to be able to face these
circumstances.
You see, if God never gave you more than you could handle, then you would never rely on
God, would you?
You would never trust in God.
You would never depend on God, because if God never gave you more than you can handle,
it's all about you and what you can handle, and so you learn to trust in yourself and
your own abilities.
And this is where we end up with the American mindset of just pull yourself up by your boot
straps, do more, and try harder.
And God says, hey, you can do that, and it'll still be too much for you.
You see, God gives us more than we can handle to teach us to rely on Him rather than ourselves,
to teach us to trust in Him and not in our own wisdom and our own strength.
And so yes, God will give you more than you can handle on your own, but if God is with
you, He will enable you to handle any circumstance in your life.
And so I don't know what challenge you're facing this morning.
I don't know what circumstances you're thinking about or what you're getting nervous about
or what you're thinking.
I don't know how I'm going to make it or what I'm going to do, and I can't tell you what
is going to happen, but I can tell you that if God is with you, He will enable you and
give you the strength and the grace that is needed to be able to navigate these unexpected
circumstances.
If you will recall how faithful He's been to His people in the past, if you will recall
how He's provided for His people in the past, if you will remember how He strengthened His
people in the past, then you will be able to trust Him now in this present moment, no
matter what you're facing.
And I want you to just look at verse 21 with me real quick, because verse 21 is one of
my favorite verses in the entire Bible.
In fact, it might be my favorite verse in the entire Bible.
It says that we shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.
And I'll tell you why this is maybe my favorite verse.
It's because it teaches us so much about who Jesus is and what He does for us.
First, notice this about this verse.
It tells us that Jesus is in fact God in the flesh.
You know, there are so many people today who deny the divinity of Jesus, and it's not even
just atheists.
You see the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Jews, the Muslims, the Mormons, they all believe
Jesus was a remarkable man, but they do not believe that Jesus was God.
And yet, notice this verse says, call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from
their sins.
The name Jesus in Aramaic is Yeshua, which means Yahweh saves.
So notice this.
His name is Jesus, Yahweh saves.
Call His name Yahweh saves, for He will save His people from their sins.
It's very similar to the Hebrew names Joshua and Isaiah.
Both of those names in Hebrew mean Yahweh saves.
But Jesus is not like Joshua or Isaiah.
They had their names to remind people that the Lord saves, but Jesus is given His name
because He will save His people from their sins.
And so you can think about it like this.
The names Joshua and Isaiah would remind the world that there is a God who saves, but the
name Jesus tells the world that Jesus is the God who saves.
You know, when I talk to Jehovah's Witnesses, and many of you know this based on a recent
podcast that I did, but when I talk to Jehovah's Witnesses, they will refuse to let you use
the book of John to prove the divinity of Jesus.
It's pretty easy to do from the book of John.
You just go to John 1-1.
In the beginning, it was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
So it was very easy to prove the divinity of Jesus from John.
But they think all that stuff about Jesus being God was just added in at a later date.
So they won't let you use the book of John.
I'm like, okay, that's fine with me.
Let's go to Matthew because Matthew 1 says, his name is Jesus.
Yahweh saves because He will save His people from their sins.
Not only that, He is called Emmanuel, which means what?
Church?
God with us.
And that doesn't mean God is with us just in some spiritual, ephemeral sense.
It means that God is physically present with us in the person of Jesus.
It is literally the incarnation.
God took on human flesh and became man.
And so this verse teaches us that Jesus is God in the flesh.
But notice this also about this verse.
It's amazing because this verse teaches us that the atonement of Jesus is a definite
atonement.
It is so beautiful here.
Notice this.
He will save His people from their sins.
That is written in the Greek in a tense.
That means this is a guaranteed going to happen thing that is going to take place in the future.
So Jesus will save His people from their sins, which means folks, listen to me say this very
clearly, Jesus does not try to save anyone.
Jesus does not try His best to save people.
He does not give it His best effort and hope that He's done enough.
When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, He saved His people from their sins.
This is a definite atonement.
Jesus will never sit in heaven going, I wish I could have done more.
I wish I could have tried harder.
I sure hope that I did enough.
If only they can add something to this, folks.
If you have to add something to salvation, then it was never accomplished in the first
place.
And yet when Jesus died on the cross, He said what?
He said, it is finished.
There's nothing else for you to do.
There's nothing else for you to add.
It's been done by Christ.
He has saved His people from their sins.
It is a definite atonement.
And you know, this is Christmas, so we tend to focus only on the birth of Jesus, but I
want you to notice this, church, before Jesus is ever even born and before He ever even
breathes the air that He created.
His death on the cross is alluded to here.
Because how else does He save His people from their sins but on the cross?
And so notice this, you cannot separate the cradle from the cross.
The cradle of Christ lies in the shadow of the cross of Christ.
And when Jesus would eventually die on the cross for our sins, His mission would be accomplished.
He would save all of His people from all of their sins.
The Bible says the Lamb of God will receive the reward of His sufferings.
And the reward of His sufferings is the eternal redemption, atonement, and salvation of His
people to the glory of God.
That's why this verse is so wonderful.
Call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.
And with this news that God is with Him, I want you to notice that Joseph was able to
obey what God was asking of him.
Look at verses 24 and 25.
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.
Now I imagine that if I'm Joseph at this time, and I've just been told all of this news,
my fears and anxieties are probably not all taken away.
Because at this point I would know that, okay, Mary didn't lie.
This baby is from the Holy Spirit.
This baby is the Messiah.
He's God in the flesh.
But you're still being asked to do something incredibly difficult.
Are you not?
You're being asked to father a child that is not actually your child, and to love that
child as though he were your child.
And think about it like this too, church, just because Mary and Joseph knew all of these
things from God and they believed them, does not mean the rest of the world was going to
accept them or believe them either.
When they would tell the rest of the world that, hey, Mary was not unfaithful and we
didn't do anything before marriage, this baby is from the Holy Spirit, people probably were
not going to believe them.
It's a scandalous story.
They know that they're probably going to be societal outcasts at this point.
They're probably going to be gossiped about and slandered and rumors are going to circulate
around the towns.
And yet, notice that Joseph, even though he was probably still fearful, probably still
anxious and probably still thinking about all that was coming their way, he did what
God had commanded him to do through the angel.
And so Joseph was able to do what God was calling him to do, even when he probably didn't
necessarily feel like doing it.
And it teaches us a very important thing, church, if you wait to obey until you feel
like it, you'll never get around to it.
I think all God's people said, amen there.
Yeah.
If you wait to obey until you feel like it, you will never get around to it.
I've told you this before, we live in a culture that is absolutely dominated and ruled by
our feelings.
Everybody today, they use their feelings for everything.
Their feelings determine what they say, what they do, where they go, who they talk to,
who they associate with.
Everything is about your feelings and we think that we have to feel a certain way to do certain
things.
And if we don't feel a certain way, then we're not going to do certain things.
And yet the Bible says that regardless of how you might feel, there are certain things
that you were called to do no matter how you feel.
And you kind of learn this truth the hard way as a parent, because I learned this the
hard way as a parent.
There are no sick days for parents and all the parents said, amen, yeah.
This was one of the hardest truths we had to learn.
When you work a job, you get sick, you just call in, you say, hey, I'm not feeling well
today, I'm going to take a day.
When you're a parent, there are no sick days.
And I can't tell you how many times I have woken up and I've been sick with something
or other and all I want to do is just lay in bed and be sick all day.
That's all I feel like doing, I just feel like laying in bed and yet I look at my watch
and I realize there are two little boys upstairs who are depending on me to go up there and
wake them up, get them dressed, get their breakfast, pack their bags, get them to school.
And so I might feel like laying around all day, but there are certain things that need
to be done and I've got to do them.
And the same way, church, if you wait around to obey God until you feel like it, I can
pretty much guarantee you're never going to get around to it.
For instance, you might know that God has called you to forgive someone who has hurt
you and you know that you've been hurt by them and you know that God says you were to
forgive others as God in Christ has forgiven you.
And you say to me this morning, well, pastor, if I'm honest, I really don't feel like it.
They don't really deserve my forgiveness.
They haven't even said sorry.
And so I don't really feel like forgiving them.
Okay?
Yeah, I hear you on that.
But the Bible doesn't say you are to forgive people as long as you feel like forgiving them.
Right?
The Bible says you're to forgive others as God in Christ has forgiven you.
And I'm willing to bet that if you're waiting around to forgive someone until you feel like
forgiving them, you're probably never going to feel like forgiving them.
Or men.
And if you're new here, you'll learn I'm a lot harder on the men in this church than
I am the women.
But men, you know that God has called you to be the spiritual leader of your household.
God has called you to be the spiritual leader who leads your wife and your children to be
an example of Christ for them to lead them closer to the Lord and to be that example
in their lives.
You are responsible for raising your children in the fear and the admonition of the Lord.
But so many men today will say, well, pastor, if I'm honest, I just don't really feel like
it.
If I'm honest, pastor, it's just easier to let my wife take the lead.
It's just easier to let my wife run the household and deal with all that Jesus stuff.
And I get it.
That is easier.
But God does not say that you were called to be the spiritual leader of your household
as long as you feel like being the spiritual leader of your household.
Amen.
God has said you were called to lead your family and your wife and your children and you were
to be the man of God in your household.
So in other words, men, it's time to stop using your feelings and your passivity as
an excuse for disobedience.
It's time to step up and be a man.
And all God's people said, amen, except for the men.
They're too scared to say amen.
That's okay.
We can talk afterward.
There's some of you here this morning who know that God is calling you to do something
right now.
And you've known it for a while.
He's leading you in a certain direction.
He's put this thing before you and you know this is where he's leading you.
And yet you are not obeying God because you're waiting around on a feeling.
And can I just be honest with you this morning?
So many Christians today are waiting around for God to give them a sign or a feeling when
he's already given us a command.
We've got to stop using our feelings as excuses for disobedience.
We've got to stop using our feelings and our fears and our anxieties as excuses for disobedience.
The Bible says that God is, that Jesus is in manuel, which means God with us.
And when God is with us, church, he will enable us to navigate those unexpected circumstances
in life.
His presence will enable us to show grace when we've been disgraced.
His presence will calm our fears by reminding us of his past faithfulness.
And since we know that he is with us, we don't have to wait around to feel a certain way.
By God's grace, we can obey him even when we don't have that feeling, which means all
this is to say, this story teaches us that if you will go with God, you cannot go wrong.
Amen.
Let's pray.