We are here to celebrate Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas.
Yeah.
We like to open our services by saying welcome.
If you are here joining us in our sanctuary for the very first time,
if you haven't been here in a while in the sanctuary,
or if you're joining us online for the first time, welcome.
We're so glad you're here to worship with us this morning at Hosanna.
I am Pastor Nathan, and yeah, this morning we are gathering together
to celebrate Christmas Eve.
Today and tomorrow we're going to be looking at the Christmas story
as we take a break from our study of Revelation.
And to look at the Christmas story from two distinct perspectives.
This morning we'll be looking at the Christmas story from the perspective of Joseph,
and then tomorrow morning for our 10 a.m. Christmas day service
we'll be looking at the story from the perspective of Mary.
You know, there's a phrase, a Latin phrase that says this, dramatis personae.
It's a phrase that means persons of the drama.
It's a phrase that refers to the main characters in a story or a narrative.
It's a phrase that today we call credits, right, at the end of the movie
when the credits roll.
That's the dramatis personae, if you will.
It's the who's who in a movie or a play or a narrative,
and it lists who played what role in all of that.
Now, when we think of the Christmas story,
often we think of baby Jesus, of course, right?
It's his birthday that we are celebrating.
We think of Mary, his mom.
We might think of the wise men, and for years and years and years
we would also think of the Animaniacs here at Hosanna.
But one of the most overlooked members of the cast of The Greatest Story Ever Told
is Joseph.
He's not mentioned a whole lot.
He's almost regarded by some as a background character,
somebody that's just a bystander.
But if it wasn't for Joseph obeying God,
humbling himself to carry out the command that was given to him
in the passage of Scripture we're looking at this morning,
there wouldn't be a Christmas for us to celebrate.
We wouldn't have this opportunity.
And so this morning we're going to be focusing in on this very important
member of the cast, Joseph.
A faithful, humble man, human, just like all of us
with all of his personal issues and challenges,
but a man who became the adoptive father of Jesus Christ,
God born in the flesh, a man who put obedience to God above all
and served as a very key and critical player in bringing us
the Christmas that we celebrate today.
But before we get into the word this morning,
we're going to spend time in worship.
We're going to sing some of those Christmas songs that speak
of what this day is all about as we celebrate our Lord,
his coming to this earth to live as a man,
ultimately to die as a perfect man for the sin that you and I all bear,
the greatest gift ever given to anybody, salvation.
Let's pray.
Father, we love you.
We're so grateful, God, today as we are gathered here on Christmas Eve
as your body, Lord, to celebrate you.
God, we want to celebrate you and who you are and what you've done, Lord.
Lord, as we look at this story, God, there's so many elements of the story,
and of course we know that the whole thing is about you, Jesus.
It's about you, who you are, and what you've come to do.
But, Lord, we also want to take a look at some of the elements around the story, God,
to learn from these things, to be encouraged, God, to take what Christmas is,
to apply it into our lives, and to live it every single day
as we move forward as your people.
God, we want to start this morning by worshiping your holy name
and praising you because you are God Almighty.
Jesus, you are God come in the flesh to identify with us
and our weaknesses and our struggles in every way
that you would relate to us like no one else could.
And that, God, we just want to praise you, Lord, for coming, for living,
ultimately for dying on the cross for our sins, God,
giving us the ultimate free gift of salvation through faith in you.
Lord, thank you. We love you so much. We worship you now.
It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
All right. We're going to be in Matthew chapter 1 this morning
as we look at Joseph's story.
But as I mentioned in our intro, you know, often when we think of the first Christmas
and the story and the details around that,
Joseph isn't typically one of the first people we think of in the story.
I mean, even our Christmas songs, which are beautiful,
and we love singing those songs,
but I don't know if you noticed in the few that we shared opening this morning,
they usually center on Jesus as they should.
That's what Christmas is all about.
But typically the very next priority or person mentioned
or focused on in the songs is Mary.
And in many of our Christmas songs or Christmas carols,
the focus is on Jesus and Mary.
For example, the song Silent Night you guys are familiar with, right?
It says, round yon virgin, mother and child, holy infant, tender and mild.
But not a single word about Joseph in the entire song.
What child is this who's laid to rest on Mary's lap is sleeping?
Joseph had a lap too.
What about Joseph, right?
And I bet Jesus spent ample time in Joseph's lap
in the earthly arms of his earthly daddy there, you know.
And then there's the famous song Mary, Did You Know?
You guys are all familiar with that one.
You know, she received a revelation from Jesus,
and there's this wonderful song about what Mary knew.
But Joseph knew some things too, right?
There's a lot, you know.
And there's so many other songs, and they're beautiful,
and they're so good to sing and to worship God with.
But one might conclude from most of the Christmas songs out there
that Joseph was just some background bystander in the whole story,
but he wasn't.
So this morning I want to stand in his sandals
and look at the Christmas story from his perspective
and learn from his example how to honor God this Christmas season.
And so if you'll read with me in Matthew chapter 1,
starting in verse 18, it says,
The birth of Jesus Christ came about this way.
After his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph,
it was discovered before they came together
that she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit.
So her husband Joseph, being a righteous man
and not wanting to disgrace her publicly,
decided to divorce her secretly.
But after he had considered these things,
an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream,
saying, Joseph, son of David,
don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife,
because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus,
because he will save his people from their sins.
Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord
through the prophet.
See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son,
and they will name him Emmanuel, which is translated God with us.
When Joseph woke up, he did as the Lord's angel had commanded him.
He married her, but did not have sexual relations with her
until she gave birth to a son, and he named him Jesus.
It's very clear in scriptures that Joseph is very much not
a background character to the Christmas story,
very much not a bystander,
although Mary conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit
as the word tells us that the Holy Spirit overshadowed her.
Joseph is a very important part of the story
because he loved her through this entire strange pregnancy.
And as we're going to talk about, it wasn't just a strange pregnancy,
but for many, including Joseph initially,
it was a suspect pregnancy.
And what we see here in Matthew chapter 1,
Joseph really goes through five emotional stages
that we can go through ourselves when we're just dealing with life
as we're walking and learning about how to be a Christian
and how to trust God and all that's taking place in our lives.
And so the first emotion that we see Joseph go through here,
and this is an assumption here, but I assume it to be true,
because in verse 18, we see enthusiasm.
It says, Mary had been engaged to Joseph.
Now, I say assumption there because many of us understand
the enthusiasm that comes with engagement.
We understand the excitement that comes in those moments,
the excitement of getting engaged, right?
In our modern world, people get engaged, and there's a photo shoot,
and that gets blasted all over your social media, right?
And there's pictures of the ring and pictures of that,
and then there's a photo shoot for every step of this marriage process today,
and people want to share that. They're so excited.
I had the very special privilege to be present for that engagement moment
with a number of the most important people in my life, and it's just beautiful.
There's such joy and such excitement there.
But in biblical times, engagement was a thing called betrothal,
and some of you know that word betrothal, to be betrothed.
It was the idea, the moment in life where a promise was made
between two people that they would be married at a future time.
So we call that engagement today.
But in biblical times, engagement was typically something
that was arranged by the parents when the couple were still kids,
were still teenagers.
It was an arranged type of thing where the parents would make an arrangement,
a contract with another family, that their children would be married together.
Now sometimes this contract was drafted up when the teenagers were as young
as 12 years old, and in our modern culture, we go,
oh, that's so weird and so gross.
In the time, it was a normal thing that there was this commitment made.
Now sometimes that betrothal would happen between 13 and 14.
It could happen all the way up until 17.
But there was two phases to this engagement process
and this marriage process. It's a very formal thing.
The first phase was known as the cadusha,
and that was typically a 12-month engagement between the couple.
Sometimes it could be longer if it was just radically inappropriate
for them to be married within those 12 months or at the end of those 12 months,
but typically it was a 12-month engagement process,
and then after the cadusha, you had what was called the huppa.
And the huppa was this actual formal marriage ceremony,
the actual wedding, if you will.
Now this whole thing from the moment of betrothal
all the way through the wedding was a formal contract.
It was a contract that was agreed to by the parties.
What that means is despite the formal wedding ceremony,
having not happened yet, they were as good as married.
Even though they were engaged, they were considered married.
All the expectations of commitment in that were in force from the moment of betrothal.
Now although during the engagement there was no physical intimacy of any kind,
there was still this commitment, this promise to be together.
So this commitment, this contract was so formal and so important
that during the engagement, if a couple wanted to break the engagement,
they would actually have to go through a formal ceremony of divorce
to break the engagement.
That's how big of a deal it was, right?
And so, like I said, while many in a modern Western culture kind of recoil in horror
at the idea of arranged marriages,
there are still many cultures around the world today that follow this custom.
And, you know, truth be told, according to modern divorce statistics,
our way hasn't done much of a better job.
But the idea was this is how it took place.
And regardless of your feelings about that,
like today, this time of engagement was a time of great enthusiasm, great excitement.
This whole process leading up to the wedding day was full of joy.
And it was during that time, during that engagement time,
the lead up to the formal ceremony is where the couple would get to know each other very well.
They would spend time talking and stuff.
Again, no physical intimacy of any kind, but the relationship was built
because a commitment was already made.
And so they would talk, and they would talk about life.
They would talk about the ceremony to come.
They would talk about, I'm sure they would talk about the honeymoon, right?
That's an exciting time for most people looking forward to getting married.
And then they would talk about life afterwards and what it's going to be like
and how many kids you want to have and all this type of stuff.
Great enthusiasm.
But here in the Christmas story for Joseph,
Joseph then goes almost immediately from enthusiasm to shock.
Verse 18, it tells us,
It was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit.
Now that phrase came together is talking about the consummation of the marriage, right?
On the wedding day at the tail end of the wedding ceremony,
the couple would go into the wedding chamber, then they would be together.
That was called consummating the marriage as they were together physically,
the honeymoon moment.
But it tells us here in verse 18, before that moment,
before they had come together in the physical intimacy that marriage affords them,
she was found pregnant.
Now yes, the word here adds pregnant from the Holy Spirit,
but that's more of a fast-forward summary to the end of the story
after we know all the details.
At first, as we're going to see, Joseph didn't know that truth.
Joseph didn't know that.
And you can imagine being Joseph,
finding out that your virgin bride-to-be is pregnant.
Well, in most instances, there's only one way to get pregnant,
and you're supposed to be committed to me.
We're supposed to be engaged, right?
We're supposed to be waiting for our married moment,
and so he goes from,
yeah, I can't wait to be married to you to, well, hold up, what?
You're pregnant?
Now, we don't know where Joseph was
or what he was doing when he got the news, right?
We don't know if it was Mary, the one who told him specifically.
We don't know if it was his friends, coworkers.
But either way, we can imagine his feeling.
We can imagine his emotion in that moment, the implications.
The thoughts that we go through is, man, the nausea in the gut.
What was I cheated on?
Is she out being with other guys engaged to me?
What will others think?
Oh, right, people are going to say, you guys just couldn't wait.
You're sneaking around.
Well, Joseph, since you got the reward of marriage now,
you're not going to go through with marrying her, are you?
I mean, all this stuff that would come up from people.
Sexual purity in those days was regarded very, very, very highly, very highly.
And surprise to surprise, surprise, it still is today with God.
The purity of intimacy, it's highly, highly regarded.
Regardless of what our culture says, our culture has turned it into whatever.
It's just like blowing your nose. It's nothing.
But in those days, it was a highly valued thing.
And there was the idea that couples would save themselves
to be with the person they married,
because that marriage commitment was to be a full giving of each other
to one another for life in every way.
Now, so he finds out.
Now, it was supposed to be a given that you stayed pure all the way to a marriage,
and if you broke that, it was something that was incredibly dishonoring to God,
something incredibly dishonoring to the culture,
incredibly dishonoring to your community,
incredibly dishonoring to your family.
It was really scandalous.
I mean, getting pregnant while unmarried was a really scandalous thing in those days.
And so Joseph, who's engaged to this woman,
who's supposed to be holding herself and waiting for him,
finds out she's pregnant.
And then on top of that, Luke tells us that Joseph didn't even get the news
immediately after she found out.
Think about that.
Right? Luke chapter 1, we have the story of Gabriel,
the angel Gabriel following or visiting Mary,
and he informs her, hey, Mary, you're going to get pregnant.
You're going to give birth to a child, right?
You're going to give birth to the Messiah.
And in Luke 1, Mary says, how can this be,
since I have not had sexual relations with a man?
And then Gabriel says, the Holy Spirit will come upon you.
The power of the Most High will overshadow you.
And then to encourage her, Gabriel says, consider your relative Elizabeth.
Even she has conceived a son in her old age for nothing will be impossible with God.
And then it tells us there in Luke that then Mary hurried off to go visit Elizabeth
and stayed with her for three months,
because I would imagine surely a barren old lady
who has become miraculously pregnant
could understand my situation, I believe Mary was thinking, right?
You know, if I told her, hey, I'm pregnant, but it was God,
I mean, surely she would get it
and she would help me walk through it and process all of it.
So Mary got to process this miracle pregnancy
and all the implications and all the thoughts of what would happen
and what are people—she got to process all of this for three months.
But by the time Joseph finds out about the pregnancy,
Mary's already a few months into it
and possibly showing a little bit, right?
So Joseph's shocked.
He goes from enthusiasm to shock.
Now we've all in our lives had moments where we've gotten shocking news,
health issues, relationship issues, family issues.
And when we get those—have those moments of shock,
we get that news that shocks us,
it leads us to the second or the third emotion that Joseph experiences here,
which is confusion, confusion.
You see, in one moment in a flash, all of Joseph's hopes and dreams
and expectations, all of it smashed by shock.
Now he's in the moment of, God, I don't understand.
I don't understand, God, why is this happening?
How is this happening?
My fiance is pregnant and it wasn't me.
God, you know that.
It wasn't me.
And she's trying to tell me it was you.
Crazy.
How does that make any sense?
And so in those days, Joseph had three options as a Jewish man.
His first option is he could publicly expose her as an unfaithful woman,
an unfaithful wife, because again, remember,
during the engagement process, you were as good as married.
So his first option was to go expose her to the community,
expose her publicly, and since her pregnancy would constitute a breach
of the formal betrothal contract,
Joseph could have, according to Deuteronomy 22, publicly exposed her
and then subjected her to the penalty of breaking a betrothal contract
and becoming pregnant while unmarried.
Guess what the penalty was?
Stones. Death.
Imagine if that was the penalty today.
It would be a very different culture,
at least when it comes to teenage pregnancies
and people having children out of relationships that aren't together
and absentee moms and absentee dads.
I mean, it would be a different picture.
I'm not necessarily saying we should kill people who get pregnant out of wedlock,
but it was a different time, right?
Now, that was his first option, publicly expose her and subject her to the penalty.
The second option he had was he could privately divorce her,
which was simply in private he would give her a handwritten note of divorce, right?
It wasn't a public spectacle, but it was formal,
but he would give her a certificate of divorce.
It had to be witnessed by two witnesses, just like a notarized thing today, and then done.
They were separated, they were divorced, the betrothal was broken,
and then she would go about her life, and so would he.
The third option in the culture was that he could marry her.
See, in Exodus chapter 22, it tells us that if a couple was betrothed,
then the woman ended up pregnant.
Now, the assumption there in Exodus 22 is she became pregnant
because the couple engaged in relations prior to the wedding ceremony.
Everything could be made right by them immediately getting married.
The problem for Joseph was that he wasn't the one that messed up.
She wasn't pregnant because they messed up.
He's like, this wasn't me at all.
Now, of course, there's a fourth option.
Had they been living today, which is a very unfortunate option,
I believe he would have been pressured to have her kill it through abortion.
That travesty wasn't on the scene yet then, and so in Matthew 1 verse 20,
it tells us that he considered these things.
The word considered there means to reflect on, to ponder, to think about.
The idea is that all of these options were bounced around his head.
What do I do?
Do I subject her to the death penalty?
Do I divorce her privately?
Do I marry her, but it's not mine?
What do I do?
He pondered all these things, and really, his conclusion was,
I have to divorce her.
I have to divorce her, but should I publicly shame her?
What if she cheated on me?
That's what everybody's going to say.
She's claiming divine conception.
How can I trust her?
This is going to ruin my reputation.
This is going to ruin my career.
Right?
Joseph is having all of these thoughts, but verse 19 back up there,
it tells us that her husband Joseph, being a righteous man
and not wanting to disgrace her publicly, decided to divorce her secretly.
So although he's confused, although he's not sure,
although he's pondering his options, being a righteous person,
a person who wanted to do what's right, he chose option two.
I will divorce her in secret.
But the rest of verse 20 shows us that he was still doing this
really from a place of confusion.
He needed reassurance because in verse 20, it tells us that as he was
considering these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream
saying, Joseph, son of David, don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife
because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will give birth to a son and you are to name him Jesus
because he will save his people from their sins.
What we see in this verse here is Joseph has gone from enthusiasm
and excitement to shock to confusion, and now he's having fear.
Right?
What did the angel say to him?
Don't be afraid.
And what is it he's afraid of?
Well, we've talked about it a little bit already.
The future, the gossip, the slander, the talk, the blame.
He's worried about things that pertain to him, but I believe he was also
worried about things that would pertain to Mary.
What about Mary's future?
What's going to happen to her as a result of all of this, right?
If I publicly expose her, she'll be killed in the death penalty.
I don't want that.
But even if I secretly divorce her, what is that going to do?
Eventually people are going to know she's pregnant.
I mean, you can't get around that.
So what's going to happen to her?
I love her.
So the best option that he could come up with is a private divorce.
But even after that, what's life going to be like for her?
Now, I don't know if you've ever had great emotional struggle in your life,
anybody?
Once or twice, right?
And you're just roiling things around in your head, and you're trying to come
up with the right decision and figure out, God, what do you want me to do?
I'm not sure, should I do this, should I do that?
And especially when it's things that deal with the heart, right,
if it's a relational issue or something.
And God, I'm invested in this.
And what do I do?
Well, oftentimes when we're having emotional struggle, I don't know about
you, but it makes me tired, right?
And so that's why I find it interesting when we find Joseph here sleeping.
He's contemplating all these things, but he's dreaming.
And in that sleep, in that dream, an angel appears to him there.
And we all have dreams.
You know, some of us remember our dreams, some of us don't remember our
dreams, but the Bible tells us that God can and does speak to us through
our dreams.
And so Joseph has a dream here, and this angel appears.
But Joseph's dream, it's not a fabrication of his brain chemistry.
This is an actual God-ordained appointment.
And Joseph is told three very important things in this dream.
Yes, Mary's going to have a baby.
But I want to reassure you, it is indeed of God.
She's not crazy.
What she told you is true.
The second thing he tells him is that you're going to name that baby.
You're going to name that baby Jesus.
And the third thing he tells Joseph is that baby is going to save the world
from their sins.
Now, if Joseph thought what Mary had told him about the conception of this
child was crazy, I imagine for a moment that what the angel is telling him
here in this dream might have sounded even crazier, at least at its onset.
He says, you're going to marry her.
Don't be afraid of doing that, that third option, that one that's going to
bring all kinds of talk and all kinds of reputational issues into your life.
Don't be afraid of that option because what she told you is true.
I mean, it was hard enough, like Mary telling him or him finding out she's
pregnant.
Wait, what?
And then, oh yeah, I'm pregnant by God.
Wait, what?
And then he has a dream that says, oh yeah, by the way, that baby is going to
be the Savior of the entire world.
Full stop, Gabriel.
What are you saying?
This is amazing.
This is too much.
Now, verse 22 and 23, it's Matthew giving us his commentary, tying the
prophecy or tying what Gabriel said to Mary back to a prophecy made by Isaiah.
And it possibly explains his response in verse 24.
Joseph, you know, being a God-fearing Jew, grew up going to synagogue, grew up
studying the Scriptures, and most Jews in those times really studied, especially
focused in on Scriptures pertaining to the Messiah, which was the national hope
and the personal and individual hope of every Jew.
Every Jew was waiting for the Messiah to show up, so they really knew the
Scriptures talking about him coming.
So in verse 22, Matthew says, now all of this took place to fulfill what was
spoken by the Lord through the prophet.
See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will
name him Emmanuel, which is translated God with us.
And I believe that was the connection Joseph made in his own mind and heart,
being a man who knew the Scriptures, having this dream where the angel tells
him she is indeed pregnant, but it is indeed from God.
She is a virgin who is now with child.
And that child is indeed going to be the one that is God with us, the Messiah.
So verse 24 says, when Joseph woke up, he did as the Lord's angel commanded him,
and he married her.
Upon waking, he was settled.
He was settled that this indeed was a work of God, that the Messiah was about
to be born into the world through his fiancé, that she was miraculously
pregnant.
No, she didn't cheat.
No, she's not with some other man.
She is indeed experiencing a move of Almighty God upon her life.
And so, Joseph, don't be afraid to do the thing that might cause the most
difficulty in your life, because this is a God thing that is taking place.
This is a God moment.
This is indeed part of God's plan.
And Joseph, how could he not be a part of that, knowing that?
How could he just cut and run?
So instead of cutting and running, he will obey.
And that's exactly what Joseph did.
I believe Joseph, after having this dream, was relieved, grateful to be part
of God's plan to save the world, honored to play his part in God's plan to save
the world.
And so they get married.
And he follows through, because the final emotion he has here, he goes from
enthusiasm, he goes to shock, he goes to confusion, he goes to fear.
Now he has resolve.
He has resolved to do what God is saying, regardless of the consequences.
So verse 25 gives us a very tiny but important detail to highlight his resolve.
It's told that he marries her, but he did not have sexual relations with her until
she gave birth to a son, and he named him Jesus.
You know, that tells me that Joseph was as committed to this process as Mary was.
He was as committed to the plan of God as Mary was.
What that tells us there is that they got married.
They went from the engagement to the ceremony.
They were officially, formally, thoroughly, completely married at this point, but he
did not touch her physically until this child was born.
And you might go, well, why does Matthew add that detail?
Why is that detail there?
And I think it's so that we know the depth of Joseph's resolve at his first Christmas.
It's as if Joseph is saying, I don't want anybody to even be able to say I had
anything to do with what God is doing with you, Mary.
I don't want there to be question that this is God's work.
I don't want there to be suspicion that it isn't God doing what God is doing here
because what God is doing is all God.
And Joseph is saying, I have no part in that.
I have no part in the conception.
I have no part in all of that.
And I don't want to add to the gossip and the rumor that's already going around.
And so I'm not even going to touch you until this baby is born because I want everybody
to know that this is a God thing.
I don't want one single person to even say, no, you were with her, and maybe the times
and the dates are off.
That's your baby.
He wanted to make sure the world knew who Jesus was.
And for Joseph, I imagine this wasn't an easy decision to make.
You know, it's one thing to have a dream, and in that dream you hear, you know, God
speak or an angel speak to you.
And it's one thing to like discern God's will and to know his word and to kind of
figure out, okay, I can understand God's character when he wants.
Really, that's the easy part.
The hard part is having the resolve to follow through once you know God's will.
The hard part is following through and obeying and putting into action, applying what God
is calling you to do.
That's the hard part.
But that's what God calls us to do, to follow through.
And Joseph, in marrying her, followed through with what God was telling him, that this is
going to be the baby, this is the Messiah, this is the one born into the world to save
the world, that as he stepped in and married her, he was committing to raising a child
that looked nothing like him.
He was committing to raising a child whose conception he had no part of.
He was committing to raise a child that essentially wasn't his.
But he did it anyways, in fear and admonition of the Lord.
He did it to follow God's plan, God's will, and God's way, and that took great courage.
And in that courage, we see that same courage follow through into his life, where he ends
up then taking that very pregnant wife to Bethlehem, a very dangerous journey at the
time, to fulfill the census that was called upon the people.
And we know the story that it was in that manger where the baby was born.
In that manger, not being the pretty, nice little, you know, oh, look how cute the thing
is with the hay and all that.
No, it was the disgusting feeding trough.
It's where the animals' food and slop was thrown into so that the horses and the donkeys
and the animals people brought in with them to the end could feed.
And Jesus had to be born in a feeding trough because there was no room in the end, we know
the story.
Nobody would let them stay with them, and so they had to give birth to this kid out
under the open sky with the stinky, dirty, smelly animals.
And that was where the God of glory was born into this world.
Joseph was right there.
Then after that child was born and started to grow, we read the story where there was
a moment where Herod wanted to kill anybody claiming to be a king.
He wanted to kill anybody that others claimed to be a king.
And so we know that when Jesus was around two years old and the wise men showed up following
the star, said, hey, we're looking for the one who is the king of the Jews.
Herod's like, what are you talking about?
I'm in charge.
And so he declares that every child two years and under will be slaughtered to make sure
that this king would die.
Joseph, in his courage and bravery, then whisks his family off to Egypt where they lived for
two years to protect this child.
Leaves his country, leaves his homeland, leaves his job, has to start over in his occupation,
figure out how to provide for his family in a foreign country.
And after that, he eventually brings them back to Nazareth where all his friends and
family and coworkers are.
And they've all been able to look at the calendar and figure out the dates of pregnancy and
the age of the baby and kind of do all this and all the talk and the gossip and all of
that.
But he comes back still committed to raising this child.
And he does it all anyways.
Why?
Because obeying God is what a man does.
You obey God.
You do what he's telling you to do.
You go where he's telling you to go.
You be who he's calling you to be.
You serve how he's calling you to serve.
And obedience to God, it's never easy.
Sometimes the right thing to do is the hardest thing to do.
But that was Joseph's part in the Christmas story, making some very, very hard decisions
because they were the right decisions.
So Joseph, he's not a background character.
He's not someone that just stands off to the side.
Right?
We set up our manger scene and there's, you know, is there the Joseph?
And is he the guy off to the side?
Is he leaning over right over the baby?
Right?
Most of our manger scenes, we have the wise men there.
Don't get me started on that.
Right?
The wise men should be two years away, but anyways, we won't go there.
But Joseph is not a background character.
And his part in the Christmas story teaches us some very valuable things about what Christmas is all about.
One, I believe it teaches us very clearly and solidly that families work best when Jesus is the center of everything.
Families work best when Jesus is the center.
Now, that's obviously kind of a given, right?
Duh.
But Joseph didn't know that at first.
At first, he was thrown for a loop and his family was falling apart before it even started.
But he found out in a dream that this Jesus was what it was all about.
This baby, this Messiah to be born, was what it was all about.
And so he puts that baby front and center, priority over all.
I don't care what other people say.
I don't care what the world says.
This is Jesus.
He is the priority.
And when Jesus is the center, family life is always better.
The second thing we learn from Joseph's story is sometimes the best decisions are the hardest decisions to make.
I imagine in many ways life would have been so much easier had he just gotten that private divorce.
It may not have been easier for Mary, but it would have been easier for Joseph.
If he just took the easy way out and just bailed on the whole situation.
That's what a lot of guys do today.
They bail on a difficult situation.
They do what's easy instead of what's right because they're only focused on themselves.
But easier isn't always right.
Easier doesn't always guarantee the blessing.
And the third thing we learn from Joseph is I think the world needs more Josephs.
The world needs more Josephs.
The world needs men of integrity.
Just men, righteous men who are followers of Jesus.
Joseph decided to obey God and to do the right thing regardless of how hard it was.
Regardless of how difficult it would be.
This was Joseph's first Christmas.
The whole my fiance is pregnant by God.
And I'm going to love her and I'm going to take care of her.
I'm going to marry her. I'm going to stand by her.
I'm going to protect her. I'm going to provide for her.
That God's will will be done in her life and thus be done in my life and the world's life.
The right thing was to marry this woman.
The right thing was to raise this child.
The right thing is always that which honors God.
And so the world needs men like that.
Men who will choose to follow God's will.
So guys, today we're going to talk about Mary tomorrow.
But guys, I wanted to share this with you today.
Husbands, fathers, single guys, young men, old men.
Be a gift to your friends.
Be a gift to your co-workers.
Be a gift especially to your families this Christmas.
Be the gift of a God-fearing, obedient, faithful follower of Jesus Christ.
I guarantee you that's what they want more than anything.
It's not the doodad. It's not the knick-knack. It's not the gift card.
Those things may be fine.
But what your families want from you is a man like Joseph.
Who will say Jesus is going to be front and center in this family no matter what.
And so yeah, we decorate. Awesome. I love Christmas decorations.
Just not all year I'm one of those people.
I'm like, okay, it's December 1st, now they can go up, right?
But they're beautiful.
And the Christmas songs we sing, beautiful. Love it.
And the presents and the gifts and the visiting family. Awesome. Amazing.
But the point of Christmas is Jesus Christ.
The birth of our Lord and Savior.
And so this Christmas as we remember Jesus,
guys don't forget Joseph, the one who is sometimes hidden in the Christmas story,
because if it wasn't for him, I don't think we would be celebrating Christmas as we do today.
It doesn't matter what you do. Life is going to happen.
There are difficulties, especially during this season,
where we're all trying to wrangle all the different elements of our celebrations together.
Things are tough.
But we can't forget that Jesus is the answer to every problem.
Jesus is the answer to every challenge.
He is the solution.
And so all of us keep Jesus at the center of things.
Trust God as you're working through, what should I do?
How do I handle this? How do I respond?
How do I fix? How do I?
Jesus is the answer.
He will always be the answer, and that's what we celebrate at Christmas.
Jesus Christ. Amen?
Let's pray. Father, we love you.
We thank you, God, for who you are.
We thank you, God, for what you've done.
Lord, we thank you, God, that you gave us your Word,
and in your Word we have the story of Joseph,
this man who found himself up against a very, very difficult situation,
a very difficult and a personal situation.
And yet, Lord, you gave us a story that we would see the effect of Jesus on his life.
Lord, you were in the womb still, and yet you had an effect on this man's life,
that this man learned to hear you through your Word,
that he chose to obey you even when it was difficult, Lord,
that he would do the right thing, and that's what God-fearing men do.
And that, Lord, he stepped into taking what was very difficult, Lord.
We even know that the negative comments about you went long into your adult life, Lord,
as people said, isn't that the child of fornication?
And yet, Lord, knowing that slander was to come,
and looking ahead to the life of the gossip, Lord,
he still stepped in to say, I'm going to obey God no matter what.
Jesus, that is the effect you have in the life of men.
That is the effect you have in the life of all who follow you, God,
that you enable us, one, by forgiving us and washing us clean, God,
and you offer that freely, God, that is the gift of your birth, Lord,
that you came to die for us.
And yet, Lord, when we receive that gift here and now in our lives today,
when we unwrap that present and apply all that it means to our lives, God,
we become different people.
We become people who want to live for the glory of God, who want to be righteous.
As we've got this Christmas, I pray for our church,
but right now especially I pray for the men in our church, Lord,
that they would be the gift of a God-fearing, obedient, faithful,
resolved follower of Jesus Christ to their friends and their families.
That, God, they would keep Jesus at the center of their families no matter what.
That obedience to you would be the priority of their lives,
the priority of their leadership, the priority of their example.
That, God, you would be glorified.
Because we know life is going to happen, Lord.
We know life is difficult. We know there are struggles.
But it's all about you, Jesus. You are the answer.
We love you and we thank you.
It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
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Oh, hello.
What is Christmas really about?
I've got just the thing.
An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream
and said, Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife
because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus
because he will save his people from their sins.
So, Jesus? Jesus.
May I? Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you.
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You know what? Forget it. Pizza delivery Christmas Eve.
No problem.