Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / December 19, 2021 | Hark - Joseph

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December 19, 2021 | Hark - Joseph · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hey TBC family, I'm back with Craig Congden, director of the One Body Project, and we have been talking about the Christmas Project this year at Topeka Bible Church.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully you are aware of what we're doing.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: We are partnering with the One Body Project for work, water, and the Word.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's sort of this multifaceted approach to be able to help uh further the gospel in Haiti.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: We've already talked about building the churches, we've talked about uh drilling these wells and cisterns, but now we want to talk about how we can equip the pastors and the congregations to continue to grow once they have these things.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Can you give us a little bit of information on that?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: The pastors in Haiti are just, uh they're amazing men.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're uh they're faithful, they're consistent, they are really shepherding and caring for their people in a variety of ways.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so uh I'm always amazed at them and at their faith and at their consistency.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so then the question for us has just been what can we do to come alongside them?
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so for years we've done a variety of things.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: We've uh we will often go down and lead some pastors' conferences.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: At times we take them different resources and materials, everything from taking them down some nice new ties or something to giving them books and resources.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: So many of the pastors in Haiti, while faithful and while they've served the Lord for years, haven't had the chance to do as much of the education side as they would have liked.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so one of the things that they ask from us and for us is that uh either we come down and lead conferences and do sessions with them, or sometimes they just need something as simple as books.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality is for pastors in Haiti, they really don't have the money to do something like buy books.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Many of the churches actually don't even have songbooks.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: We call them hymnals, but uh they don't have their the songbooks.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh I was able to be in Haiti a couple months ago, and the church I was in had, I think I counted at the end eight songbooks, and there are about 180 people there while we're worshiping and so.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: That math doesn't work out.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: So they pass one out per every two rows or something, and um and then on the other hand, Bibles as well.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the Haitian converts don't actually get a Bible, and they they can't afford one, to be frank.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh so these are the type of things that we're trying to give these pastors.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're trying to get them some books, uh, either some theological books, then some just practical pastoral and leadership books, uh, and then we're trying to give them song books that they can actually have while they lead worship that all their people can sing together from.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then we're trying to give them Bibles as well to pass out to their current um members.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then also, whenever a new person comes into church and accepts Christ, we want them to have a Bible.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so the pastors often ask, hey, can you just provide us with a stack of Bibles that we can pass out as people come in?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um so this is a variety of ways we're trying to encourage and equip these pastors.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And like you've said before, it's not that these things aren't happening with in terms of like, you know, the pastors, you know, being able to study or to be able to preach or to sing.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's happening, but we can help the congregation grow.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: And just as Topeka Bible Church is a place that values the word and being able to have access to the Bible, I mean, I've got it on my phone, we do too.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's not really a reality down there.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: They need access to these implements so that once they have the church, once they have the community center, once they are, you know, have water for a healthy community, then they can ultimately grow closer and closer to Christ.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I know it makes such a difference for these pastors.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, again, they're such faithful men of God.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: They want this stuff.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the times when we've been able to give them some books, uh either theological or practical or whatever it is, uh, they just beam.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're just radiant because now they have something to work with.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because otherwise they're just faithfully using what they've learned, what they've been taught, what they share with each other.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: But um for them to actually get resources in their hands, it's such a blessing, and I know they value it so much.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to say one more time.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited that we can partner with One Body Project on this because I know uh that if we are able to support the ends that we've sort of seen and you've sort of highlighted these needs down in Haiti, I know that an amazing impact for the gospel can be done down there.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it's not that things, fantastic things aren't already happening, that God isn't working in Haiti, He is.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: But we can continue to see that grow and expand and equip the people down there to be able to, man, just do a lot of the things that not only we take for granted, but to draw deeper and deeper into that relationship with Christ.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: I really can assure you that by um by giving, by being a part of this project, you truly are building up the body of Christ all over the world, and especially here in Haiti.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think we could end better than that.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Craig.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for the work that you're doing with the One Body Project, and look forward to seeing the the work that our church can help you accomplish.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Morning, TBC.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, welcome.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's the third and final of our videos about our Christmas project this year.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, we know there are a lot of you who have already given to that Christmas project, and so I'll just make my last appeal, which is that uh I pray that every one of you would consider sacrificially giving to this project so that we can see the gospel uh transform lives, see, and communities down in Haiti.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um this uh One Body Project is a great organization that we're partnering with, and uh, this is not just throwing money at a cause and hoping that it makes a difference.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: We've they have a track record of making a difference.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Your donation, your gift will make a difference, and uh it not only will change lives here on earth, but ultimately change eternal destiny.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope that you would consider doing that.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um the other thing I wanted to do, just kind of emphasize, man, something that's already been happening, but the light show, if you haven't been, is it's pretty awesome.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I've been the last couple nights, I've been helping park people, and I look like the Joker because my smile got stuck when uh seeing all the wonderful faces of people that I know and and new faces too.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you haven't had a chance to come out to the light show, I pray that you would uh consider that, maybe invite somebody.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: We've had a whole lot of people who don't know about TBC come to the light show and get to hear the gospel through that.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, after all of those things, um, we still have to get to our third message here in our series called Hark.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And if you haven't been with us, what we're talking about is we're saying that Hark, right, from the song Hark the Herald Angels sing, glory to the newborn king.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking about the newborn king and angelic encounters, um God's messengers, and he sent them to talk with different people.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh two weeks ago we looked at Zechariah and Elizabeth, and through that interaction, they learned that they were going to have a child.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: His name would be John, and he was going to sort of set the way, prepare the way for Jesus in his ministry.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: We also saw from Zechariah that it was important to trust in God's plan and to not really question it when God says that something is going to happen.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Last week we looked at Mary, the mother of Jesus, a young, poor girl from a tiny town called Nazareth, who was told that, yeah, she was going to be the mother of the Messiah.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: As crazy as that would have been, the miraculous conception of Jesus Christ and the difficulties that she went through, though she probably had a whole lot of questions, she submitted to God's will, understanding that his plans were better than her own.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this morning we're getting to uh Mary's counterpart and an individual that is uh often overlooked in the Christmas story, and that is Joseph.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: One of the reasons why is because Joseph actually does not have any words of his own recorded in the Bible.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: We hear about Mary, and we get to hear from her.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: We certainly heard from Zechariah.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Joseph, we just see a man in action, a man who is following God with obedience.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And as we look at his story today, it's gonna be a little bit different.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: But as we look at his by the end, I want you to see how important it is that we walk like Joseph, because we can't certainly, we don't know how to sound like Joseph.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: We don't hear what he said.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we can certainly follow after the way that he responded to God.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: So our story this morning, our narrative, is gonna be in Matthew 1, 18 through 25.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: But we've got to do a little work here at the beginning.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, we're gonna be switching gospels.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: We have been in the Gospel of Luke, and now we're switching to the Gospel of Matthew.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, why are there different Gospels?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, think about uh Hank said during the announcements, think about the first time that you experienced Christmas as a believer.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: If that's a memory for you, or or if you can just remember like one of your favorite gifts that you ever got for Christmas, if you were to ask other people who were also there at that moment in time, they might reflect on different things as they were all experiencing the same event.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: Some might talk about, you know, the wonder of seeing a child open a gift that they've wanted for a long time.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Some might talk about the beauty of the decorations or the atmosphere of the family or whatever it is, but they're all describing a similar event from their own perspective.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: And when we look at the gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, guided by the Holy Spirit, they are all describing a similar sort of time period.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: That is being the birth, life, and crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: But each one of them sort of pulls at these different strings and they have a theme behind it.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Matthew's, he's one of the disciples.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Not all the gospels are written by disciples, but Matthew is one of them.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: He was a tax collector, also referred to as Levi.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, being a tax collector, he kept meticulous records.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing that Matthew did is his gospel is distinctly Jewish in the sense that his themes, his vocabulary, his even the way he's structuring some of uh the accounts, the parallels, um, Matthew is speaking to a Jewish audience.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're gonna see that this morning.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: That he is if Luke was more of a deaf, you know, hand, a deaf touch, Matthew's like an uppercut to the jaw.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: He wants people to understand clearly who Jesus is.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: He's not trying to paint a picture, you sort of pushing your face right into it in the best way possible.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you see that we're starting here in verse 18, verses 1 through 17 and Matthew, um, we're not going to read them, but they're just as important.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a genealogy that Matthew starts out his gospel with.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you might be like, why do we need to start out with a genealogy?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Some of you probably have relatives who are who pursue genealogy, you know, as a hobby, or maybe that's one of yours.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you also know that that hobby isn't shared by a whole lot of people.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: You tell them about their great-great-great-great ancestors and their eyes glaze over by the third great.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now, um, this genealogy, though, is important.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if you've ever seen the Lion King, you know that at the opening scene, even though there's no real words being spoken, based upon what's happening, we understand that Simba is about to be this very important character.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: All the animals are bowing down to him and such.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: And just by watching the opening scene of the Lion King, you know that Simba's going to be the main character, and great things are going to happen to him.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of what Matthew is doing here, though, is by showing this genealogy and by starting out his gospel, verse one, saying an account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, he's setting up expectations here that Jesus is going to be the fulfillment of both the Davidic covenant and the Abrahamic covenant.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: We've talked the last couple weeks about how there are so many different things that the birth of Jesus fulfills.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Promises of God, where he uh uh is faithful to his people, or he can be trusted because he's bringing it about in their time.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: But Matthew wants us to understand from the very beginning that Jesus is king and that he's coming to rule, and that he is the one that everybody has been waiting for.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'll talk about why he has such a strong perspective this in uh this uh decidedly Jewish culture that he's writing to.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: They just killed Jesus.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: They rejected that he was these things.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't believe in him, and so Matthew is sort of staking his ground, his claim, and then he's going to defend it.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um so what is it, I mean, why is that important?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Why did why should anybody care about a divid you know hundreds and hundreds of years previous that Jesus is their descendant?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's because of the promises that God made to both of these individuals.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: His covenant, his his promise with the Israelites that he would be with them, and that he would be their God, and that ultimately something would come from that line.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Isaiah 9, 6 through 7, it says, For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: I just used a slide from last week.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just now realizing that.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, what this slide should be is I'm so sorry.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, this slide should be a quotation of the Davidic covenant.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: So picture that.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just stand in front of this.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: This should be a quotation.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, what happened was God was speaking to David and told him that uh from his descendants, from his line, um, that there would be one who would never leave the throne and ultimately would have this rule.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: That his kingdom, I mean, this is part of the covenant here, and over his kingdom, that it would uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so, as we're talking about this, as we're talking about the Davidic covenant, Matthew is going to establish here two really important things, both with David and with Abraham.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: The first is that with David, that there's been sort of a promise that's already fulfilled, but part of it had not yet been fulfilled, meaning that there wasn't somebody with David's line currently on the throne, and Jesus was going to be that individual.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: The second is coming from the line of Abram.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: This slide is right.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: In Genesis 12, 1 through 3, the Lord said to Abram, Go from your land, your relatives, and your father's house to the land that I will show you.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: I will bless those who bless you, lots of blessing.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in terms of a partial fulfillment, this right here has already happened.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: You read the Old Testament, you see that God's covenant to Abraham and the nation of Israel, like Father Abraham, his son is Isaac, his son is Jacob, and Jacob's twelve sons make up the twelve tribes of Israel.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Abraham, an exceedingly important character in the history of Israel, and a name that catches the ears of every Jew at that time.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: And even now, God had fulfilled all of these things, but yet what had not been seen was how all the people on earth would be blessed through Abraham.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now, when Abraham counted these, trusted in God, and God counted it to him as righteousness, it was because he understood that the world would ultimately be saved by one of his descendants, it would be blessed through him.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that is what we're looking at today.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: All the people on earth will be blessed through you, through Abraham's seed, through Jesus.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the case today.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: The case for every single person on earth is that if they trust in Jesus Christ, if they believe in him and his promises, what he did on the cross, his perfection, his sacrifice, and his resurrection, they can be forgiven of their sins.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's not held to a group of people any longer, but God's blessing has extended into all of the nations.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: This, once more, is the theme that Matthew is trying to drive home.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Through this line that he's sort of connecting the dots, we get to verse 16.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: And Jacob fathered Joseph.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is not Jacob, son of Isaac, this is a later Jacob, but Jacob fathered Joseph, the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus, who is called the Messiah.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so he's like, from the beginning to the end here, we have got this situation.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it is culminating in Joseph.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Joseph is the one who is the key to this here.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: He is sort of the one that everyone, everything needs to pass through.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: And Joseph, like we understand, is about to be the father of Jesus Christ.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: And being his father, though it's a miraculous birth, the fact that Jesus is his adopted son, in essence, gives Jesus all of the legal right and authority to be the bearer of these blessings.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: He is descended from Joseph, even though he is not his biological child.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so from him, from this line, this is where we get Jesus, the fact that he is all of these things that Matthew is saying.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now, all of that was kind of some groundwork before we get to our account, which if you had forgotten is in Matthew 1, 18 through 25.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to have the verses up here on the screen.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'll have the right verses.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: And as we walk through it, I want to point out a couple things.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: And namely that Joseph is one who is focused on obedience.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: We're not going to see a whole lot of his personality.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: We're not going to s understand much of his motivation.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: We're just going to see somebody who is dedicated to following God's will.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: But let's go ahead and begin.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: In verses 18 through 19, the birth of Jesus Christ came about this way.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: After his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, it was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: So her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her publicly, decided to divorce her secretly.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what Mary and Joseph were in, it says both that she was engaged, but that they were it also refers to Joseph as her husband.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's because they were in sort of this unique arrangement called a betrothal.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of split between today's engagement and marriage.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, you were destined, you were sort of set up to be husband and wife in the future, and annulment of the betrothal meant that you were uh that you were basically getting a divorce.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: It was a legal proceeding.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like breaking off an engagement today.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Mary was dedicated to be Joseph's husband, and so that's why when he is actually following the Old Testament law thinking that Mary had been unfaithful to him, he seeks about going through this legal process of divorcing her, even though they had not in any way consummated the marriage or were fully married in the sense that we would understand it.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: So Joseph and Mary are supposed to be together and be Joseph for a second.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Mary comes and is pregnant and is saying that it is a miracle that she is pregnant.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Be him for a moment.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing wrong with what Joseph was doing and seeking to divorce Mary because he thought she had been unfaithful.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: No angel has come to him yet.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: It is just his human understanding of a miraculous situation.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: But what he does do and what shows us the character of the father of Jesus is that he was a righteous man.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: And even though he had every uh reason to be upset and hurt because of Mary's actions, he sought to divorce her quietly so that she would be protected, so that she would be uh see that he would give her mercy for what had happened.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't want to make a big proclamation about it, but rather he just wanted to separate and let Mary go on with her life.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now, it it shows that he was a righteous man.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible is telling us this, that he sought to do this, and we can see this is really frankly the best glimpse that we have of who Joseph was.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: He was a caring individual who decided to protect other people.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: So not wanting to disgrace her publicly, he decided to divorce her secretly.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Two things here.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: The first is that Joseph gets a dream.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Mary and Zechariah did not get dreams.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: They sort of had angels appearing to them in the flesh.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: But Joseph gets a dream.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing, though, disingenuous or sort of lesser about his experience because it happened in a dream.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Even today, in the Middle East, in a lot of Muslim-majority countries, many Christian converts say that a significant part of their conversion experience was a dream that they had about Jesus.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: God is still using dreams today to speak to people, and it has plenty of precedent in the Old Testament.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Jacob, Jacob's ladder, the scene with Jacob's ladder, was a dream that Jacob had where God was communicating to him.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: There are a whole lot of examples.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: So Joseph's particular interaction with this angel came through a dream.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know if it was Gabriel, like the last two weeks, but it nevertheless was an angel.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: And whatever that comprised that dream, as soon as he woke up, he understood that it was from God.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: But during that dream, the course of that dream, he is told, like Mary was, that the child is to have a specific name, and that name is going to be Jesus.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that name Jesus, God saves, is significant, but so is the clarifying remark, because he will save his people from their sins, an act that only God can do.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so, once again, like last week, though Joseph is not given all of the details, he understands that this child is going to be from God, has a special purpose.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now, after this dream, we understand that sort of what is being what is happening here is uh from prophecy that we've looked at the last couple weeks as well.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: But Matthew, as has become his custom, is like, want to make sure you don't miss this here.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so he says, now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Emmanuel, which is translated, God is with us.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Matthew sort of interjects here into the narrative.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: Luke just sort of told the story through some of the words that he was using.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: He was trying to draw people back to something that they might be familiar with.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: Matthew is just saying, hey, this is what was happening.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: But he also brings out something that we haven't seen yet, which is the name given to Jesus that they would be, he would be called Emmanuel, which means God with us.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: We sang a few songs today, this morning, about Emmanuel.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: As for why, the difference in spelling between I and E, it just has to do actually where you're translating it from the Hebrew or Greek, and both of them, it doesn't really matter.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: It means the same thing.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now, did Jesus have multiple names?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Was he like one of those kids, you know, that's just got like six middle names, and you just sort of rattle each one of them off when you're mad at them or something like that.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's it's that Emmanuel is more of a name of God's ontology, his nature or his being.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: He is God with us, and he is named Jesus.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: God saves.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh it's not like when people needed to get Jesus' attention, they yelled out Emmanuel.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: It is rather an acknowledgement of being a member of the Trinity that Jesus is God and fully God and fully man.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is the significant part.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: But we come to the end of the story here, and it sort of ends abruptly.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: When Joseph woke up, he did as the Lord's angel had commanded him.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: He married her, but did not have sexual relations with her until she gave birth to a son, and he named him Jesus.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's the end of the story.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: We don't get a whole lot from Joseph per se.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: The next time that he appears in a story is after Jesus is born.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then beyond that, it sort of goes quiet.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: See, Joseph was marked by obedience.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: When Joseph woke up from the dream, he did as the Lord's angel has commanded had commanded him.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: And understanding the importance of Jesus, because the angel had spoken to him, understanding the significance of the miraculous birth, he also safeguarded, sort of went above and beyond, and safeguarded the virgin birth so that there would be no question about Jesus' origins.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: He protected Mary, he protected Jesus through this.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then Joseph just sort of disappears into the biblical account.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: The last few examples that we have of Joseph only reinforce, though, his desire to be obedient to God.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: And we come to kind of a question that we probably should have asked earlier on, but we're only ready to answer now that we come to the end of the narrative, which is who was Joseph?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: He's the guy that we don't have any words from in the Bible.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: He was the father of Jesus, being, as the Bible says, a a lot of times it's translated carpenter.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: It could be that he was a carpenter, but it could also mean that he was somebody who just worked with his hands.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: He was a stonemason or a metallurgist, he worked with metal.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: But he would have taught Jesus his craft.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus would have learned the trade of his father.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so Joseph got to spend all of this time with Jesus, yet it's silence, really, once Jesus is beyond teenage years.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know what happened to Joseph.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: But like I said, what we do know is that he was an obedient man.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: We have a couple examples of this.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: The first one is that he ended the betrothal with Mary.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: You might say, how did that show his obedience?
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, because actually he was following the Old Testament law, and he was doing it with grace and mercy.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: He was honoring God and following through with what he had been told to do in a way that protected her.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Next, after the angel had visited him, he immediately went and married married Mary.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: He married Mary.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: He took her as his bride, brought her into his home.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: They were, they continued their betrothal, and ultimately he understood that what had happened to her was from God.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: But then we exit our story here, and we get to some one of the most amazing accounts of Joseph, which is that Herod, learning that a king had been born from the wise men, issued a decree that all children aged two and under were supposed to be killed in the land.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: And Joseph receiving another dream from an angel, Joseph actually gets more interactions with angels than anybody else.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: Joseph gets another message from an angel during the middle of the night that he's to escape to Egypt, leaving everything he knows, leaving his job, leaving his security, leaving without even getting to say goodbye, because the angel came and said, Get up, you must flee in order to protect the child.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so in the middle of the night, Matthew says, Joseph got up and escaped to Egypt with Mary.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: Then staying there for multiple years, making a home, establishing himself as the protector of Mary in this newborn infant, he made a life for them in Egypt.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then an angel comes to him again in another dream and says, Okay, now it's time for you to go back.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're supposed to go back to Israel because Joseph, it's not about you, it's about the child that you have.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that child needs to go and be in Israel because that is his purpose.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: That is what he is going to do.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: And Joseph, being obedient to God, once more does the hard thing.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: Does the thing which is not probably aligned with what is most comfortable, what is easiest, but does what God has called him to do.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: He returns to Israel.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, there's sort of an addendum here.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing that happens is he gives another dream where he is uh they're worried about Herod's son Archelaus, who is now the ruler, that he is still going to seek the life of Jesus.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so they move back to Nazareth, uh, the sort of sleepy backwater town, so that Jesus can grow up protected from the rule of those who seek to kill him until he is ready to willingly offer his life.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: Finally, we get the last account of Joseph, which is that uh it's that story you're probably familiar with where um Mary and Joseph go with a group of people to uh Jerusalem yearly to celebrate the Passover, and uh Jesus gets lost, right?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh kind of he's playing a little hijinks, he's staying behind in the temple, he's directing them, and they go and look for him.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know if it's right for me to say it was hijinks, but that's what I'm saying anyhow.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: But what's overlooked in that is that Joseph uh led his family in the celebration of the Passover every year.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Though they didn't have a lot of money, though they didn't have a lot of means, um, he led his home in a way that was honoring to the Lord.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, setting aside the fact that your son is God, you know, incarnate, the fact that Joseph was obedient to the Lord was reflected in his daily life.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we have all of these accounts.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: We have all of these examples of Joseph being obedient.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: And really, that is sort of his clarifying mark upon the incarnation event, is that he, being the father of Jesus and the protector and husband of Mary, was one who took the plan of God and followed it to the T.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: That he didn't allow any sort of thing which might have stopped him, the idols of pride or of comfort, of security, of income, any of these sorts of things that often make us sort of drag our feet as we are hearing God's plan but failing to follow it through.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't allow those things to stop him.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so we come to what I think is the greatest takeaway that we can gather from Joseph, the father of Jesus.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's that our greatest joy is found through obedience to God.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: When we talked about Zechariah, we said that it's important to trust in God's plan.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: When we looked at Mary, we said that it's important to submit, knowing that God's plan is better than our own.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: But we have to see that to the one who did not get a quote in the Bible, Joseph's mark is that he was faithful to follow that plan through.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's a difference between understanding God's plan, believing in God's plan, and then following through with God's plan.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: And what I think is so wonderful about Joseph is that we get these examples from him, from these sort of vignettes of his life, where he was sleeping in the middle of the night and was asked to flee to Egypt, taking everything that he knew.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Or even just backing up a step when he has an admittedly dicey situation where he sees that his betrothed wife is pregnant and trusts in God and says, No, I am going to endure ridicule, I'm going to endure shame, just as Mary would as well.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to walk forward in this process, protecting her alongside him, and saying that, no, we understand the purpose that God has for us.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to say very clearly that Joseph is an example of the point that you cannot both seek everything that you want in this life and everything that God desires in this life.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: The two are mutually exclusive.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so our greatest joy, our greatest peace, our greatest comfort comes when we're able to better align our desires with God's, so that as we carry out his will, as we're obedient to him, we are fulfilled because we understand that that is our true purpose.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: Joseph was a role player.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't the main star of the story.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: He was Jesus' earthly father.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: He was a great man, descended from the line of David.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: He had kingly blood, royal blood running through his veins.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: But he was a role player in the greater narrative that God was showing to the world.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: And just like Zechariah, just like Mary, he did not yet understand what that role was going to be and ultimately what he was doing, how that would accomplish God's ends.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that was okay.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't requ he didn't require the end of the story to be obedient to God.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: When we're reading through books, one of the worst things you can do is, if you're somebody who reads the last pages of the book first and then decides if you want to read the whole book, no, we when we read a book, we follow the same process.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a favorite author, you trust that the story that they are telling is going to culminate in something that is satisfying for you to follow through with for hundreds of pages.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: But this isn't just an author.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: This is the author of the universe, king of the universe.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: And he's written a story for every single one of us, for every single one of you, and he wants you to follow through with that story, to keep turning those pages and seeing what he has next, to be faithful to his plan.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because if we follow his plan, we are going to find our greatest fulfillment and joy in that.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: Joseph was a wonderful example of these things.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, we don't know exactly what he was like, we don't know what he looked like, we don't know his personality per se, but we know that he was faithful and obedient to God.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: For all of us, there will be a time that comes for both Christians and those who have rejected Jesus where we will go before God's throne.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: And even for those who have accepted Christ, there will come a time when we are to answer to God for the things that we have done.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because of Jesus, all the things that we have done to rebel against him have been forgiven.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: But nevertheless, there is still a judgment of works there.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Where God will look at those who have trusted in Christ, who are in heaven, and say, What have you done for my kingdom?
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: How faithful have you been, how obedient have you been to my word.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because there will be some who have just sort of come in through the gates, not caring to seek God in their life, who don't desire during this time of the Christmas season to think at all about Jesus or what the gift of the incarnation means, but instead to just seek their own ends.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: And though they've trusted in Jesus and are saved by the blood of the Lamb, they will ultimately get to heaven and realize that they have not been a faithful servant to God.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: Joseph?
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: Joseph hears, well done, good and faithful servant.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that should be our end as well.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: That we keep following God's plan, we are obedient to Him, so that we might hear the same thing.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go ahead and pray.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, God, that uh you communicate through your word.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: God, that you can help us to see how important it is to follow your plan.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, we don't know the end.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: None of us do.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know when Jesus is returning.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know when you're going to call us home.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: God, we don't know how many more years we have left on earth.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: But Lord, we know that you have a plan for us.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: You've written a story for our lives.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we ask, God, that you would help us to be obedient to that, to keep walking forward in it.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: God, trusting in the plan that you have.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: Father, we we understand that we are role players in the greatest narrative that has ever been told.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it is a blessing just to be included in it.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: God, I ask that you would help us to focus on Jesus Christ during this season, to trust in him, to see him as the King and Savior of all, and to believe that when you spoke to Joseph and told him that he was to trust in Mary, Lord, that you were working out something greater than he could ever comprehend.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: Father, we ask that as you uh that you would help all of us as we walk forward this week and beyond to think of ways where we can be more obedient to you, to set aside the idols maybe of pride and comfort, of security, of reputation, Lord.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because they are worthy to be set aside for your kingdom.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: Father, we love you and we thank you.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: Have a great week.