Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] So good to have you here. We are in the middle of a bit of a Christmas series. How many people are excited about Christmas?
[00:00:09] Anyone started to bake the goods that are going to be Christmas Day? Got the cake sorted? Everything going well?
[00:00:17] Very good. How many people can't wait for Christmas to be over?
[00:00:21] Okay.
[00:00:22] We still love you, but Christmas is a wonderful time.
[00:00:26] We're just reflecting again.
[00:00:28] All of my life, I've spent Christmas with barbecue on the beach.
[00:00:34] It's just a foreign concept for all of you, or most of you. I've got one person who wants to be in Barbados right now on the beach. But for us, I'll be honest, this feels right.
[00:00:47] It really does.
[00:00:49] Christmas should be a little bit cold. Should be wrapped up, the fall fire, the roast, dinner. I just think it all makes sense. So maybe it's all the movies we've watched throughout our lifetime where every Christmas is cold.
[00:01:04] Yeah. So anyway, this morning we're going to continue our Christmas story. And we're looking at Joseph and Mary, the two that were asked to raise God's own son. No pressure, right?
[00:01:18] No pressure at all.
[00:01:20] Let's read from Matthew, chapter one. And we're going to look at Joseph and then Mary and then how their life impacted us.
[00:01:27] This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly. So he decided to break the engagement quietly.
[00:01:48] As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. Joseph, son of David. The angel said, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and she will have a son. And you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord's message through his prophet. Look, the virgin will conceive a child. She will give birth to a son. They will call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us. When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. But he did not have sexual relationships with her until her son was born and Joseph named him Jesus. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word.
[00:02:34] Lord, I pray, as we look at this scripture, that for many of us, it's familiar.
[00:02:41] We read this passage every year. Lord, Maybe we've been 20, 30, 40 years hearing this story again, and Again and again, Lord, I pray that there would be fresh revelation for each of us today that Lord, we wouldn't switch off and go, I've heard this before, but Lord, you would speak into our hearts, even beyond the words that I speak, that you would reveal to us how we could live our lives to honor you, to bring glory to your name, in Jesus name.
[00:03:12] Amen.
[00:03:14] When Jesus entered the world, life was busy in Bethlehem.
[00:03:19] Caesar Augustus had called for the census, wanted to count the people, wanted to make sure all the taxes were being taken care of.
[00:03:28] And so there was this busy hubbub of activity.
[00:03:34] So much happening. And I wonder if many people saw a pregnant woman needing a place to have a baby. Probably not. I wonder how many people missed the slightly brighter than normal star that was in the sky.
[00:03:51] I wonder if people missed the choir of angels because they were watching the Christmas movie at home.
[00:03:58] I wonder if we missed what was happening. Would we have missed it?
[00:04:04] Joseph and Mary stepping into God's unfolding plan, not fully knowing, not fully understanding.
[00:04:12] But they responded in faith, just like the Old Testament saints that had gone before them.
[00:04:18] They trusted God in the dark before he fulfilled his promise. How many people have felt like you're in the dark sometimes, that you have no idea what God wants you to do, that it just feels like this moment of I don't know what's happening next. I think most of us have experienced that at some point in our walk with him.
[00:04:38] Can I say, sometimes as we read a passage, it can be really easy to say, I know this one, I've been here before, it's familiar.
[00:04:47] But can we just hear it fresh again today and consider how wild this would have been for Joseph and Mary?
[00:04:57] Joseph, got some news for you.
[00:05:01] I'm pregnant.
[00:05:05] Okay.
[00:05:06] That's a big thing for Joseph to take and it's not you. And he says, well, obviously because they hadn't been together.
[00:05:16] So who is it?
[00:05:18] God?
[00:05:24] If I was Joseph's friend and Joseph tells me the story about his fiance Mary saying she's pregnant and she says it's God, I mean, what would you do, friends?
[00:05:38] You would tell your friends to run a mile, just get away from that woman. She is crazy.
[00:05:46] But why is it that God chose Joseph and Mary to bring Jesus into the world?
[00:05:55] I think we've got some clues in scripture.
[00:05:59] Let's look at Joseph. First of all, a righteous man who trusted God.
[00:06:07] Imagine driving through a thick fog.
[00:06:10] You know the road, it's familiar. You come to a fork in the road and you've got a choice. Of a left or a right.
[00:06:16] Right is familiar.
[00:06:18] Right, you know, will take you home.
[00:06:21] Left, you have no idea where that road goes. I'm continually driving new roads. I drove some new roads this week that I haven't driven before.
[00:06:31] It was fun. It was a bit of an adventure.
[00:06:34] It was fine. I didn't have to be anywhere at any particular time, and so it was okay. But most of us, we're going to choose a familiar road home, won't we?
[00:06:44] Common sense is that's the way I should go.
[00:06:48] But sometimes God says, I want you to take another road that is not the road that you thought you were going to take.
[00:06:57] I remember early on in our marriage, we had one of those trials and those challenges.
[00:07:03] This was back in the day, in the dark ages, where you didn't have a mobile phone, you didn't have GPS or sat nav, and we had to navigate with these things called paper maps. So you actually have to open up. Some of them were good because they were in a book. Others you had to just unfold.
[00:07:22] And when you unfold it, it was three times the length of the car.
[00:07:25] So by the time you finally get it open, you could find it. So Amy and I were driving in Auckland, the biggest city in New Zealand, which isn't really that big, but a couple of million people, and we were driving, and we're supposed to be going north.
[00:07:39] Amy was reading the map. That was probably the first mistake that we made.
[00:07:46] I'm only going to speak what's true. Okay, so. And she would be the very first person to say that. As she was saying left, I thought it was right.
[00:07:56] Let's just say we were heading south on the motorway down to Christchurch at the bottom of the New Zealand.
[00:08:02] But we even had a map, but we still got it wrong.
[00:08:07] I wonder what it would have felt like for Joseph.
[00:08:12] Mary's pregnant. This wasn't his child.
[00:08:16] His future is a little foggy.
[00:08:20] What do I do?
[00:08:21] Scripture says that he decided in his heart that he would quietly divorce Mary.
[00:08:28] He loved her. He loved her.
[00:08:30] He really did.
[00:08:33] But he knew that he could not be with Mary according to the law.
[00:08:39] This would not have been right. She could have been stoned for this.
[00:08:43] Her actions were deemed wrong in all of the logical explanation. If she's pregnant, it's growing. Come on. She's clearly conceived and she's about to have a child.
[00:08:59] But when he heard the news, he considered it. Maybe he even slept on it.
[00:09:04] There's a little bit of wisdom in that one.
[00:09:07] Anyone ever fired off that quick Responsive text or email?
[00:09:14] A little angry.
[00:09:15] Just.
[00:09:16] Just hit pause. Here's my advice to you. Never send an angry email.
[00:09:21] Write it as a word document, sleep on it, wake up in the morning, and then delete it and start again.
[00:09:31] Come on, how many people? I'll tell you what, when the undo button came for gmail, I was like, thank you Jesus. That is so good. When you send it in. The moment you send it, you realize that was wrong and you want to go get it back, but it's not coming back.
[00:09:48] I love that Joseph just took a moment to pause. I love that he stopped, that he considered it.
[00:09:55] There's a reason God chose Joseph. Matthew writes, because Joseph was a righteous man.
[00:10:01] Joseph lived out the righteousness described in Micah 6:8. He acted justly. He loved mercy.
[00:10:08] He walked humbly. He chose compassion rather than condemnation.
[00:10:13] He chose to trust God rather than his feelings. I love that song we sung today. I won't be formed by feelings.
[00:10:21] My feelings are not good. I can't trust my feelings.
[00:10:25] My feelings get away on me and I will make some poor decisions.
[00:10:30] But I love that Joseph was a righteous man.
[00:10:34] When the angel spoke to Joseph, Joseph chose to trust God the way we're called to in Proverbs 3, 5, 6. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart. Lean not on your own understanding.
[00:10:45] He would have been going, I'm trying to work this one out.
[00:10:49] In all your ways, acknowledge Him.
[00:10:52] Righteousness is acknowledging Christ, acknowledging God's work in our lives, recognizing that our holiness and our rightness, the righteousness is not from us or anything we have achieved.
[00:11:04] Just like a driver trusting road signs in the fog, Joseph trusted God's word when he couldn't see the road ahead.
[00:11:11] Can we do the same when things get foggy?
[00:11:15] Can we trust in God and can we let his voice, His Word guide us?
[00:11:20] Then we have Mary.
[00:11:22] I love Mary. What a beautiful woman.
[00:11:26] An amazing, humble woman to bring Jesus onto this planet. A faithful woman who trusted God.
[00:11:36] Luke 1:26 38 here's her story.
[00:11:40] In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, greetings, you who are highly favored.
[00:11:57] The Lord is with you. Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.
[00:12:03] But the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to A son. And you will call him Jesus. He will be great. He will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever. His kingdom will never end. How will this be? Mary asked the angel. Since I am a virgin, the angel answered, the Holy Spirit will come on you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called, called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age.
[00:12:40] And she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail. I am the Lord's servant. I love this response. Mary answered, may your word to me be fulfilled. And the angel left her, withdrew, strew around, see, ducked out. Okay.
[00:13:02] I was going to say, a few months ago, I asked Drew whether he trusted me. Remember I had a golf club in my hand and I said, would you trust me to knock a golf ball out of the golf club? Knock a cup off your head? He didn't trust me.
[00:13:21] I know, right?
[00:13:23] Should have trusted me far more than that. I was going to give him a chance to redeem himself this morning, but I'm going to go to another friend. I'm going to go to Wale. All right. Good man, incredible bass player, incredibly good looking. Look at him. Come on, stand, stand.
[00:13:38] Alright, come, come.
[00:13:42] How many people appreciate this man, his ministry? He's a good man, isn't he?
[00:13:46] So, Wale, I'm thinking I've got this really good idea and I'm going to write up a contract and I would love your agreement on it. Should we go ahead with it?
[00:14:01] What's on the contract?
[00:14:03] Well, what I was thinking is if you could just give me an E signature here and then once you've got the signature down, I'll fill in the blanks.
[00:14:16] I might not sign it, but I can keep the pencil out.
[00:14:21] Sure, you can keep the pizza.
[00:14:23] I'm not gonna need it now.
[00:14:26] Is he wise?
[00:14:27] He is. I think so. I have no idea what the contract is gonna. What I'm gonna put on the contract. He doesn't know.
[00:14:34] What if I said give me all your money and everything in your future.
[00:14:38] But I, I wonder if Mary, she was kind of signing a blank contract many ways, wasn't she?
[00:14:46] Whatever needs to happen, God, I'm in.
[00:14:49] That's some big faith right there.
[00:14:53] Huge faith.
[00:14:56] Imagine that. God says, I'll give you this little bit of information But I'm not going to give you all of it.
[00:15:05] Sounds a little bit like the journey of life we have, doesn't it?
[00:15:09] Sometimes we don't get a timeline. Sometimes we don't get guarantees.
[00:15:13] What about Mary? She didn't know what Joseph's reaction was going to be like.
[00:15:18] How's he going to react to this?
[00:15:21] But she received God's Word and she received God himself into her womb, fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy that a virgin would conceive.
[00:15:31] Mary signed God's blank contract, so to speak, with her words, let it be according to your Word.
[00:15:40] And it's not easy to trust God when the details aren't clear.
[00:15:44] But Mary's response was one of faith and trust God. If you've said it to be true, then I will trust you.
[00:15:53] The hardest part, though, of waiting for a promise is the waiting room. How many people enjoy the waiting room of God's promises?
[00:16:01] That moment where you know God's given you a promise, you've read it in His Word, you have a sense that it's going to take place. You know it will be fulfilled, but it doesn't happen in the time frame you like.
[00:16:16] I love God to give me the time frame of all the answers and the outcomes, but I don't think I could handle it.
[00:16:23] I don't think I could handle what my future would be if I knew everything in the future.
[00:16:30] But God says, I want you to trust me. And some of these details are going to work out as we go.
[00:16:37] I wonder if we can take a moment today, because I think there's two groups of people here.
[00:16:42] There are those that maybe you've walked with God for a little while, you've got a relationship with him.
[00:16:48] Maybe you've even got a promise that is kind of burning as a desire in your heart, but it hasn't yet been fulfilled.
[00:16:58] Maybe you've got some questions.
[00:17:00] Maybe you got some anxious thoughts in the waiting room, some disappointment that we're dealing with.
[00:17:06] I wonder whether we could take a moment now to pray a simple prayer.
[00:17:10] Say, God, I trust you, even though the waiting is hard.
[00:17:14] Let my waiting be active worship.
[00:17:18] Let me not fear or be anxious, but lean with expectation into your promise. If that's you, would you just respond to God, even right now, God, I won't be fearful.
[00:17:33] God, I won't be anxious.
[00:17:37] You've given a promise, Lord. Let me lean into that space with an act of worship.
[00:17:50] Not on the back foot waiting for you to do something, but to continue to live my life knowing that you will bring that promise to fulfillment because I trust in you, Then we have those that are new to faith. Or you're making a decision whether you will follow Jesus, whether you commit your life to him.
[00:18:13] Maybe you've been coming a few weeks or a few months and you're saying, is God real? Does he really care about me? Does he have a plan and a future for my life?
[00:18:24] I absolutely believe he does. And there are dozens and dozens of testimonies of people who would say, I was lost, but I am now found.
[00:18:33] I was broken, and God has brought wholeness and healing to my life.
[00:18:39] I was facing challenges on my own. And now I have a shepherd who walks with me through the valleys. His rod and his staff comfort me in the middle of those difficult times.
[00:18:51] If that's you today, would you pray a prayer, a simple prayer that says, God, I don't know everything about you, but I want to learn to trust you.
[00:19:01] I want to have faith like Mary, that even when the promise seems impossible, I will trust you.
[00:19:14] God, would you work in our hearts?
[00:19:17] Would we have faith just like Mary?
[00:19:22] Thank you, Jesus.
[00:19:25] Mary's obedience didn't come from seeing everything clearly, but it came from trusting the one who sees everything clearly.
[00:19:34] We don't understand the mind of God.
[00:19:39] Having that conversation with someone at the moment where we have this finite impression of who God is.
[00:19:47] We try to understand God within the context of how we understand things, but he operates outside of space, time and matters.
[00:19:57] God's ways are higher than my ways.
[00:20:01] God's thoughts are higher than my thoughts.
[00:20:04] I don't understand.
[00:20:06] And so in those moments when I don't understand, I have to then trust.
[00:20:11] I have to have faith in God.
[00:20:14] And Mary showed that as a church, we're stepping into a season where there's some faith required.
[00:20:22] We're stepping where we haven't been before for a long, long time, stepping into a new building, new opportunities there.
[00:20:31] What I can tell you is that as a church eldership and a leadership, we gather every week and we pray. We come before God and we say we have some things, we've got some questions, we'd love some answers.
[00:20:44] And sometimes the answers come immediately and sometimes we wait a little longer and we're okay to pause. I would much rather pause and wait for God than to step blindly with no direction.
[00:21:00] Encourage you, please, to pray.
[00:21:03] Pray for council, favour those plans as they hit the desks of those making the decisions. That, number one, it wouldn't be moved from one desk to another. But it would be seen that people would say, this is Great, this is going to be good for our city.
[00:21:19] That they'll say, this is something that we can get behind and support and pray for the finances, pray that we would get in the money that we need to be able to go into that building, but not with a noose around our neck that weighs us down. It's a heavy burden. We want to be able to continue to minister and do the things God has called us to without the weight of that financial burden.
[00:21:45] Is it possible that we could respond like Joseph and Mary?
[00:21:48] Maybe as the keys come this morning?
[00:21:51] The third thought this morning is their story becomes our invitation.
[00:21:57] Their story becomes our invitation.
[00:22:00] When I was studying for this message, I found myself. I've been reading through Romans recently.
[00:22:05] And in Romans, where we're given the overview of our Christian faith.
[00:22:11] It's almost like the introductory letter that Paul writes, probably the book of Romans. Or that letter would have been given to all of the churches that were planted. So this is the foundation. This is what you need to know and understand about the creation of the world, the fall of humanity, the effect of sin on our lives, the power of Christ's death and resurrection, and the life that we can receive, that we step out of this place of judgment by the law into his grace, where there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
[00:22:43] And as I was reading through chapter one again, I read a verse that I know well. It's a verse that I've memorized.
[00:22:53] I'm proud of the good news. It is God's powerful way of saving all people who have faith. Another version says, I am not ashamed of this good news about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes the Jew first and also the Gentile.
[00:23:08] But as I was thinking about Joseph and Mary in the context of that, I read verse 17. This good news tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by what faith, as the Scriptures say, it is through faith that a righteous person has life.
[00:23:30] Joseph, a righteous man, declared by God.
[00:23:34] Mary, a woman of faith.
[00:23:36] Righteousness and faith coming together. It was just wonderful just to read that and just to see, wow. God, when we have faith, when you lead us and guide us and we step out into those promises, we walk in the righteousness of God.
[00:23:56] Paul was quoting Habakkuk 2, 4. The righteous will live by faith.
[00:24:03] Genesis 15:6. Abraham believed the Lord and it says it was counted to him as righteousness.
[00:24:11] Now, Joseph and Mary, as we've been talking about, they didn't have all the Answers they really didn't. They would have had more questions than the answers God was prepared to give them at that point in time.
[00:24:23] But righteousness and faith were their portion.
[00:24:27] Joseph's righteousness, which originates in God.
[00:24:32] Now in the New Testament, we understand that righteousness is found in Christ and Christ alone, not in my ability to be a good person, not in the sacrifices that I make.
[00:24:45] But my righteousness is in Christ alone.
[00:24:50] Now Joseph and Mary, they were walking out that righteousness by faith.
[00:24:57] And Christ was about to enter the world to bring that righteousness that now you and I get to walk in.
[00:25:06] I love that when I am stumbling and when I am stepping on the wrong path, I can come back to the word of God, my plumb line, the one that aligns me with God's truth and his righteousness.
[00:25:19] And I can fall on the mercy of God and the word of God that says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
[00:25:28] What a wonderful promise.
[00:25:32] But if I am in Christ Jesus, that means the life that I live and the lifestyle, if that's opposed to the characteristics and the values of Christ, then I have to surrender that, allow that to be crucified so that I will walk in right relationship with Jesus.
[00:25:57] We know and understand that our righteousness is in Christ. And Joseph laid out a marker, trusted God and committed to righteousness.
[00:26:06] They stepped into the same faith that Habakkuk described, that the righteous will live by faith.
[00:26:14] Has anyone ever kind of walked in or gone for a swim in the ocean at night can be a little bit scary. During the day, it's fine. You go in at night, it all feels a little bit different.
[00:26:26] You're wondering what's lurking at the bottom of that deep, dark sea.
[00:26:31] Sometimes you can't see the bottom, and so you're stepping into unknown. But when you get in there, actually it's quite amazing.
[00:26:40] And I think sometimes God is saying, would you step into water that you're not sure of.
[00:26:48] I know many people here have stepped into a place where you thought, this is crazy.
[00:26:55] And God's saying, I want you to step, I want you to step, step in faith. Trust me. Joseph and Mary took that step into dark water with an uncertain future, unanswered questions, enormous responsibility, no clarity. Except God's promise.
[00:27:16] And their obedience opened the doorway for God, his salvation plan to enter humanity.
[00:27:25] Maybe today we stand on the edge of something, to trust God again.
[00:27:31] Maybe it's to surrender something, to forgive someone.
[00:27:35] Maybe it's to obey in a new way.
[00:27:38] God's asking you to step out in a place you haven't been before. Maybe for some it's an invitation to come back to Jesus or maybe give yourself completely to him for the very first time at verse 17. Again, the gospel reveals a righteousness that comes by faith. Not achieved, not earned, but given and received.
[00:28:04] Just like Joseph, just like Mary, just like Abraham, just like every believer who has ever said, yes, Lord.
[00:28:19] Church, would you mind standing with me?
[00:28:21] I'd just love us to pray just for a moment.
[00:28:27] What does that thought, the righteous shall live by faith mean to you in the context of your life right now?
[00:28:37] What does it mean for you to walk in the righteousness of Christ?
[00:28:42] What does it mean to step in faith, step into things that maybe you can't see. You don't have the full clarity of the situation.
[00:28:54] I want to pray that you would have courage to step because I think Joseph and Mary needed incredible courage, incredible courage to trust God with their future.
[00:29:09] The righteous will live by faith.
[00:29:13] Come on, will we just extend our hands to God, whatever that looks like for you.
[00:29:17] You might want to raise them nice and high. You want to just hold them by your side.
[00:29:22] Just your sense of saying, God, in this season, I trust you.
[00:29:30] Why don't you even just let your own prayers begin to just come out of your heart?
[00:29:36] Think there's the people that are thinking about their employment right now.
[00:29:40] Got questions around whether you're in the right role, whether there's time to step into something new.
[00:29:48] Some of you are wondering which house to buy.
[00:29:51] You got your eyes on two or three different houses and you don't know which one to buy.
[00:29:56] God wants to give you leadership and direction.
[00:30:01] Some of you are stuck.
[00:30:03] You're stuck in unforgiveness.
[00:30:06] It's that relationship with that person that everything just keeps coming back to that stopping point. And God's saying, would you trust me and forgive them and release them?
[00:30:18] Come on, why don't we just take a few moments, just begin to release those prayers to God that we will be found righteous in your sight, Jesus, that our faith is not something we've earned or something we can achieve on our own.
[00:30:36] Only through you.
[00:30:40] Thank you, Jesus. Father. I thank you, Lord, for every dream, every desire and every heart today.
[00:30:47] Father, I pray, Lord, that every single person that is walking the journey with you, those that have got questions, big, deep, difficult questions. Father, I pray that hope would be found in you.
[00:31:02] I pray, Lord God, that there will be a clarity, that your word would lead and guide, that your word would be a lamp to our feet. A light to our path in those big decisions. Lord, we're not stepping blindly, but we're stepping with a call from you, Father, I pray that faith would rise in our hearts.
[00:31:23] Faith to forgive, Faith to release. Faith to let go. Faith to invest.
[00:31:28] Faith to stand into the unknown.
[00:31:33] God, speak to us, Lord. Let us be like Samuel of old say, speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.
[00:31:42] In Jesus name.
[00:31:45] In Jesus name.
[00:31:47] Amen.
