ADVENT 2016 “Our Coming Savior”
Fourth Sunday 'Love for the Lives to Come: Mary
and Joseph'
CONNECT
Have you ever
made great plans only to see them squashed by something or someone outside of
your control? What if that Someone is
God?
Proverbs 16:9 (NLT)
We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps.
TENSION
The Christmas
story has many elements and themes. One of these is obedience to a divine
command. It often takes courage to follow God's leading. All the characters in the Christmas story
demonstrated a level of courage: the prophets, the Wiseman, Zacharias and
Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, Anna, Simeon. You can see how each demonstrated a resolve
to be obedient to God had called them to do in the face of overwhelming
difficulty.
How do we
respond when God calls us to do something that threatens everything we have
dreamed of and hoped for?
SOLUTION
It has been said
that 'God gives His best to those who leave the choice to Him'! The driving force behind our following God
regardless of the cost is love: love for God, love for others, and love for
ourselves. We literally live our lives out of love for the lives that are to
come!
1 Timothy
1:5 (NASB95) But
the goal of our instruction is love...
PRAYER
INSTRUCTION
TEXT Matthew
1:18-38 from the New Living Translation
Matthew 1:18 (NLT)
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.
VIDEO: “Mary and Joseph”
What would
Joseph do? Let's read on...
Matthew 1:19 (NLT)
Joseph, her fiancé, was a good man and did not want to disgrace her publicly,
so he decided to break the engagement quietly.
Joseph loved
Mary. He did not want to hurt her. He could have had her stoned in disgrace,
but instead chose to have a quiet annulment of the betrothal. God had other
ideas…
Matthew 1:20-25 (NLT) 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. 21And she will have a son, and you are
to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22All
of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet: 23“Look!
The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will
call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’”
What would
Joseph do? Mary had already made her
decision…
Luke 1:26-38 (NLT) In the sixth month of
Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in
Galilee, to a 27virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to
a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. 28Gabriel appeared
to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”
29Confused and disturbed,
Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. 30“Don’t be afraid,
Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! 31You
will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He
will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God
will give him the throne of his ancestor David. 33And he will reign
over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”
34Mary asked the angel, “But
how can this happen? I am a virgin.”
35The angel replied, “The
Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow
you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.
36What’s more, your relative
Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was
barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. 37For
the word of God will never fail.”
38Mary responded, “I am the
Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the
angel left her.
Mary chose to be
obedient regardless of the cost. And there was a cost! She could have lost her
fiancé. She could have lost the love of her family. She could have lost her
life!
She did lose her
reputation. Even after Jesus was grown and in the middle of His ministry, He
was called the illegitimate son of Joseph and Mary!
Now it was
Joseph’s turn. What would he do?
24When Joseph woke up, he did as
the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. 25But he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was
born. And Joseph named him Jesus.
Let's examine
what Joseph did more closely...
1.
He did...
He was obedient
to the command of the angel in his dream.
He could have said it was just too much pizza, or too much hummus or too
much falafel or too much wine, but he didn't.
He saw it as a confirmation of what Mary had said.
2.
He took...
The Greek word
here, paralambano, is
significant. It means "to join
one's self to someone else" and "to accept or acknowledge that
someone is who he professes to be".
Joseph is saying to Mary, "I believe you and I receive
you". It is the same word that is
used in the Gospel of John:
John 1:11
(NKJV) He came to
His own, and His own did not receive Him. They rejected Him because they did not
believe Jesus was who He said He was.
John 14:3
(NKJV) And if I
go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive
you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
When Jesus
returns in glory, He will take us as His bride in the same way that Joseph took
Mary.
The word also
means "to receive an office to be discharged". Joseph saw his sole as husband to Mary and
earthly father to Jesus as his spiritual office given to him by God!
It is still the
same today. In the marriage ceremony, we
say, "I take thee to be my lawfully wedded wife." It is a holy vow
before God. Men, our roles as husbands
and fathers is a heavenly office. It is
not to be taken lightly!
3.
He married...
The couple moved
from the engagement to the marriage.
This spoke of his total dedication to Mary and the command given by
God! He went against his own reasoning,
even as loving as it was, and social constructs to obey God. Brothers and sisters, God will often lead us
contrary to our own desires and human reasoning; it will very often lead us
contrary to the norms of the day. Let us
realize that the voice of God is 'counter-intuitive'; it goes against normal
thinking!
Proverbs
14:12 (NKJV) There
is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.
4.
He did not...
This point is
extremely important. After the wedding, Joseph
did not have sex with Mary until Jesus was born! This was not normal! In the Jewish wedding, after the ceremony and
banquet, the bridal couple would go to the bridal chamber to consummate their
marriage. This was part of the legal
process. The best man would wait outside
the chamber until he heard the bridegroom say, "It is done". Then the feast would begin again in earnest. This was pictured in the relationship between
Jesus and John the Baptist. Listen to
what John the Baptist said about his ministry:
John
3:27–30 (NKJV) John
answered and said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him
from heaven. 28You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am
not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent before Him.’ 29He who has
the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and
hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore, this
joy of mine is fulfilled. 30He must increase, but I must decrease.
Joseph broke
with custom because of a command. He
kept the prophecy intact. Mary was a
virgin when Jesus was born! He let go of
personal pleasure and public esteem for the sake of the Gospel!
Why was it
important for Jesus to be born of a virgin?
Let me give you
some reasons:
1. Prophecy foretells it.
2. Jesus' genealogy records it.
3. The Gospels preach it.
4. His Deity requires it.
5. Salvation demands it.
In his work, The
Person of Christ, Donald Macleod writes,
"The virgin birth is posted on guard
at the door of the mystery of Christmas; and none of us must think of hurrying
past it. It stands on the threshold of the New Testament, blatantly
supernatural, defying our rationalism, informing us that all that follows
belongs to the same order as itself and that if we find it offensive there is
no point in proceeding further."
Joseph knew that
his platonic relationship with Mary would cost him temporary pleasure but would
yield an eternal harvest! Oh, that we
would live that way!
5.
He named...
He called His
name: Jesus! He would save His people from their sins! He is able to save 'to the uttermost'! He was also called Immanuel, God with us! Whatever we face today, God is with us as a
Savior, a deliverer, a friend that sticks closer than a brother! Call on Him today! Cry out to Him today! He is here for you!
INSPIRATION
Joseph chose
obedience, an obedience out of love for God and love for Mary and love for the
Son he would raise that was not his!
Joseph showed love for all of us who would come because he was the
earthly father to Jesus, the gift of love for all the world!
John
3:16–17 (NKJV) For
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17For
God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the
world through Him might be saved.
ACTION STEPS
1.
Be obedient out of your love for God.
No amount of law
can make us obedient!
Colossians 2:20–23 (NKJV) Therefore,
if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though
living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—21“Do
not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” 22which all concern things
which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men?
23These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed
religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against
the indulgence of the flesh.
2.
Be obedient out of your love for others.
John 15:13
(NKJV) Greater
love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
3.
Be obedient out of a love for yourself!
James 2:8
(NKJV) If you
really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your
neighbor as yourself,” you do well;
Ephesians
5:28 (NKJV) So
husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his
wife loves himself.
SOME FINAL THOUGHTS
1
Corinthians 13:1–3 (NKJV) Though
I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become
sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2And though I have the gift of
prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all
faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3And
though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be
burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
1 Corinthians
13:13 (NKJV) And
now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
HASHTAG #lovewins
