Date: December 22, 2019
Text: Matthew 1:18-25
Christmas is almost here. Only a few more days to go. I have to admit that I have not been as excited this year as usual. A big part of that is that I am noticing all the false ideas that are around us in culture. There are so many temptations to focus on the wrong things at this time of year. I love Christmas presents but I also think about how easily we focus more on those than we do on Jesus. I love Christmas songs but there are many that don’t even mention the birth of the Savior. I love kindness and generosity but if it doesn’t start with Jesus’ plan to save us from sin, we are missing the most important motivation. For all these reasons, our time in worship at this time of year is very important. We need this time so that we can Listen to God’s Plan.
Part 1: Not always what we think
As we think about Joseph and Mary, there is a part that sounds odd to our way of thinking. The Bible says that they were engaged but then it also says that Joseph was going to divorce Mary. How can that be? Engagement in their culture was different than today. Engagement in our culture is simply a promise between two people. If one of those people were unfaithful and broke the 6th Commandment in the way that Joseph thought, people today could simply break their engagement and there would not be a divorce according to our terminology. Jewish culture at that time was different.
When a man and woman got engaged, they would go through a ceremony that has similarities to what people do at the time of marriage. In Jewish culture back then, at engagement, the people would go before an official and there would be witnesses and they would make a legal agreement to get married. The actual marriage ceremony would come later. They wouldn’t establish a household until after the marriage ceremony. They wouldn’t enjoy the full blessings of marriage until after the marriage ceremony. But if there was a broken engagement, they would need to have a legal divorce to dissolve the relationship.
Joseph’s plan was a fine plan. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. According to his logic, Mary must have been unfaithful and became pregnant. Therefore she broke the engagement. Therefore, he was within his rights, legally and before God, to get a divorce. He was even going to be a gentleman about it. He didn’t want to embarrass her. He was going to divorce her quietly. Joseph’s plan was logical and reasonable but it wasn’t God’s plan. Joseph would soon learn what he was supposed to do.
It brings to mind how there are plenty of times when we as human beings make our plans without necessarily consulting God. It makes sense that Joseph thought it was a cut and dry situation. It seemed that the right plan was to get a divorce. But God had to step in and show him something different. We should keep that idea in mind. As Christians, we need to put God first in our lives and try to consider what his will is. If there is a big decision to be made, a good first option is to turn to God in prayer. He probably won’t give us the answer in the way that he gave it to Joseph but he can still help us. Perhaps we can also consider worship and Bible reading as part of our decision making process. It will help focus our hearts on what is eternally important and that can help us with our earthly decisions.
There are many wrong paths that make sense to our human ways of thinking. Ultimately, the whole idea that we are saved through Jesus doesn’t fit with our human perspective. So much of our life is reward based. I put in my hours at work and I receive a paycheck. I spend time with my friends and then they also want to spend time with me. I buy my wife flowers and then perhaps she is ok with going to the next Star Wars movie with me. Since so much of our life has these kind of give and take relationships, our sinful nature wants to apply that to the path to heaven. If we just do the right things, then we can go to heaven. Unfortunately, that is wrong. We can never do enough good to pay for our sins.
This is why so many religions have a works righteous based emphasis. Some Christian churches even give the wrong impression. They give the impression that if you follow the Ten Commandments well enough, you will get to heaven. That doesn’t work. I can’t promise God that I am going to do my best to be morally upright and expect him to give me heaven. I can’t do my best and just think that God will do the rest. My best isn’t good enough. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death. Whoever breaks the law at one point is guilty of breaking all of it.
Because of reasons like this, we need to submit ourselves again and again to the Word of God. It is so easy to fall into a works righteousness mindset. We even think that our sins aren’t bad enough to disqualify us from heaven. We might think, “It is not a big deal if I tell a few lies here or there, at least I show lots of love to my friends and family.” Or we might think, “It is not a big deal if I drink too much sometimes, at least I volunteer a few times a month at the soup kitchen.” Again, these things are dangerous to our souls. These ideas are not being repentant over our sins.
We need to be careful of all the false ideas that are leading us astray. That is why we pastors are constantly encouraging deeper study of God’s Word. If we are not regularly focusing our attention on the truths of Scripture, the devil will do all he can to plant false ideas in our mind. False ideas are everywhere. You can’t go more than a few hours without encountering false ideas through social media, entertainment, or simply our relationships. We need to come back again and again to God’s Word and submit ourselves to God’s truth for guidance.
Part 2: It is always what we need
After Joseph had considered the divorce, God told him the better plan. Verses 20 -21 say, “But as he was considering these things, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because the child 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.’” It sure would be nice if God would spell out our course of action that clearly. Joseph is told that his idea of divorce was all wrong and he needs to take Mary home as his wife. Joseph is going to be the adoptive father of Jesus.
What Joseph thought was the greatest tragedy of his life, turns out to be the greatest joy for all the world. He thought that his fiancé had cheated on him. That wasn’t the case. This was the most miraculous child in history. This was true God from all eternity taking on human flesh. God was becoming man so that he could be our Savior. This would be Jesus, the Lamb of God, the Savior of the World. I would love to talk to Joseph and learn more about what he thought about all this. It must have been incredible to be a parent to Jesus.
This is the plan that has been revealed ever since the Garden of Eden. The offspring of the woman was coming to crush the head of the serpent. The prophet Isaiah told about this over 700 years before the event. “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel.” The virgin birth is absolutely vital to our salvation. It is how Jesus could be born without sin. He had no human father. He didn’t not inherit sin like the rest of us inherit sin when we are born.
Because of our inherited sin, we are born with inclination toward evil. Even when we try our best to be good, we do not make up for our evil. We cannot be good enough, we cannot try hard enough, we cannot be morally upright enough to inherit heaven. That is why we need Jesus. That is why he had to come to earth. His best is what won us salvation. His best is perfection. He never ever sinned. Not even once. He was tempted like us in every way and yet he never sinned.
Jesus is exactly what we need to be saved. We can’t be saved because of how nice we are to our neighbors. We can’t be saved because of all the poor and hungry that we have helped. We can’t be saved because we are the best volunteer there has ever been. We are saved because of Jesus.
We can’t be saved through any other path than the one laid out in the Bible. No earthly religion that points us to ourselves and our good deeds will ever get us to heaven. We need Jesus. We need to continually submit ourselves to God’s plan. We need our time with the Bible so that our false ideas and all the worldly influences can be driven from our heart by the Holy Spirit. May Jesus continue to fill our hearts with the truth and make us clean through his perfect life.
Conclusion
I hope that we are all able to celebrate Christmas in the most joyful way. It is ok to enjoy all the ways of celebrating. Enjoy the presents, the kindness, and the music. But as always, let’s keep our focus on Christ. When our focus is on Jesus, the joy of the holiday last longer than December. We carry the joy with us always because it is the joy that leads to heaven. Jesus came to earth to save us from our sins. Because of him, we celebrate with the greatest Christmas joy.