Unexpected Moments
Faith - Obedience in Faith
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
The idea in this whole series is focusing in on moments that were completely unexpected with the Christmas story. But when we see them from a heavenly perspective, not necessarily our earthly perspective, we see the purpose in those. And what most people would consider earthly chaos, God actually has ordained and to put into motion for his heavenly purpose. And last week, Pastor Andre talked about Mary who came on scene and we know the whole story of her happening. But today I wanna talk about someone who may not necessarily get the limelight or the spotlight or the sermons or the paintings or the stained glass that Mary does. But first I want us to think about, it's been said that life is not measured in time, but life is measured in moments. Life is not measured in time, life is measured in moments. And this is true in so many ways when you think about it, when you look back maybe this past year or this past month, maybe this past week or even yesterday, we don't remember everything that happens in that time. But what we do remember are the moments, moments in our past, moments in our past year, in the past week, the past day, yesterday. And we really, when you think about it, moments are what we hold onto.
I remember as a kid moments of vacations with my parents. I remember moments of holidays and Christmases, moments with my grandparents who have gone ahead before me to heaven, the special moments with them. I remember the moment when I answered the call to become a full-time vocational pastor. I was at a youth conference in North Carolina. I remember that moment almost like yesterday. I remember moments when I proposed to my wife on the beach in Catalina Island in Southern California. And it was that moment, that special moment. I didn't eat any dinner hours before, I was so nervous. But I remember that moment playing her a song I had written her and getting down on one knee and asking her to be my bride. And then a year later, I remember the moment she walked down the aisle at our wedding just here in Loomis at the flower farm. I remember that moment. I remember the moment when I found out I was gonna be a dad for the very first time. And Lauren telling me and surprising me and we had been trying for a while and we were so excited for that moment I became a dad. I remember the unexpected moment. When I had to put our family dog Ace down, he had brain cancer and it wasn't doing well. I remember that moment holding him as he breathed his last breath. And I remember the other moments of holding my children for the very first time. They were just minutes old and get to hold them in my arms after praying for them for nine months in that moment. Time is measured by moments.
And in our series of unexpected moments, we're looking at specific moments in the story of the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ. And to look at a very powerful moment this morning, a very unexpected moment. And when you hear about this moment, I think you might find yourself learning from this time. Because you and I have no idea what God can do through one unexpected moment of obedience. We have no idea what God can do. And some of you know that. You've been prompted at times unexpectedly to do something. To do something, to say something, to give something. And you did something, you said something, and you gave something. And you look back and you think, oh wow. Look at what God did through that unexpected moment in my life. I can't believe what he did through what seemed to be a small act of obedience. Other times you felt prompted to do or say or give something. And we didn't know all of the details. And because it was unexpected, we didn't do it. And maybe sometime in the future, we look back and wonder, what did we miss out on? What was God doing in that unexpected moment that he wanted to do through us? And because we chose not to obey, God didn't do it through us. If you wanted to write down the title for this morning for notes, it would be, When It's Hard to Obey, Obedience and Faith. And when we think about the obedience and faith that was needed, even before Jesus was born, it's pretty incredible. Surrounded by unexpected moment after unexpected moment after unexpected moment. And yet, even though it was hard to obey, they had obedience and faith. Pray with me. Jesus, thank you for this morning. God, I pray that our hearts would be open to you, that you would do a work in us through your word. Give us the faith to obey today, God, knowing that you are always good and that your word is always true and that you are always with us every single moment of every single day. We thank you, Jesus, for who you are. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Everybody said, amen, amen.
Well, we're gonna dive into this morning a very special part of the Christmas story. And we're gonna be in Matthew's Gospel, chapter one, starting in verse 18. And I will read a portion of this to you right now. And it says, "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." Chances are pretty good here that many of you were very familiar with this part of Scripture. You may have heard the story before and you probably know Mary, right? Mary gets all the sermons, Mary gets all the limelight. Everybody focuses in on Mary. But what I wanna focus in on and talk to you about today is about Joseph. And who is probably one of the most important, least talked about characters in all of the Bible. One of the reasons he's not talked about a lot is we just don't know a whole lot about him. He didn't, what we understand is that he didn't live the normal length of a life in that day. We think that he probably passed away earlier in life than what was normal. But what I want us to focus in on here for a second is what we do know about Joseph, okay? So what we do know about Joseph is he was a carpenter. He says that in Matthew 13:55. It also says that he was a righteous and faithful man. We know that he was a descendant of David through the chronological order of Scripture in there at the beginning of Matthew, as well as in Luke 2:4. We know that Joseph was Mary's husband in Matthew 1:16. And we know that Joseph was Jesus's earthly father. But outside of that, we don't know a whole lot about him.
What we do know about him is that he had one unexpected moment of obedience that helped bring about a change that impacts each and every one of us even today. When we look at Joseph and we see him in Scripture, we see him very early on in the life of Jesus from this part of Scripture in Matthew through his younger years. And the last time that we actually hear about Joseph is when Jesus is about 12 years old, and then he seems to kind of disappear. And what scholars tend to believe is that he most likely died sometime after when Jesus was a teenager. And we believe this and understand this is because Joseph and Mary would have divorced, it would have been something very important to the story that would have been included in Scripture and it's not there. But what is mentioned is the fact that Jesus lived at home until about 30 years old. Now, they didn't have video games back then, so Jesus just wasn't living in Joseph and Mary's basement, like a bum, okay? But it was actually culturally seen as a way that if your mom was widowed, you lived at home to help her until you're about 30 years old. And so when we see this, we hear about Jesus, then at the end of his life on the cross, we see that Jesus asked the beloved disciple, John, to actually take care of Mary. And this would have been culturally accepted to pass off that caretaker of Mary to someone else because she was a widow. So in the context of our story, back to Matthew chapter one, the Scripture here says that he, Joseph, was engaged to Mary. Now, in our modern thought, we may think that being engaged happens, what, 22, 23, 25, 26 years old? But actually in this way, Mary was probably 14, 15, maybe even 13 years old. You may think, wow, that's pretty young, but that's kinda how they did it back then. And Mary was a virgin, and she comes to Joseph and says, "I'm pregnant." Joseph hears this news knowing that he had not been with her intimately yet, that Joseph would have been devastated beyond all measure. And the more that we think about this, probably because in the understanding, the context of the first century, engagement culture is when you got engaged. But it wasn't just the proposal, right? It wasn't just the proposal with the whole moment and the outdoors with the photographers, like that capture that moment for the gram, right? That moment for Instagram, you have that picture and that moment of hashtag ring before spring, hashtag I'm married, you're not, like hashtag check out the ring. Like that wasn't how the proposal thing was in the first century. It was a little bit different. A proposal meant a legal agreement when they got engaged, and they were technically, as we understand today, in our context, they were married, but they weren't allowed to consummate the marriage. And when they were engaged, until they had the official ceremony. And so Joseph and Mary would have not participated in any gift of lovemaking at that point. They would have been waiting until after the ceremony.
So when Mary comes to Joseph and says, I'm pregnant, she has gone off and slept with some guy. And for Joseph, I can only imagine the emotions and what he was feeling, and that the reality was that this was going to be a life ruining scandal for both of them. Because in that context, Mary, who he loved with all of his heart, who was gonna be the future mother of their children, who his best friend, everything that Mary was in that moment was broken. She had disobeyed God. She had dishonored her family. She had put Joseph in a place that he was going to be disgraced publicly. He'd been laughed at. He would have been mocked. He would have been shunned from his own friends and family and community. And it was considered such a horrible sin in that culture that in Deuteronomy 22, Joseph could have legally had her stoned. Now that wasn't common practice. What was more common practice was that to avoid all of the shame and all the scandal for Joseph's side, he would go before the city council and he would have basically his name cleared, showing that he had no part in participation with this, that he would have his name good. But for Mary, she would have probably ended up living by herself, raising her only child, giving herself away to make income, which most likely ended in prostitution that day. So for Joseph, he's in this horrible place. The woman of his dreams has apparently betrayed him. And how his next actions and how he chose to walk forward could potentially ruin her life even more. But what do we know about him? You remember we had just talked about him? We know that he was a righteous man, and he didn't want to disgrace her or to shame her. And so that's why when reading the scripture, he was thinking about basically separating from her or divorcing her quietly. But what Joseph didn't realize is that at this lowest unexpected moment, it was about to become one of his holiest moments. In his life. Moving from what was earthly chaos into heavenly purpose.
Scripture tells us continuing on in verse 20, “As he considered all of 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.’” Before we look at what Joseph did, I want you to notice what Joseph did not do, okay? The angel of the Lord said, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. But what didn't he do? He didn't explain away the dream. He didn't wake up and go, man, I should not have had that pizza that late. That was weird. Right? He didn't argue with God. He didn't say, hey, hold on, wait a minute. You're asking me to put my name on a line and trust some random dream? I'm not gonna do that. Joseph didn't negotiate with God. Go, okay, God, if this is really you, next time I take a nap, I need a dream with 12 angels. And I need each of them wearing a T-shirt that says this is your sign. Okay? No, he didn't negotiate. He didn't fight back. He didn't ask for details. Ooh. Okay, God, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna need to know how all of this is gonna play out before I make one decision going forward. He didn't do any of that. As the angel said before, did you guys catch that? Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. Verse 24, when Joseph woke up from the dream, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. I think if there was one statement for us, when we were to come to the end of our life, we would want to be known as we did what God commanded us to do, that we were obedient. Without understanding all the details. And Joseph proves this thought to us, is you don't have to understand completely to obey immediately. We don't. We don't have to understand completely to obey immediately. We don't have to know every single detail. We don't have to have every single thing ironed out. We don't need to have all of the information before us, before we make that decision. All we need to know is that if God is in it in the beginning, God will be in it through the end. 'Cause when you think about it, what Joseph didn't know he didn't have hardly any information at all, right? Think about the details that Joseph didn't know. Joseph didn't know that when Mary was gonna be nine months pregnant, there was gonna be a decree issued and they were gonna have to travel a hundred miles by donkey or horseback or walking to Bethlehem. They didn't know that. Joseph didn't know that on that journey, his wife was gonna be very, very, very, very, very, very pregnant. Probably wasn't the most joyful trip in life. They were gonna be traveling a long distance at winter time with low freezing temperatures at night. They were gonna go through areas of wild animals, of people known for robbing others along the journey. It was gonna be a dangerous trip. Joseph didn't know that when they arrived in Bethlehem, that there weren't gonna be any hotel rooms. Everything was gonna be sold out 'cause everybody was there for the census. Joseph didn't know that. Joseph didn't know that his wife was going to give birth in basically a farmstead in a barn next to animals. Joseph didn't know that. Joseph didn't know then that at some point, all this information was gonna get out that Herod, the king, was gonna issue decree that all boys under the age of two were to be killed and they were gonna have to go on the run. Joseph didn't know that. Joseph didn't know that he was gonna have to deal with the weight as they escaped with baby Jesus, knowing that their friends, their families, people that they loved that had children, boys under two, those kids were gonna be killed. They didn't know the weight that they were gonna have to hold and the guilt, knowing that their baby was safe and others were being killed. Joseph did not have any idea of the weight it would have been to raise the son of God. And yet, without knowing any details, he obeyed immediately.
So how does this apply to you? Well, at some point, God is gonna ask you and prompt you through his word, through his Holy Spirit to do something. And he's gonna ask you to do this without knowing any of the details. And you're going to find yourself maybe in a relationship, maybe dating, looking at the younger people in the room, and you're gonna think, I can't be with the right person if I'm currently dating the wrong person. And you're gonna have to have that conversation of thinking, I need to end this. But you're gonna think, well, God, I put so much time into this relationship. I've been with this person for so long. Like, I just can't cut it off. I'm gonna be all alone. But God's gonna prompt you to do something, and it's gonna be our moment then to see, do we obey or do we not? God's gonna stir in your hearts to use your gifts in the church. Because we know that we don't go to church, but that we are the church. And we all have gifts, and we all are important, and we're all valuable, and we all have our part to play in the body of Christ. We don't just watch what happens in the kingdom of God. We are partners in the kingdom of God. And you're gonna say, but God, I'm just so busy. I've got so much going on. And yet God's gonna prompt you to go, maybe some of that going on isn't what I want you to be going on doing. You need to change your priorities. God may prompt you to give something, to bless somebody. But God, money is just so tight. Have you seen the cost of a banana lately? Gas is expensive, life is expensive, inflation is through the roof. Interest is crazy. Stock markets are up and down, left and right, upside downwards, upside overs. But God, he's gonna prompt you to give something to be a blessing. Or maybe somebody betrays you, and God's word is gonna pierce your heart. And he's gonna say, you have to forgive others in the same way that I have forgiven you. And we have a choice to make. And it may be hard, and it may not know all the details. It may cost us something. God is prompting you, but you don't know how it's all gonna play out.
I want to encourage you in these moments, these unexpected moments, to remember that obedience is our responsibility, but the outcome is God's. Obedience is our responsibility, and the outcome is God. And he's gonna lead us to these moments of prompting, and all we can do is make the right choice and to trust him with the details. That's all we can do. That's all that he's asking us to do. And I think when I, the more I have conversations with people in the church, and I meet more Christians in my life, some of these things keep coming up. And what I would consider, or what I would call maybe more cultural Christians, the problem is that there are so many Christians that I would say are way educated beyond their level of obedience. In other words, we have all this head knowledge of who God is, and the Bible, and how church works, and how salvation works, and all this stuff, but our lives do not reflect a life of application of what we already know. People will say, "Feed me, pastor. "Feed me, pastor. "Feed me, pastor. "Teach me, pastor. "Give me more information. "Grow me, pastor. "Grow me. "Give me more. "Give me more. "Give me more. "Feed me, feed me, feed me." And I think what we need is to be obedient to what God has already told us. We need to be obedient to what his scripture has already said to our hearts, but we just want more information. We live in an information hungry world, right? We have to know what the details are. We have to know how things work. We caught ourselves this week Googling different things in our household of questions about Christmas that we didn't know because we couldn't just sit with the unknown, right? We have to know more, but this is not the life that God has called us to. We have to be obedient. We know his word and we should apply it. And we should also walk in obedience without knowing all the details and to trust him with the results. This is called faith. Joseph didn't have all the details. And yet he did what the angel of the Lord told him to do.
And the angel said this, verse 20, "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." This is why Jesus came. This is why God sent Jesus to us. The child within Mary was a miraculous, holy birth conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. Why does this matter? Chris, why are you telling us this? Well, I'm telling you this because what is happening here is that if Jesus was conceived by human seed, then what would have followed would have been sin nature because sin nature is tied with the human seed. But instead, the spiritual nature of God, he was born into Jesus without sin so he could live without sin in order to be the perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world. I don't know about you, but I know that I need grace. I, every single day, I need God's forgiveness. So let me ask you, what is your sin? Where are you heavy? Where are you feeling the weight of that on your heart today because I wanna tell you, you battling greed? God's got grace for your greed. Are you battling jealousy? There's forgiveness for your jealousy. Are you, have you been angry? His grace covers your sins. There is no sin too great that cannot be covered by the grace of God. Jesus was born of a virgin without sin so that he could die and we could have the forgiveness of our sins.
And the angel says, "Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife." And Joseph obeys. Knowing that there will be significant cost, knowing that he's gonna face serious opposition, he's gonna face ridicule. But time and time again in my life, see, I'm in this interesting place. Realize this this week. That I'm too old to be considered young but then I'm too young to be considered old. I'm in this no man's land, right? Right, I'm too old, right? Yeah, I'm too young, right? Right, yeah, I'm too, yeah. I'm too old and I'm too young at the exact same time. But I will tell you the life that I've lived, the short life that I have lived, of these almost 40 something years on earth, that every time that I have said yes to God and stepped out in obedience to where he has called me, there has been opposition. And there will be opposition. Your obedience will cost you something at some point. You'll have to say no to friends or others about being around them 'cause they're pulling you away from God. Maybe it's social drinking, maybe it's participating in activities you're not supposed to be doing. You know God's word and you know you're not supposed to do that. And yet you're gonna have to say no and step away in obedience, but you'll face opposition. Your friends will judge you. Those who call your closest in your decision to choose God will ridicule you. You'll have to step away from sexual proximity. You'll have to say no to those things. Why? Because you know that should be done only within the context of marriage. For those who are younger, the scripture tells us there's a better way to live and that's to wait for sex until you're married. And then you make up for lost time. Okay? It's not no forever. But we know that because God has a better life for us to live. There's gonna be times where God's gonna call you to be generous. And the world is gonna say, you're giving away your money. You're gonna give 10%, 11%, 12%, 15%. And if you're real crazy, I know people who will give away 50% of their profits to God for His glory, for His church and His kingdom. But the world's gonna look at you and go, you're nuts. Know what you could do with that money? You could have a vacation house. You could have a brand new car. You could have the vacations of dreams. The world's gonna ridicule you. You're gonna have to step out and trust God. And obedience is going to be difficult. But you have no idea what God can do through unexpected moments of obedience, just as He did with Joseph. And the angel said to him, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. And Joseph did as the angel commanded, a moment. Life isn't measured by time. It's measured by moments.
So where does this leave us? Here's a question for us to ponder. Where do I need to be obedient to the prompting of God? It may be as big as Joseph in this moment to stay with Mary. It may be as simple as I need to delete an app off my phone. But where do I, ask yourself this question, where do I need to be obedient to the prompting of God? God's gonna prompt you by His word, I promise you. I hope you're reading His word. You should be reading His word. I'll tell you that today. He's gonna prompt you by the leading of His Holy Spirit in your life. He might ask you to confess a sin. He might ask you to confess an addiction that you need help. You might need to apologize to someone for something you did wrong. He might lead you to forgive someone in the same way that Christ has forgiven you. He might prompt you to pray for somebody, not just pray for them, but to let them know that you're praying for them. He might prompt you to be a witness to someone. Probably not on the street corner with a bullhorn shaking a sign, but probably in the small moments of life in the way that you love others, the way that God has loved us. He might prompt you to invite somebody with the Christmas card this season. But maybe even beyond that, to have a relationship with someone who doesn't know Jesus yet and live a life in a way that is attractive to them, that is different from the world and to the place that they want to come to church with you because they want to know more about this Jesus and this God and this love and this peace that you have in your life that the world cannot understand. You have no idea what God might do in you through one simple, unexpected moment of obedience.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, stir within us today. God, I pray that you would give us the faith and the courage to obey. And as we're reflecting today, God, I wonder how many of us would say that I want to hear from you, God. And not only, God, do I want to hear from you, I want to be even more obedient. God, I see the courage and the incredible obedience that Joseph had in that situation with Mary. God, I want that for my life. If that is you right now, I would do something different. I want you to just raise your hand and say, I want to be obedient to God. I want to be obedient to Jesus. I want to say yes to God. Raise your hand right now if that's you. You want to say, I want to be obedient. And God, I pray that you would give us the faith, Jesus, you would give us the faith to be obedient as Joseph was obedient. God, speak to us, God, convict us, God. Wherever we are sinful, God, I pray that you would lead us in the right direction. God, search our heart. Lead us in your way that's everlasting. God, speak to us. I pray that there would be people, God, that couldn't even walk out of the church building today without reaching out to someone with a word of encouragement. A word of blessing, a moment of prayer, God, that you would help us to be available to you in every moment, in any moment, God, and especially in unexpected moments. That God, when you speak, you would give us the faith to obey just as the angel said and just like Joseph did. That when you speak, God, we will obey.
And as you keep praying this morning, there might be some here today that would say that you're hurting spiritually. And today, Jesus wants to bring you spiritual healing. I told you earlier that I need grace every single day. I need grace for my sins. I need grace for my mistakes. And I'd be curious if we were to sit down and have an honest conversation about spiritual things. And I said, where do you stand with God? Like chances that some of us would say that yeah, we messed up. I've done things wrong. And I want to know this love. See, we've all sinned. Bible tells us that, that every single one of us, and we actually inherit this sin nature. We were born into sin. Sin is passed down from generation to generation. And that is why Jesus was different because he didn't inherit the sin nature of man, but the spiritual nature of the heavenly father. See, this is the good news is that Jesus was without sin. He was the perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins. So if you're under condemnation, you have the weight, you have the burden of sin in your heart, I want you today to know that you can confess that and you can receive forgiveness. That we turn away from our sins. We call on the name of Jesus, our hearts and our prayers. He forgives us of our sins that you're not here in this moment right now by happenstance. It's not an accident that today you are here and Jesus wants to give you that forgiveness today. So today you would say to Jesus, I surrender my life to you. Those who would say that I'm ready. Today I leave my old life, I give my life to Jesus. Take a moment, show me, look at me today, raise your hand, say yes today, I want to receive that love of Jesus. I wanna receive that forgiveness. For those of you who said yes, this is my prayer for you. Jesus, I need your grace, I need your mercy, I need your salvation. Know that when you are in the presence of a good God who loves you so much, I want us all to pray this together. I think this is a great reminder. Even if it's your first time praying this prayer, maybe you've prayed this prayer before, you received Jesus before. I don't want anybody to pray alone this morning, I want all of us to pray together. I want all of us to pray and to have a reminder about this moment in our life when we say yes to Jesus. So repeat this after me out loud. Heavenly Father, forgive my sins. Jesus, I trust you to save me, to make me new, to fill me with your Spirit so that I could know you and serve you and obey you and show your love in all that I do. My life is not my own. I give it all to you. Thank you for your new life. Now you have mine. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Can we just give God praise?