Matthew 1: Joseph

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0:00 The rest of us, we are also going to talk about Joseph in Matthew chapter 1. If you want to look there, Matthew chapter 1. Building the story of Jesus. Talked about Mary last week. Talked about Joseph this week in Matthew chapter 1. Matthew chapter 1 is kind of a famous chapter in the New Testament because it has this long genealogy in it.

0:37 Which is kind of interesting if you like that sort of thing. Luke has a genealogy that goes to Mary and Matthew has a genealogy that goes to Joseph. Which is interesting. We talked last week about Mary, remember, and I was telling you that we are pretty sure that Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke. But that most of his information or a lot of his information, unique to some of the others, came from interviewing Mary.

1:09 And so that maybe after he had done the Missionaries' journeys with Paul, he went back and interviewed Mary and heard her stories about what the beginning there was like. And so when he does a genealogy, he goes to Mary and Matthew does the genealogy and goes to Joseph. We are pretty sure that Matthew, the writer of this Gospel, was one of Jesus' actual disciples. Luke wasn't a disciple for Jesus, he was more of a disciple from Paul. But Matthew was a disciple of Jesus and had been a tax collector, so he was Jewish.

1:41 We knew that. So when you read Matthew's Gospel, it comes from a Jewish perspective, maybe written to people who came out of the Israelite Jewish faith. And so Jesus is referred to as the son of David. And he talks about the Kingdom of Heaven instead of the Kingdom of God, he's not using the name of God. Even the way he lays out the life of Jesus kind of recapitulates the path of Israel through the world. It's kind of interesting that he does this through the person of Joseph because we know like Israel and Judaism becomes a matriarch of culture.

2:16 You follow, you become Jewish because your mother is Jewish. It's interesting that Matthew follows through Joseph. Of course a lot of the genealogies in the Old Testament follow through the man, the person, the man, the father. And that's kind of what Matthew is doing here at the beginning. There's kind of an interesting thing that I didn't know until I really started looking to this for you all. If you are looking in a paper or copy, which most of us aren't, hold your finger in Matthew chapter 1 and go back to Chronicles chapter 1.

2:47 Chronicles chapter 1, look at this. This is really kind of interesting in first Chronicles. I had never made this comparison before, but probably just because you find different things every time you look at the story of Scripture. You know, the way the Bible comes together is kind of interesting because we know that the first five books, the Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the Torah, we're pretty sure got written underneath Moses' supervision.

3:18 So that was probably done by the time they crossed the Jordan and go into the promised land. They had those first five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. And they had those kind of locked in together. Now that goes back. Those books go all the way back to the beginning of time. And the way Moses gets those stories is in conversation with God in the 10th of meeting and he pulls that forward. And then they start building some like history. So then you've got Joshua and the chronicles of what he's going through and then the judges.

3:50 And so they're building this history and keeping it together. But the two sections that become referred to a lot are First and Second Kings and First and Second Chronicles. And it looks like First and Second Kings and First and Second Chronicles overlap. They tell a lot of the same stories that maybe they were written in the Northern and the Southern kingdoms after Israel was divided. But the reason I want you to see is like what we have in our story of Scriptures is not only Psalms and Proverbs and prophets.

4:20 We have like history of a people. Like this is their ledger book. This is like if you want to know authoritatively what happened, you refer to the Scriptures. Like we'll look at it later, but when Matthew talks about in the Christmas story that the Magi from the East came. He's like making fun of the smart Jewish people who missed the birth of Jesus. Because he's saying even the silly Magi who don't have any learning worth it.

4:53 Who study the stars and not the Scriptures. Figured out that Jesus was coming. Because all of the knowledge that's worth it is stored in the Scriptures. All of our people, our history, the communication from God is stored here. And what I wanted you to see is in first Chronicles they start out this like important book that's like all the learning and all the history with this long genealogy. It's like sixty-four generations, one after the other, a lot of names and then kids of people.

5:27 Like and it starts in Chronicles chapter one. They start with Adam. That's the first one. This is a comprehensive knowledge. This is like going to go all the way down to the kings of Israel. From the first ones down to the kings of Israel. Adam, Seth, Enoch and it keeps going. So in Chronicles chapter one verse one all the way through by verse twenty-four. They're at Shem and his kids by verse twenty-nine.

5:58 They're down to Abraham. The sons of Abraham are Isaac and Ishmael. And then verse thirty-four Abraham fathered Isaac and then they go through the sons of Isaac. Esau and Israel. The sons of Esau. The sons of Eliphaz. The sons of and then verse thirty-eight the sons of Sayyir. If you go down to chapter two they're still in the genealogy. We're in the second chapter of first Chronicles. There are the sons of Israel with Ruben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Isakar, Zebulon, Dan. They keep going through. I mean the genealogy keeps going.

6:31 Chapter three they're in the descendants of David. Chapter four they're in the descendants of Judah. Chapter five they're in the descendants of Ruben. This is a lot of generations. Someone is trying to convince the people reading it. And this is the archive of all the knowledge. When you want to know something important you come here. And so a lot of people think you can go back to Matthew chapter one. When Matthew starts out his genealogy, his gospel of Jesus. He starts with a comprehensive genealogy mirroring what they did in Chronicles.

7:08 To go we had the history that contained all the important information. Let me give you the new one. Everything you need to know locked in here. Right? Matthew chapter one. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. He starts with Abraham because like we said he's anchoring Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. And then it'll extend out to the rest of the world.

7:39 Luke and his genealogy goes back to Adam because he's linking Jesus as the Savior for all from the beginning. Matthew's trying to show he fulfilled the call of Israel and then goes out to the rest of the world. So he starts his genealogy with Abraham. And then he does a thing here where he does a series. He breaks the genealogy from Abraham to David, from David to exile, from exile to Joseph. And he does 14 generations in each block. And so what they're doing in these genealogies they use them as storytelling.

8:13 So they're less interested in like this is kind of odd. But they're less interested in the historicity of it. They're more interested in the storytelling aspect of it. So it's more important that he communicate to you that God knew what he was doing than he communicated to you every name in every generation. And so when he brackets he skips over some. He kind of like gets the genealogy to line up the way he wants. So there's 14 in each section in order to communicate to you God knew what he was doing.

8:48 And the thing they feel like is when you add up there, he uses David a lot in the genealogy more than he has to. And so he's trying to show you that Joseph is in the line of David. And when they try and figure out why is he using 14 generations there's a couple of guesses. But the best one is they would use interchange numbers and letters a lot in 1st century Judaism. And the three consonants for David which the vowels didn't get numbers are DVD.

9:19 And when you add those up you get 14. And so they think that he's trying to implicitly tell the reader David, David, David, 14, 14, 14. Jesus is the culmination that there is a descendant of David who'll sit on the throne forever. The reason I go through all this, all the knowledge that's important, the new level of the chronicles, the fulfillment of David, 14, 14, 14, all of this is leading to who?

9:50 Joseph? I mean Jesus, yes. But why is Joseph getting in the way? That's what I'm wondering today. It's like Moses, like Moses I get, like he saved miraculously on the Nile River. Like God works through people significantly and meaningfully. Joseph is just like a dude living in Nazareth from Bethlehem.

10:25 Like he's just a dude, right? David, I could see why Matthew would make a big deal about David. David was like, he had killed Goliath. He had won on battles. He was big and known and renowned. Joseph, like he doesn't even have a burning bush. He doesn't have like Joshua gets the angel of the Lord standing in front of him with a sword.

10:57 Joseph doesn't get that. He doesn't even get married. He gets a visitation from Gabriel where she sees him with her waking eyes and is afraid and he says, peace be with you, do not be afraid. You have found favor with God. Joseph doesn't even get that. Joseph gets a dream. Look, in Matthew chapter 1, we'll start at verse 17. So all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations and from David to the deportation of Babylon 14

11:32 and from the deportation of Babylon to Christ 14 generations. Verse 18, now the birth of Jesus took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together. So just a quick reminder, maybe you've heard this, but when they get engaged in the first century, they actually say their vows to one another. So like the reason is because a lot goes into moving the woman from the house of her parents to the house of the guy she's going to marry.

12:06 And so once they're betrothed, he starts adding on to his house a place for her to live. And so she can't go there. They can't do the marriage until there's a room for them to now be married in. But he's not going to go through the expense of building onto his house and stuff until he knows he's got one locked up. So once they're betrothed, they say their vows, then he goes to prepare. Then once it's prepared, they ceremoniously walk her across the neighborhood to his house.

12:39 Then they, everybody in the, by then everybody in the village knows this is why they have the big parties, like the wedding nakana. For three days, everybody's involved. This is huge. We did it. Now the parents don't have to take care of this woman anymore. She's over here building a new family. It's his responsibility to make sure that she's got everything that she needs. Celebrate three days. So they're in this period where Joseph is preparing to welcome Mary into his house. And so if she were to become pregnant in this period, it would not be from them.

13:09 They don't come together until the wedding night in the house. So it would be from somebody else. And that's a bad news, right? Like they have a punishment of adultery. If somebody decides they really want to pursue the letter of the law, this is what could happen to Mary. Right? Hey, this is out of bounds. Adultery is punishable by stoning. So Joseph is trying to figure out what to happen when he figures out that Mary is pregnant. Okay, she's betrothed that Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child with the Holy Spirit.

13:39 And her husband, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. This would be like maybe he would not make a show about it, say, hey, the marriage is off, and maybe Mary would move to another town and then figure out how to live as an unmarried mother. Right? And she'd have to get someone to take care of her probably. It's going to be very difficult for her. Right? But Joseph is like, I don't want to make a big show and they end up killing her or something. So he's a just guy, he's just going to kind of divorce her quietly and she can figure out what she's going to do.

14:13 He'll have to figure out what he's going to do. Right? And her husband being a just man, unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. Verse 20, but he considered these things, as he considers these things behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear, take Mary as your wife for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken, behold of her and shall conceive a bear son and they will call his name in manual.

14:47 Joseph doesn't get much explanation. Right? Like at least Mary's like, Hey, how can this be? Hey, Mary, greetings, you have found favor with the Lord. Right? A visitation from Gabriel in person, she gets to hear from Gabriel, you have found favor with the Lord. We're going to do this things. And then she gets to ask a question, how can this even work? And the Gabriel's like, the Holy Spirit will overshadow you and the son of the most high will be conceived in you and you will bear the son and she can treasure these things in her heart.

15:17 Joseph gets a dream and is like, Hey, Joseph, listen, here's the plan, man. Just be cool. Just marry this woman. It's not your kid, but take care of him anyway. And it'll be great. It'll be the savior of the world. I'll be back. Right? And he has several dreams, right? And he has a dream about going, running away into Egypt. He has a dream about going back. It's safe to Egypt. Go back now to Nazareth. It's all right, leave Egypt, go back to Nazareth. So like the Gabriel comes to Joseph in dreams, but Joseph, he never gets you, have found favor with God.

15:50 It's just like, do this thing, man. Right? And Joseph just does it. And then we don't get any sense. I was thinking about this now. Okay. Joseph, like, I mean, we know later that he ended up having more kids because when Jesus comes back to preach in Nazareth, they're like, isn't this Joseph and Mary's kid? Like they name off his three brothers and then aren't his sisters with us. So there's at least two sisters.

16:23 So they have at least five other kids. So they have other kids. But you don't get a sense. And when he goes to Nazareth and nobody thinks Jesus is anything special, you get the sense they didn't raise him as anything special. And I was thinking, like, they're raising Jesus and several of us have been through little league stuff. We know parents. Like, if their baby was Jesus, like, it'd be hard to not make a big deal out of it. Right? Like, I've seen some people make a really big deal out of their kids that are not Jesus, you know?

16:56 And they just, yeah. But you don't get the sense these Mary and Joseph did that. And so, Joseph, man, just like a regular guy without much fanfare. And even remember, we talked about it a little bit, I think, last week, but Jesus is on the cross and Mary's there. And the disciple whom he loved, John is there. And he puts them together and Mary is not your son.

17:30 Most people think Joseph is dead by then, right? Because he would have been older already. So he might have been in his 60s, which is not likely that they lived that long at that time. So he didn't get to see the crucifixion or the resurrection or what comes after. He just had these dreams where he felt like a job was given to him to do.

18:01 And the job was father the Savior of the world. Sometimes I think that it's interesting, you know, that the whole parenting job is interesting. It's like God creates these new unique expressions of humanity out of the nothing, imagines their personality and scope, projects out a potential future.

18:46 He creates these things, these humans that have the capacity to live forever and then trusts them to people like the kids said who have never done it before. And they come into the world and they get a sense of love, responsibility, mercy. It's all shaped by these humans who are interacting with them from the moment they arrive in the world, right?

19:18 He's bringing Jesus the beginning of new humanity, the salvific force of the universe into the world in the same way. Like two people who are not going to do it perfect go for it. Joseph, a dream, some directions, you take it from there.

19:54 I don't know if you have felt like you've gotten directions from God before. Maybe it's like a sense where you felt like I know I just got to do this one thing. I don't know how I know it. I just know this is the right next step. Maybe it's a compulsion. I know that this is the right thing to do. I don't want to do it. I must. Or maybe something happened where you were like, if this happens, then I'll know I'm supposed to go do this other thing.

20:28 Oh my gosh, it happened. I don't know if you've had moments where you've felt a sense of clarity that yes, this is what I'm ordained to do. If you have, I also know if you've ever had a moment like that. I also know you have second guessed and doubted that moment as many times or more than you ever believed it. How on earth did I get here? Why am I doing this thing?

21:03 Joseph has the job of Jesus and he's like, wait, what's that really? I had a dream, but I also ate something weird. Could that really be the thing? The God of the universe who imagined the incarnation. I don't know how you come up with that idea. I'm a pretty creative guy. I like coming up with new ideas.

21:34 I could think about how we're going to try and solve the problem of the fatal flaw of humanity. I would not have imagined buying the unbounded God in flesh. The infinite infining. Do something where he's like, he can like, kill humanity and bring it to life at the same time. Where he could like end one thing and start another thing all at one time where rather than destroy, he like, he like, redeems.

22:06 And everyone that was destined for death now gets life often to forever. It is an amazing idea. I could never have thought of it, right? And he trusts it to Joseph. I think it would be very easy for Joseph at multiple points in his life to go, this is crazy. I was crazy, this is not real. I'm trying to say, if God would trust the person of Christ to something as, what, easily misunderstood, explained away forgotten as night dreams for Joseph.

22:50 He might be caught up in minutia of your life that you have missed three times over. You might be feeling like you have second guessed a call God gave you that you're like, if it was a call in my life, certainly it would be larger. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it's some small little twist. I can imagine Joseph, if he, if you would have asked him as he was like prepping his house, getting ready for this new bride, and you told him, hey God's going to use you, he would start to think about splitting red seas, about thrones that live forever, right?

23:31 He would be thinking about walls of Jericho falling down, blowing trumpets, leading armies. This is how God not disciplining, figuring out how to discipline the kid who never seems to get anything wrong, how to teach him to be a carpenter when he doesn't feel like he needs to learn anything. He would not have thought that's what it looks like to be used by God. And God bless him. He died. Who knows what he didn't get to see the end of it? When Jesus came back to Nazareth, right?

24:02 They thought he was crazy. His family came and said, did Jesus out of there? He's crazy. And Jesus had to go, who are my brother and sisters, but the ones who come with me? Who knows what clarity Joseph got about his calling? Remember when I've said this a bunch of us, it's worth repeating. The disciples are going up the hill of Galilee to see the resurrected Jesus, whom they've eaten with, whom they put their fingers in the holes.

24:34 They know it's him. And they're going up the hill of Galilee, and he's about to give them the great commission. All authority to have it, I've always been giving to me there for. And they were walking up there, and Matthew says it in his gospel, when they're going up the hill of Galilee, he says, all the eleven were walking up there together, and some of them believed, and some of them were going up there. And some of them believed, and some of them doubted. You can be used by God.

25:05 And probably already are. You don't have to believe it all the time. You certainly don't have to get it perfect. But the invitation of the Christmas story, end of today, is why not believe it?

25:38 Jesus could raise, I mean Joseph could raise a kid who's not his, right? And forget and write off all of the dreams, and go, that's too crazy. There's no way a God, if he's doing that would pick me. There's no way a God, if he's doing that would do it in this way. He could write off the dreams and explain away the supernatural, and forget it, and live in a life that's more reasonable. But what fun is that? And what does he miss, I'm saying?

26:11 And so for you, I'm saying you can be a person like Joseph in the world. God can use you. He has probably already told you, in little ways, what work you might be about. Raising kids, what being a carpenter, we don't want to split seas, and topple walls to be used by God.

26:43 Let's pray that we could believe it, receive it, and live it. Hey Lord, thank you for this room of people. We know that you love them dearly. Love them today, good Lord. Remind them of the call you have put on their life. Give them the courage and the faith to believe ideas that could only be yours. And then teach us like Joseph how to just humbly do the jobs you've given us, knowing that you are caught up in all of them.

27:15 In Jesus' name we pray, amen.