Things are rarely as they seem. Things never work out the way you think they should!

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1 Joseph Expect the unexpected. Think about the way that God works. It s often very unexpected. Think about your last year, 5 years, the last 10, 20, 30 how ever old you are. Could you ever have imagined that you would go through what you have and be where you are today?! Things are rarely as they seem. Things never work out the way you think they should! The birth of Christ. Christmas is one of the prime examples. The savior of the world, the son of God comes into the world in the most humble way amidst all kinds of the worst misunderstandings possible of the day an unwed teenage mother!!! There is not a lot in the Bible about the exact specifics of Joseph and the community s reaction to Mary s pregnancy, like the movie explored tonight. But historically and culturally we know that for Mary to begin to show and being not yet married would be a big deal! Like anyone who has been betrayed in a marriage, you can imagine the heartache and pain that Joseph feels when he see s Mary, His fiancé pregnant knowing they had kept their relationship sexually pure. God often doesn t work things out the expected way. He didn t when he chose the way for Jesus to come to earth and he usually doesn t in our lives either! How you arrived at this place in your relationship with God tonight I can almost guarantee you was not how you would have planned it! Matthew 1: 18,19 18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. First: Jesus is unexpected. Can you see the surprise in this passage? Back then, you wouldn t date and get engaged and get married like we do today. Your parents would find a spouse for you. How would you like that? And then you would enter into a binding agreement before witnesses that you would marry this person. This would be called betrothal, and once you were betrothed you were in between. You weren t married yet, but the only way you could end the betrothal would be through divorce. After the betrothal then a year later you would actually get married. In this passage we read that Joseph was betrothed to Mary. His parents had arranged the marriage. They had already committed to get married, probably a year down the road. And now all of a sudden before they re married, Joseph discovers that Mary is four months pregnant. He s 1

2 surprised, to say the least. He has a choice. He can marry her as planned and ignore the fact that she s pregnant and that he s not the father. He can make this a public matter, and Mary will be disgraced and maybe even stoned to death. Or he can deal with the matter quietly and divorce her. He chooses to do the last when an angel appears to him and stops him in his tracks. Do you see here: Jesus is unexpected. Jesus is not the result of any human initiative. Nobody thought Jesus up. God took the initiative completely to bring about the birth of Jesus Christ to save his people from their sins. Jesus has been surprising people ever since. He was unexpected, and he continues to show up unexpectedly in people s lives even today. I love when Jesus shows up unexpectedly, as he has in many of our lives. We weren t looking for him. He hadn t even crossed our minds. But then, through the strangest of circumstances, God takes the initiative and shows up in the middle of our lives. It may be that Jesus is unexpectedly showing up in your life in some kind of circumstance right now. I can t tell you how many time I meet someone here they are just strolling through the courtyard, totally oblivious to what God is about to do in their lives!!! You gotta expect the unexpected with God. The ways that he works in your life are not your ways they are his! Following Christ is an adventure! We walk by faith and not sight. There is nothing more exhilarating then fully surrendering your life to Christ and walking that out in your life. It will shock you what it looks like just ask Joseph!!! Matthew 1:20,21 20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 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. This is incredible. This would have been a surprise to anyone back then, just like it is to us today. God the Holy Spirit came upon Mary, not as the biological father, but as the all-powerful God who was able to do the miraculous. Jesus is not like the rest of us who were born in the normal way. Jesus was born miraculously. Jesus is not just unexpected; he is also miraculous. On commentator said 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. I spoke last week about the virgin birth. Again this passage reiterates it. It highlights the supernatural nature of Jesus birth. It shows us that we need a salvation that we can t bring about ourselves. It shows us that God takes the initiative. It hints at the fully human and fully divine natures united in Jesus one person. 2

3 Wayne Grudem writes: God, in his wisdom, ordained a combination of human and divine influence in the birth of Christ, so that his full humanity would be evident to us from the fact of his ordinary human birth from a human mother, and his full deity would be evident from the fact of his conception in Mary s womb by the powerful work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus birth was completely unexpected. It was also miraculous. God took the initiative and did the impossible, just like he takes the initiative and brings about a salvation that we can t achieve ourselves. Joseph finds himself now in the place to be the step father of Jesus. Not any easy calling, frightening I m sure. By the way your fiancé has become pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit with the savior of the world. I want you to be his step Dad and give him the name Jesus!!! I can t imagine Joseph would ever anticipate being used of God in that way!!! Jesus is unexpected; Jesus is miraculous. He still works miracles in our lives today. Things that are impossible. That is where God works. When your like Joseph and things don t make sense, hold on. Wait on the Lord. He will reveal whatever you need to know to move forward. In this case Joseph doesn t immediately react to Mary and start his own reality TV show teenage mothers and their ex boyfriends. He determines to quietly divorce Mary and right then an Angel appears to him in a dream! Matthew 1: All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel (which means God with us ). 24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus. A great example for us The angel says that Jesus name is Immanuel, which means God-with-us. Jesus is He descends into our messy world, standing in solidarity with human sufferers, plunging ever deeper into our pain and apparent abandonment. Back then, Greeks could never have thought about God taking on a body. One Greek philosopher sarcastically asked, How can one admit (God) should become an embryo, that after his birth he is put in swaddling clothes, that he is soiled with blood and bile and worse things yet? Even today, people struggle with this. A Muslim professor says that he can t comprehend that God would become small, tiny, and weak. 3

4 But we see here that Jesus is God-with-us. Jesus is God coming to us first as a fetus, then as an unplanned pregnancy, then as a baby, and later a twelve-year-old boy, and then later as a teacher, and then as a condemned criminal stripped naked on the cross, and then as the risen and ascended Lord. The writer to the Hebrews says: Hebrews 2:17 For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Here's the point God himself has felt what we feel. In the Incarnation, he chose not to stay "completely Other." He got down at eye-level, God experienced what it's like to be tired and discouraged. He knows what it's like to hurt and bleed. On the cross, Jesus himself prayed a psalm of lament: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:1). In the film portrayal we see Joseph hurting and upset over the pain of Mary s apparent unfaithfulness. In your pain, you may be tempted to say, "God, you have no idea what I'm going through. You have no idea how bad I'm hurting." But God can respond, "Yes, I do." He can point to your wounds and then to his own and say, "Look: same, same. Me too. I have entered your world, and I know how you feel. I have been there, I am with you now, I care, and I can help." Christmas message is that God is with you in your pain. Jesus is the unexpected, miraculous with-us God. Finally: Jesus saves us from our sins. We learn in verse 21 exactly what Jesus came to do: She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. In Jesus we have the solution for our sin problem. Jesus came to live the perfect life that we couldn t live. And then we went to the cross and bore our sins. And he rose from the dead to give us new life. Jesus is the solution for our sin problem, Jesus came to save us from our sins. Pause You know what it s like to have someone visit you when you re not ready. Most people would be a little embarrassed to have unexpected company when their house was a mess. Heard this story from a friend of a friend. Their family was staying at a hotel in Nigeria, West Africa, They heard a knock on the door. They opened it and found a smiling Nigerian gentleman ready to clean their room. They were so embarrassed! The family had travel bags, curling irons, and crumpled clothing sprawled across their unmade beds. Wet towels were all over the bathroom floor. They 4

5 apologized profusely, but the young man replied graciously, "No problem, sir. For this reason I have come, to put your things in order." The Bible says this is exactly what Jesus Christ came to do for us. To put our lives in order! He doesn't demand that we first straighten up our mess. Instead, He offers to clean up for us. Jesus came into our world to save us from our sins, to clean up the mess we couldn t clean ourselves. This is the reason that Jesus came. This is what Christmas is all about. Jesus is the unexpected, miraculous with-us God who saves us from our sins. Pray 5