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Joseph's Challenge - First Sunday After Christmas - '08


In Acts 26, we read Christ's words to Paul while he was on the Damascus road concerning the mission given to him. It was Christ's intention to give to Paul's hearers forgiveness of sins and the inheritance of all those sanctified by faith in Him. However, these wonderful gifts would only be given on two conditions. The first is that their eyes would be open, that is, that they should understand the spiritual truth which Paul would preach. The second is that they would turn from darkness to light. That is the message of repentance. The blessings of Christ are in His light. All those who would have them must leave their darkness behind. They must leave their sins and their idolatry if they would have Christ.

This is always the challenge of Christ to us. Will we have Him or will we hang on to what we have without him, namely sin and death? As the angel proclaimed to Joseph, Jesus came to save His people from their sins. This is a message much grander than merely going to heaven when you die. Christ came into the world to change us; to change our condition, both in our standing before God and in our very characters. To introduce people to Christ was Paul's mission because this is the church's mission. The mission of the church is to bring people into confrontation with the person of Jesus Christ. And when we do so, He challenges the character of our hearers.

The Church has done this for us. We ourselves have been brought face to face with the risen Christ and His claims on our lives. Our character has been challenged: will we repent or will we not? What we have discovered is that this initial challenge to our character was only that, an initial challenge. Christ continues to challenge the character of His people for we are not yet in this life completely free from all our sins as we will be in the resurrection. We are not yet perfectly sanctified in Christ. Rather we are progressively sanctified as He challenges our characters and we respond in faith and repentance to his challenges.

As I have said, this is what Christ always does. We have just read in Matthew 1 of the challenges He brought to Mary and Joseph. Jesus is not even out of the womb yet and He is challenging the character of his servants! In Matthew 1, we see Mary and Joseph in the middle of the awkward situation that the Lord has put them in. We are told that they were espoused to one another. The marriage agreement has been established and they were both surely looking forward to their wedding. However, Matthew says that Mary "was found with child of the Holy Ghost." The language here is of human observation, not divine revelation. She was found with child. We are simply told the fact of her condition. This is because the narrative continues from the perspective of Joseph. He had not been present at the annunciation of Christ's conception. All he knew was that the woman he loved was with child and that had to be very painful and disturbing. I think we can safely assume that Mary told Joseph about the origin of the child and her cousin Elizabeth may have also added to the evidence. But, still, Joseph was being asked to believe in a remarkable miracle.

Let us pause to consider what all of this meant to Mary. What has the coming of Jesus meant to her? It has meant the possible misunderstanding and loss of her husband. If he could not believe the miracle and were to leave her, she would be in an even worse condition, for she would eventually have a child out of wedlock. What an incredible challenge this must have been to her faith!

Our narrative, however, is, as I have said, about Joseph and the challenge to his character. What does he do? We are told that he shows himself to have a just or righteous character. He is not thinking primarily about himself but Mary. Many men would have taken this situation as an affront to their egos or their reputations and have sought to take out their frustrations on poor Mary. They would have made as big a deal out of it as they could, and tried to be sure that the whole community knew that they rejected this woman who had obviously been unfaithful to them. But Joseph does not do that. He determines to annul the agreement privately and to save Mary as much suffering as possible. This had to have been painful for him, but he thought more of her than of himself. He shows himself righteous in character, keeping the command to love our neighbour as our self.

The story goes on to speak of Joseph’s thinking. We picture him alone somewhere, reflecting on his situation and Mary’s, considering his plan of action and their broken hearts. Suddenly the angel appears and tells Joseph to not be afraid to take Mary as his wife. This word of the angel tells us something of what Joseph had been thinking about, does it not? He was afraid of something. What was there to fear in taking her as his wife? Surely it was the stigma of the birth of this one child that would go on for the rest of his life. Though his wife may believe in her innocence and though he may in time come to believe in it, the rest of the community would not. He and Mary would have to live a misunderstood life. Joseph was afraid of the pain of this. But now the angel assures him that he need not be afraid, for this is God’s doing. That did not, however, take away the stigma and the slander. The challenge to Joseph’s character remained. Would he believe God, marry this young woman, and endure the social discomfort? Again, Jesus is still in the womb and yet his presence in the world is bringing huge challenges in the lives of people.

Thankfully, Joseph took the challenge. He refused to fear the pain his marriage would bring him, choosing rather the joy of being a part of God’s plan for the world. Like Moses, he chose the reproaches of the world that He might share in the glory of Christ.

We need to ask ourselves tonight where Jesus is challenging our characters. He has not sent us angels with messages - I wouldn’t think - but He does challenge us in other ways. He challenges us through His Word as we read it and hear it taught and preached. He speaks to us through the admonitions of other Christians - which can be a very difficult challenge for us to accept. He challenges us through the still small voice of our consciences. He also challenges us through His providences. As we follow him in the path of duty, as Joseph was doing, we find things coming across our path that call us to sacrifice and humility. God has brought these things to pass to challenge us - will we trust him or be afraid and forsake the path of duty? In times like those, we may wish for an angel to speak to us! But really all we need to do is to keep our eyes on the very one who challenges us, Jesus Himself.

Who is He? Why did the angel tell Joseph to call his name Jesus? Because somehow there was a connection between that name and His mission to save us from our sins. What is this connection? The name Jesus is our English for the Hebrew name Joshua. We should therefore remember that Jesus’ name was really Joshua and all the images of which that name reminds us from the story of Joshua and the conquest of Canaan should be present in our minds. This is the connection. To be saved from our sins is to be brought into the Promised Land of the salvation of God. The book of Hebrews, 3 & 4, speaks forthrightly about this connection. Our salvation in Christ was pictured by the victory over their enemies and the rest from warfare which the children of Israel were to have in Canaan under Joshua‘s leadership. Sin is our enemy; it brings death and destruction into our lives. We, however, are just as helpless in ourselves to conquer this enemy as the children of Israel were to conquer the giants in the land of Canaan. But we have Joshua with us. We have a leader; he is the captain of our salvation. He is the one who fights our enemies for us. On the cross of Calvary he defeated both Satan and sin that we might enter into His promised land of rest. Therefore, we who believe in Christ enter into His rest, his victory for us. Thus, Jesus, Joshua, saves us from our sins.

Now here’s the point: the very same one who challenges us to trust Him and obey Him in the difficulties of this life is the one who will enable us to do so victoriously. As Joshua challenged the children of Israel to enter the land and fight their enemies and win their victory, he also lead them into that fight and victory. Our Joshua does the same for us. Therefore, we do not look at the challenge, thinking of how we are going to get through it; we look to Him who is going to lead us through it. Our faith is in our Captain, who has never failed us and will never fail us.

Where is this Jesus challenging you this evening? What have you learned from the Scriptures? What have you been told by others What has your conscience been speaking to you about? What is the unexpected but plain duty that now lies before you? What have you, like Joseph, been thinking about, that you are afraid to act on. Fear not. Trust and obey this Jesus. He is with you. Joshua is also Emmanuel; God with us. And as it also says in Hebrew, ch. 13, He will never, ever leave us. Therefore, we may boldly say, the LORD is my helper. I will, by His abundant grace, accept His challenge.

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