Matthew 1.18-25

I remember one day in Chapel, the president of our College, Matt Proctor, was preaching and in walked into the chapel and up on the stage a group of children. Some were his kids, older, perhaps in the third and fourth grade, and others were younger, maybe even as young as preschool. And his sermon was him preaching to those kids and us overhearing, or listening in, if you will. It was fantastic!!! He had those kids' attention for the entire sermon, they were eating out of his hand. He did this really cool thing where he would say, "If you would just obey..." and the kids would yell in response, "God will save the day!!!" And he did this over and over again.

I think that is the key to this passage, obedience leads to the Salvation that Jesus offers to the nations. Obedience leads to blessing. And if we would just obey....God will save the day!!!!.

And the person in this text who is asked to obey in a very tense and crazy situation is a guy by the name of Josepeh. So far we have been seeing Matthew develop the purpose of his book by walking through the genealogy of Jesus. He is a son of David, which means he is king and reigning, and he is a son of Abraham, which means he is going to bless the nations, specifically through us. And after seeing the kind of people that God uses to bless the nations in the genealogy, specifically Tamar, Ruth, Rahab and Bathsheba, we can see that God uses all kinds of people to bless all kinds of people.

So the next question is, how do we bless people? And the answer is through obedience. Let's read about Joseph:

¹⁸ This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.


Although Joseph and Mary were just engaged and were not married and living together and engaging in sexual relations, a break up between the two at this point would be considered divorce. And if the woman was found to be unfaithful to her soon to be husband, she was liable to the punishment of the law. According to the law in Deuteronomy 22.20-21, she was to be stoned. To be stoned meant that people threw the woman in to a pit of some sort and threw stones at her until she was dead. They would even, before the woman was stoned, strip her naked and have her stand so that everyone could stare at her and see her shame and have her exposed to the entire town. Now because Mary came to be with child, or was found pregnant, and because Joseph KNEW for certain he was not the father, he had the right, according to the law, to stone her, to have her put to death. 


So Joseph was faced with two options: 1. He could have her stoned and lose the women he loved but keep his honor in the town. 2. He could just divorce her quietly and lose his honor in the town because he didn't have her stoned. And in this situation, because of the obedience of Joseph even at the risk of his own honor, his own reputation, he is seen here as THE model disciple and the nations are blessed. Joseph is seen here to not only be a "righteous man", found in verse 19, but he was also a righteous man tempered by mercy. He didn't have her stoned, he was going to pick the second option, to just divorce her quietly. He picked what was in her best interest, the most merciful option, and he did this even at the risk of his own reputation. 


Let's keep reading. 


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,^[a] because he will save his people from their sins.” ²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ²³ “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”^[b]—which means, “God with us.”


An angel appears to Joseph in a dream to reveal to him that Mary was not unfaithful, but being used by God for a greater purpose. And the angel was encouraging Joseph to be faithful to God as well and to obey what the angel was telling him, even if it meant looking bad in front of the neighbors.


"If you will just obey, God will save the day!!!"


And then Matthew uses two names that would have really hit his audience hard. Jesus and Immanuel. 


When the angel told Joseph that he should give the child the name "Jesus" because he would save his people from their sins, Joseph would have known remembered all the stories he had heard as a little Jewish child in synagogue. Jesus was the New Testament name for the Old Testament name, "Joshua". And Joshua was a "Savior" of Israel, because if you read the book of Joshua, you will see all kinds of stories of Joshua defeating the Canaanites and taking the promise land for the nation of Israel. His name literally meant, "Yahweh (God) is salvation." And this is what Jesus, this child that Mary is going to have is supposed to do. Yet this was not even the most shocking name attributed this child, the second and most important one is Immanuel, which is Hebrew for "God with us."


This is a quotation from Isa. 7.14 which says:


¹⁴ Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.


This is a prophecy that the Jews had been waiting to be fulfilled for hundreds of years!!! They have desperately been waiting for this child to come and to somehow bring about God living among them again. They didn't necessarily think that the child would actually BE God. Yet, this is the point. God is going to  come amongst his people and save them in order that they can go among the rest of the people in the world and save them, bringing that blessing to the nations. Jesus is the example for all of us of what we are to do. We are to be these two names, Jesus and Immanuel. We are to go amongst the lost and the people who need to be saved and bring God's blessing of his son to them. What it requires from us is obedience. And what God required from Joseph, our MODEL disciple is obedience. If Joseph doesn't obey and had Mary stoned instead, Jesus, the blessing to the nations, would have been lost. So it comes down to obedience, and the audience waits in eager expectation to see what Joseph will do. For...


"If you will just obey, God will save the day!!!"


So let's see what happens:


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 had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.


Joseph obeyed!!! And because of one man's obedience, the salvation of the world came and lived amongst us and brought us salvation. Through obedience comes the blessing of Jesus for the nations. 


So how is God wanting you to obey him today? How is God wanting you to go out of your comfort zone and go among the lost and the broken and the sick and the angry and how is he wanting you to bring salvation to them? God is calling you to follow after the example of Joseph, to simply obey, even at the cost of your own reputation, even when things don't make sense. And as I think about this story, about the obedience of a man named Joseph, that sermon for children that my president preached still rings in my ears....


"If you will Just obey, God will save the day!!!!"