Dreams can be really funny things. Anybody ever wake up sometimes when you have a wild dream? Like I'm flying on the back of a giant docks and shooting lasers out of its ears, kind of things. Like there's a wild, crazy dreams.
Does anybody else in here have like super realistic dreams? Like in college one time, my gas got turned off because I swore I paid it in a dream. Like I even had it like the check next to the bill. Like I sometimes dream super realistic.
Then also there's those times that in the older I get, this happens every few years to where you have this dream that provides just a tremendous sense of clarity of what's going on. You know, dreams are funny things. Like science doesn't really understand dreams just yet. They don't know what necessarily to do with dreams.
What they know is that dreams are a way that our minds process cognitive function, but that dreams also, and this is interesting, because you know, we don't remember most of our dreams. Like some people, I say, well, I don't ever dream. Most people dream, it's just you don't remember it too often. Dreams have this funny way that psychologists say that actually provides equilibrium in your life.
And so when things are going on and things are stressful, there's actually resetting that's happening in your mind through dreams. They contribute to emotional balance sometimes without us knowing it. But dreams are also this unique state of consciousness because our mind is awake, and it processes time differently when we dream. The past, present, and future are kind of blurred together at times.
Like I know if you ever had a dream with someone you care about that has been dead for a long time when they show up in your dream. It's this way that your mind is kind of doing funny things with time, but they're a mystery. Like still, as advanced as we are scientifically, that dreams are still this thing that just science doesn't know what to do with. But we've been fascinated with dreams for a really long time.
Dreams are part of the fabric of scripture. From the very beginning of scripture, we find dreams and the stories and the patriarchs and Joseph. And then all the dreams that Daniel had in the Old Testament that he was able to interpret for the kings of Babylon. And then like the book of Revelation is a vision.
It's a dream. Dreams are part of the fabric of scripture. Numbers chapter 12 verse 6 says this about dreams. And the Lord said to them, now listen to what I say.
If there were prophets among you, I the Lord would reveal myself in visions. I would speak to them in dreams. In scripture, we see dreams functioning as a vehicle of divine revelation. It's a significant way that God chooses to reveal himself to his people.
Sometimes dreams require interpretation. I think about the book of Daniel and the service that Daniel was able to provide to the king of Babylon. It actually does several different kings by interpreting these dreams. And sometimes dreams, they don't need interpretation.
They're very, very clear. It's direct communication. Over the next month, we're gonna talk about, is there four dream sequences in the gospel of Matthew that are part of Jesus' nativity. That is the story of Jesus' birth in those early years of his life.
And we're gonna look at just those dreams and how God is communicating to people in those dreams. But also what we can learn from the situations, how we can grow from those people. And so today we're gonna talk about the first one of those dreams. And it's Joseph, the person who become the earthly father of Jesus.
And so let's listen to these words. Matthew chapter one verse 18 through 25. 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. Joseph, her fiance was a good man. It did not want to disgrace her publicly. So he decided to break the engagement quietly.
As he considered 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. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son and you were to name him Jesus where he will save his people from their sins.
All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord's message through his prophet. Look, the virgin will conceive a child. She will give birth to his son and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us. When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel, the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife.
But he did not have sexual relations with her until the son was born and Joseph named him Jesus. I love that in verse 18. It says, this is how Jesus, the Messiah was born. And almost like functions as a heading.
And the more you think about that, it's just an interesting way to begin this story of Jesus. This is how Jesus, the Messiah was born. And one of the funny things that's going on in this is that Matthew, the writer, this gospel, is a normal language for born. Like he talked about it differently.
And Matthew, the first part of Matthew are those passages that nobody really likes to read that much. They don't have fun, they're the begot passages. So and so is the son of so and so and so and so. And those first 17 verses of Matthew are that.
It's a 14 generations from Abraham to David. And then 14 generations from David to Joseph, the father of Jesus. But it starts out just honestly kind of boring. And Matthew 1, says this, this is a record of the ancestors of Jesus, the Messiah, the descendant of David and of Abraham, a kind of a short outline of these boring kind of passages backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards.
What's interesting is that that unique word for born that we find in 18 is also the same word for ancestors that we find in 1, 1, and it's this word. It's going to sound kind of familiar to you. And Latin this word is Genesis. It's beginning.
So normal people, born in normal ways, living normal lives, doing extraordinary things, doing new things. And Matthew who wrote his gospel in the 70s to 80s AD. So about a generation after the resurrection of Jesus. Writing specifically to Jewish Christians starts off saying this, this is the Genesis of Jesus Christ.
Goes through, all these names are very familiar to these people and then he begins this nativity story saying this is how Jesus the Messiah was begun. A very just a loaded statement for these people to begin thinking about. It's almost as though Matthew is communicating to us. Let me tell you the story of a new world and it comes about in a very unnormal way.
So Matthew's gospel actually doesn't talk about Mary that much. We think of Christmas, we think of the Christmas passages. We think about the gospel of Luke, of Mary and her dreams and then Mary, going to see her cousin Elizabeth and the dreams that she had and all of this. But Matthew just talks about Joseph.
And we know, we understand, we think of Mary being a really good person. We talk about Mary and who she is and what was part of her personality and all of these things. We talk about that, I think about that a lot. But think about, do you think Joseph could be a bad person?
Like do you think God, okay, we've got this really great woman and she's gonna give birth. But let's give her him a really crummy dad just to see what happens. Like I don't think God operates that way. You know, we think about Mary and who she is.
But I think it's important for us to also think of Joseph in those unique ways. And just passage tells a story of Joseph in them. And I think God cared who would raise Jesus. And also in the Gospel of John, we find so much Jesus saying, everything I does, my father does is his reliance on the divine father.
I also think that God is saying, you know, let's make sure he has a great earthly father for him to understand this when he's at Chaphra. For him to have a visible example of this. I think Joseph was somebody that we don't think about too much and what his life was like. Matthew tells us that Joseph was a rule follower.
And that's gonna kind of play into this story of Joseph this morning that we're going to think about, that Joseph was just. The next thing we see about Joseph is this, Joseph is deliberate in verse 19. And also verse 20, we read this verse 19, He decided to break the engagement quietly. Verse 20, as he considered this, this story almost is set up as though Joseph is having one of those sleepless nights.
He knows what he's going to do. We're gonna talk more about that this morning. But he knows what's going on, but he still, it's just, he doesn't feel comfortable with it yet. And so in the middle of one of these nights, I'm just tossing and turning and confusion and worry and all the things of the decision, this big would mean he has a dream in which the Lord comes to him through an angel through a messenger and speaks to him very clearly about what's going on, about what he must do, but how he is to play a part of this.
Joseph was deliberate. And so I think there's three things this morning I want us just to talk about, from the story of Joseph, that we can each bring into our own lives. We can think about who he is and these are characteristics of Joseph that have been revealed through the stream that we can own together this holiday season. And the first thing is this, is our devotion can set us up for a greater work of God in our lives.
Scripture says Joseph was just, he was righteous, new living translation, which we read this morning said Joseph was a good man. You know, when I read that phrase this week, one of the things I thought about was somebody who, I knew in my life, I had the privilege of being close with. A man named Ellsworth, callous, is that not a great first name? Ellsworth, but Ellsworth, Dr.
Callous, he was the president of Asbury, a seminary, my master's degree for a few years. He was an interim president who became a normal president. And you know, when you think of those people, you know in your lives that are just holy, like he's on my list, like he was gentle, he was a giant. He was in his eighties when I met him and he was like six, five and so I mean, he just towered over you, but he was just calm and quiet and peaceful.
And he was from New Jersey, but he didn't have like that sopranos New Jersey accent. He had like this kind of somewhat refined New England accent. But one of the things that he would say, he'd say it quite often in his sermons or in lectures or whatever, he would say this, he's a good man. And just those three or four words, just it was loaded.
Like you could tell how much respect that Dr. Callous had for someone. He was a good man, just loaded. This is Joseph was a good man.
Joseph understood that righteousness is the pathway in the long game of God. All these verses before this in chapter one or just generation after generation after generation, after generation of people that were following God. We actually talked about this a few years ago, if you were around during the strong, on Jim days, remember we did this couple weeks, we called him PG-13, like make sure your kids are checked into the Foundry kids that weekend. We talked about the women that were in Jesus as lineage from these verses.
These are people who did extraordinary things in the midst of living just normal life. And God takes hundreds, if not thousands of years, to accomplish his purpose. And the only thing he asks for us is to just be righteous, to be just, to be good. He's asking people to be faithful, to do simple, everyday, normal things.
The second thing that we learned from Joseph in this story is this, is that righteousness is sometimes bigger than right. We talked about this several months ago, that Jesus was born into a world of an impossible religion. That phrase we find throughout the God's post, people with the Pharisees would kind of accuse Jesus of hanging out with tax collectors and other notorious sinners. And how we think, a lot of times when we read notorious sinners, we think about the drugs of society, the worst of the worst of bad people.
But how with that really is a slain term for what was called the people of the land, which was just everyday, normal people. And the Pharisees who had picked up a standard of living is actually higher than what God asked them to do, that was so intensive, that was so expensive, that it was so busy that you could not have a job and do this, that you had to spend all of your time maintaining a level of ritual purity that were not asked to do. These were the people that were the day laborers, that were the farmers, this was an economy, where most historians say around 75 to 80% of the population were in the world of agriculture, that they simply just could not live up to these moral standards that were set to them. Like they did not have the money to follow God, the way the Pharisees said that you should be following God.
That Jesus has born into a world of impossible religion. Josephus mentioned here that he's a carpenter, right? Like we know that's the Nativity story, we've seen the paintings and stuff, and Greek, the word is tecton, which doesn't necessarily mean carpenter, it means day laborer. Joseph was the kind of person who woke up that morning and had to make his money to feed his family that night.
That's the world that Jesus was born into. Jesus was born into these people of the land that did not have the economic ability to worship God in the way the Pharisees would say, right? So this tells us also about Joseph though, he says he was righteous, he was just, Joseph had been betrothed to Mary, and typically the Jewish men would become engaged and all of the betrothal means is engaged. They would become engaged when they were in their mid-20s, Jewish women typically were 12 or 13 years old, this betrothal lasted a year, but unlike in our world now, the marriage, legally and economically, and responsibly started at the moment of the betrothal, at the moment of the engagement.
They took this period before the wife would move into the husband's household. So they were engaged during this time. The book of Tudoronomy is it sets out the kind of laws for things says that if a woman who has betrothed to another practices adultery, that you were to go out and stone her and kill her. Now we think of later on in the Gospel of John, this story of when a woman who's called and sin is dragged before Jesus by the Pharisees, and he's asked to give judgment on her to stone her, and he says that that kind of that phrase we're all familiar with, he who's without sin, cast the first stone, like that could have been married.
Like what Joseph could have done is to respond in anger, to respond quickly, to respond in outbursts, to publicly shame her, to practice this, to have Mary kill, and then Joseph would actually then be able to keep her dowry, which was the price that her father had paid to Joseph to marry her. So instead, this act of divorcing her quietly, all it meant was to kind of put this in a modern language, he essentially just had to serve her papers. Didn't have to say anything. That would allow her to keep this, this dowry would return back to her.
And a couple of months down the road, when it became apparent to everyone that she was pregnant, Joseph had divorced her, they'd figure out what was going on, her father would probably kick her out of his house, out of shame then, and then this dowry would hopefully just be enough to have a little bit of money to have the baby. So you see, like where Joseph could have gone with all of this. So instead, he's like, I'm gonna do this in the most honorable right way as possible. I'm not gonna go to the full extent, which is allowed to me.
I'm gonna do this in a different way. When the angel came and told Joseph what was going on and how he played an integral role, because he was from the line of David, the Messiah was to come from the family in the line of David, that Joseph was a necessary part inside of this. So Joseph realized that he had to do two things. He had to take on the shame alongside of Mary.
And that the scripture kind of insinuates, they rush the marriage day forward, he married Mary. They make it look like the two of them just couldn't stay out of the same house. He would willing to take on that shame alongside of Mary. And then he would give Jesus, he would name Jesus, which was the way that he claims Jesus as his own to fulfill these prophecies.
That Joseph's obedience to God cost him his own reputation. But all this time, because Joseph knew that sometimes righteousness is bigger than right. The last thing that we learned from Joseph, Joseph this morning, I think it's possibly the most important thing for us to learn is this, is that prophetic answer is found in human participation. Numbers 12, six, we read it earlier this morning, I'll read it again.
The Lord said to him, now listen to what I say, if there were prophets among you, I the Lord myself, I would reveal myself in visions and I would speak to them in dreams. Prophecy is not about future telling. Prophecy is about sharing the clarity of God. It's about lifting up the presence and the activity of God.
It's about letting people become aware of what God is doing in their midst. And Joseph's able to do this. We think of just the idea of Genesis, like a sort of beginning that's used in the story, in a really just interesting way that since the very beginning, God has simply been looking for people to say yes, looking for people that are attentive enough to his presence, to say yes. And we think of dreams, we look at across all of these stories of dreams and scripture and the people who have these dreams and have these experiences with God.
I think that they're people who are just comfortable abiding in the presence of God. They're irregular there. Does anybody ever been irregular anywhere before? Not anymore.
They used to know my order at the Waffle House. They don't anymore. I've got another place in town. I get coffee and I walk in and I know exactly what I want.
They're like, no, when you're a regular, you're known, right? Like when you're a regular, you don't have to look at the menu. You know everybody's names. If you're a regular, you can use the trash can behind the counter.
You all know these things? They just have when you're a regular somewhere? You know what I think? These sorts of clarity from God, these prophetic clarity from God comes when people are simply just abiding in the presence of God.
They're irregular. They know where things are at, they know how things operate. They know the rhythms, they know the language to think that they're there. Now, Joseph was able to say yes to God.
This really, really big ask because Joseph had probably said yes before a lot to other things. Joseph had been abiding in the presence of God. He was familiar with the presence of God. His prophecy said, you will call him a manual, which means God with us.
That wasn't a stretch for Joseph because Joseph knew what the presence of God was like. He already knew God with us. You know, for you and I, if we had this vision tonight, we'd probably be freaked out, wouldn't we? Typically it says in scripture, whenever angels show up, people get scared.
We have as Joseph knowing instead, like, I know where I am, I know what's going on. All I have to do is to say yes. Normal people, born in normal ways, doing normal things, but saying yes to God in extraordinary ways. Now, Joseph is just one of those people.
And through his faithfulness, through his yes, we have all been changed. So what God asked for us to do is just a simply be a people who are used to saying yes to him. Let's pray together. Father, we begin just a familiar story, the birth of your son.
It's a way that we're used to you working in our world, doing amazing things. God, and we can learn so much about ourselves, about you, by doing these things. And so God, may we simply just be a people who become used to your presence, used to hearing from you, used to responding to you, used to seeing you active and alive in our world, and used to saying yes to you. We pray, amen.
Now today we come in and we celebrate this presence of God and the way we celebrate this presence of God every month. Saying Jesus, we know that you're in our midst. We know that you promise to not leave us, to be part of what's going on. And on the night that Jesus gave Himself up for us, He took bread, He gave thanks to God for it, and He broke it.
And saying as often as you eat of this, do this in remembrance of me. He took the cup, He gave thanks to God for it. And He said, this is my blood, the blood of the new covenant. So we poured out for your sins and the sins of many, as often as you drink it, do it in remembrance of me.
Let's pray together. So Holy Spirit, pour out your gifts on us gathered here. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ so that we may be for the world of Christ, but are deemed by His blood, by your Spirit, make us one with each other and one in ministry to all the church. Till you come again, and we feast at your heavenly banquet.
Shall we pray? Amen. As our servers come forward, just remind you that this is not a table that belongs to Foundry, that this is not a table that belongs to the non-adimatist church. This table belongs to everyone who just seeks the presence of God in their lives, that seeks to worship and seeks to be with Him.