The Father God Chose

Posted by Christian St John in Sermons | 0 comments

Note: Whilst recording this sermon there was a technical fault so only half the sermon was recorded. Sorry ’bout that I have included the text version below for you to read. Be challenged and inspired!
Chris

[audio:TheFatherGodChose.mp3|titles=The Father God Chose|artists=Christian St John]
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Recorded June 20th, 2010

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My sermon notes:

Bill Cosby in his book, Fatherhood writes: “Now that my father is a grandfather, he just can’t wait to give money to my kids. But when I was his kid and I asked him for fifty cents, he would tell me the story of his life. How he got up at 5 A.M. when he was seven years old and walked twenty-three miles to milk ninety cows. And the farmer for whom he worked had no bucket, so he had to squirt the milk into his little hand and then walk eight miles to the nearest can. All for 5 cents a month. The result was that I never got my 50 cents.
But now he tells my children every time he comes into the house: “Well, lets see how much money old Granddad has got for his wonderful kids.” And the minute they take money out of his hands I call them over to me and I snatch it away from them. Because that is MY money.”

Someone once asked me what was the scariest thing I ever did was. After thinking through all of theme parks, scary movies, preaching in prison, and playing a concert in front of 2000 people, I had to tell him that the scariest thing I have ever done is become a father.

Don’t get me wrong being a father is a wonderful thing – seeing my kids grow and watching them become who they are becoming. But it’s also a scary thing – watching my kids grow and seeing who they are becoming.

Some stuff I’m sure has gone through the minds of many a father as they first hold one of their children:
• Will I be able to raise this child and give them what they need?
• Will they turn out to be like me? God help them!
• Will I always be there for them?
• Will this child turn out to be a well adjusted person or will I mess them up for life?

Raising children is a scary thing… especially when they go through those years when they act like they are possessed! You know between the ages of 3 & 20…

But raising kids requires many decisions and choices.

• What shows we allow them to watch, what music we allow them to listen to, what food to feed them, what friends we allow them to have, will we allow them to go on school trips and summer camps?

So many questions… so many choices.
And every good father who’s ever lived has had to make choices to try and give their child a better life. The Bible is filled with examples of great fathers and this week as I pondered many of them I came to the realization that there’s one father that, to me, stands out above them all. And he stands out partly because of who he was – his character, his compassion and so on – but he stands out further because he was the father that God chose.

Have you ever thought that God the Father had to choose someone to be His Son’s earthly father? And can you imagine what kind of person this would have to be… to be a father and to raise the Son of God… the Messiah of the world?

I know God would never have chosen me… if you want proof just ask my kids…

This morning I want to look at a father in scripture, a father who was placed in a pretty scary predicament. A father whose shoes I don’t know I would have liked to walk in. But a father we can all learn so much from.

The father I am speaking about today is Joseph the father God chose.

Now if you’ll recall Joseph was engaged to be married to Mary and before it was all made official Mary found herself pregnant by the Holy Spirit.

Now part of my own testimony is that God spoke to me in a dream and I have had some fun trying to share this with non-believers. God spoke to me… I can’t tell you how many people including believers have looked at me as if I’m mad.

But can you imagine what must have been going through Joseph’s mind when Mary tried to explain that she was pregnant with God’s son? I can imagine that Joseph was like, “Aha, pregnant by God. Good one!”

So Joseph finds himself in a precarious place. He’s been seemingly betrayed and now he has to decide what to do. And it’s at this time we begin to see what kind of man Joseph was, what his character was like, and why God chose him to be the earthly father of His own Son.

In ancient times when someone was engaged to be married they were all but married, all that was required to finalize the marriage was the actual marriage ceremony and feast. But being engaged in ancient Jewish culture meant that if someone wanted to get out of it they would have to divorce the other party and often to public humiliation.

So Joseph thinking he had been wronged decided to divorce Mary. But even here in the pain of Mary’s seeming betrayal we see what kind of man Joseph was… and in essence what kind of father he would become.

Matthew 1:19 – “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.”

Now it’s human nature that when we are hurt or wronged to want to get back at the ‘guilty’ party. We want some payback.
And so Joseph finds himself in a place where he is hurting because of Mary’s apparent wrongdoing and having to make a hard choice… how to divorce her.

I have struggled through Joseph’s decision many times. Every time I think about Joseph my heart goes out to him. Here he is, his life is going along quite smoothly and then from out of nowhere Mary drops this bombshell on him… I’m pregnant.

Try if you can to put yourself in his shoes for a moment. He is due to be married. And then the woman he’s supposed to marry tells him she’s pregnant. I don’t know about you but I would have a major problem with this. And I think that most men would have a problem too.

In fact I know of a guy whose wife cheated on him and he proceeded to divorce her, but not before telling everyone he knew about her adultery and dragging her through the courts to get everything he could get.

However, Joseph is described as a righteous man and right away refuses himself to become blinded by his pain and to sink into bitterness. Instead, and almost unbelievably, he goes against the trend and refuses to get caught up in the expectations of the day, instead showing Mary an unbelievable amount of grace.

You see Mary, on Joseph’s word, could have been dragged into the street and stoned to death, a punishment that at the time was fitting for her sin against him. He could have maybe let her live, but not before ruining her reputation, so that she would never find a husband and therefore never have much of a life. But we begin to see what kind of person Joseph was when we see that he was willing to go against tradition and manly pride by allowing Mary to retain some of her dignity.

So what can we say about Joseph at this point… he wasn’t a vengeful man, instead he was a man of compassion and forgiveness.
Let’s continue reading in Matthew…

So Joseph has found out that Mary has seemingly been unfaithful and yet he decides to divorce her on the quiet…
1:20 – 20But 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. 21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[c] because he will save his people from their sins.”
22All 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”[d]—which means, “God with us.”

He has made up his mind to divorce Mary without bringing attention to her or having her killed. You see we can do a good job of putting on a show and hiding who we really are. But God always see’s what’s going on inside.

And God could see what was going on inside of Joseph, what was in his heart. And God could see that Joseph was a man who not a man who was given to anger and revenge, but a man who showed compassion even in the most difficult situations.

Joseph was a man open to God.

Men, ask yourselves if you would have treated Mary the way he treated her… In short, Joseph treated Mary like she was someone, not just a worthless sinner.

And that is one of our greatest flaws as humans… we are often unable to see people as worthy, especially when they wrong or hurt us.

So God seeing what kind of man Joseph is reaches out to him and tells him that the child that Mary is carrying is not the offspring of another man, but the Son of God.

I have to tell you I think Joseph’s head would have been spinning by now. First comes the bad news… I’m pregnant and it’s not yours… and then the good news, in fact the greatest news of all… the woman you are engaged to be married to is to give birth to Immanuel, the Messiah, the one the people have been waiting for to set them free.

Now notice something… Joseph may have a problem believing Mary, but when God speaks to him he has no problem believing. Because no sooner has God spoken the text tells us…

24When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

Joseph was man of God, who not only listened to God, but acted upon what God said.

We often marvel at God’s timing. The saying goes He’s never early, He’s never late, He’s always on time. And this is so true.
And theologians down through the centuries have marveled that at that point in time everything came together. Mary was chosen to be the mother of Jesus because she was found full of grace and found favor with God. And many people have thought about Mary… but we must also consider and marvel that the man that Mary was to marry was also chosen by God.

What are the chances that both of these people, handpicked from before the foundations of the world, would not only be alive at that time, would not only live in the same town in the same country, but be engaged to be married?

And this makes the story even more marvelous, because only by the workings of the Holy Spirit could this blessed event come to pass.

The father that God chose was a compassionate man, a forgiving man, not prone to anger or vengeance, but willing to live and let live. A man who was a real man of God, acting upon what God told him, believing every word from his mouth.

Father’s here today… we have a lot to live up to.

But there’s more. Let’s look in Matthew 2: 13 –
…an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” 14So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15where he stayed until the death of Herod.

So what can we learn from this? Well, Joseph was a man who put the needs of his family before his own and fully relied on God. Again God speaks, again Joseph listens, and he, Mary, and Jesus escape with their lives.

Thinking on this further… the Spirit guides Joseph to take his wife and young son into a foreign country, a country where Jews were very much despised. It took great courage and faith for Joseph to take his family into an unknown country where he would be totally reliant on God for everything… for food and clothes and a home and so on…

The two examples we have looked at today of God speaking to Joseph show us clearly that he was a man who was open to the leading to the Spirit. He was in tune with God. I have no doubt that Joseph was a man who had a great relationship with the Father in Heaven. After all he needed all the help he could get in raising God’s own Son.

Thinking more on this… As father’s we need help too. Most of us are somewhat lacking when it comes to the father department. Sometimes we get angry with our kids and raise our voices. After reading about Josephs reaction to bad news I would bet that Joseph was not a quick to anger kind of guy.

Other times we fail to be the fathers that God has called us to be but letting go of our relationship with our Father in Heaven, the one who is more than capable of showing us how to become not good, but great fathers. Again I would bet that Joseph was a great father because he had a great relationship with his Father in Heaven.

It always makes me laugh when people try to downplay the roles of Mary and Joseph. The critics will say things like “they weren’t important, we should only focus on Jesus.” And whereas some have taken their reverence for Mary and Joseph too far, I would say that as a whole the evangelical church, which we are part of, have been guilty of not giving enough thought to these two wonderful people that God chose to be His Son’s earthly parents.

We have to figure that God chose these two people for a reason other than he needed earthly vessels to birth and look after His Son. He needed people of character to raise His Son as their own, to love Him, to guide Him, to comfort Him, to give their all to Him and for Him.

And so fathers listen up. We have been chosen to be fathers.

Maybe not to God’s Son, but to children God has placed into our care – children that we are to raise, to care for, to provide for, and to love.

I believe that Joseph was the father God chose because he had so much to offer His Son. And all of us fathers here today play a big part in who our children will become.

So let us learn from the example of Joseph and not become easily angered when faced with bad situations instead showing grace, something I’m sure Jesus witnessed firsthand from his earthly father Joseph. Let us learn to listen to God even if it means changing our lives and stepping out in faith, and let us live by putting our childrens needs before our own, just like Joseph did when God spoke.

I want to finish by reading a snippet of an email a pastor friend sent me. He writes, I was in the Sunday School class and I asked the children “Do you believe in the devil?” To which one boy blurted out, “No, I think it’s like Santa Claus. The devil is really your dad.”
Does make you wonder what kind of dad that kid has!