I have found that we spend a lot of our life seeking other people's approval. We spend so much time worried about what other people are going to think about us. And that starts really early. And if you're a parent and you have kids, one of the things that you have happen all the time with your kids is they come and they say, oh, mom, dad come look at this. Mom, dad, let me show you something. And, and here's one of the things you have to learn really early on as a parent, that, that a lot of times as a parent you tell your kids, oh, wow, that's amazing. When the thing that you're calling amazing objectively is not really that amazing. Subjectively, it's amazing because it's your kid and you love your kid, and so therefore you think it's amazing. But like, if just a random stranger showed up and watched that thing that your kid just did, they'd be like, yeah, not that impressive. But, but why do kids do that? Because we naturally, when we're kids, we want the approval of our parents, what we're worried about, what our parents think about us. And so we're trying to show off, look, look at this, look at what I can do. Watch how amazing this is. And then we become teenagers and it starts to shift. All, all of a sudden we're, we're still seeking the approval of others. But now it's not so much mom and dad, it's other teenagers. Like, I want other teenagers to think that I'm cool and I'm hip. And so I wanna dress a certain way and act a certain way and be a certain way. That way it will somehow validate who I am. There is a picture that, that my family likes to float around of, of me when I was in junior high. And this is that picture right here. And, and if you wanna just somehow get the feeling of what it was like to be in junior high, I feel like this picture pretty much sums it up. Like this is peak, probably early nineties, and, and you can tell, I mean, I, I'm looking sharp there, denim on denim, you, that's, that's hard to beat with the jorts. Some blue jeans, shorts. I got the white crew socks. Although those did come back, not so much. The jorts, you just wait. It's gonna come back around the black basketball shoes. Hey, here's what's really just amazing about this picture is we didn't have cell phones taken, taken photos back in the day. That means, in order for this picture to exist, this was taken on film, like real film that then was taken to a store that was then developed by a person in a back dark room. And they looked at and they said, wow, that is the coolest junior high student I've ever seen in my entire life. Anybody under the age of like 35 has no clue what I'm talking about with developing film and this. But, but why does that photo exist? It it, it exists because it's a junior high kid. Like I, I'm trying to act a certain way and dress a certain way in order to seek the approval of my peers. And we like to think to ourselves, well, that, that happens in junior high, and then we grow out of it. But we really don't do, we like our Whole life, we are worried about what other people think about us our whole life. We Are seeking the approval Of other People. And that's why Joseph's story is so fascinating that when we look at the Christmas story, the Person of Joseph Is a Fascinating character Study because he Has to make Choices over And over and over again. That Goes against Our natural inclination. Our natural inclination is To appease other people, be affirmed by other People. And Joseph in the story, time and time again, makes decisions that will cause Everybody else to Look at him and scratch their head. And Here's what's intriguing about Joseph. Joseph Is not the biological Father of Jesus, but he's the earthly father of Jesus. He raises Jesus as His own, but he's an intriguing character. For, for Example, did you know that there's not a single Word recorded by Joseph in all Of scripture? Like we don't know a single word that He says. It doesn't have a word, A sentence, a phrase like nothing. We, we know a lot about His Actions, but It doesn't Record any words Of Joseph Anywhere in the Bible. Also, you hear a lot that Joseph Was a carpenter and therefore He raised Jesus To be a carpenter. And, and he might not have been a carpenter that comes from one spot in the gospel of Mark When it says that Jesus Is the son of the carpenter. But, but the Word that we translate for carpenters, the word Tecton, it's a Greek word That Really means a builder Or A craftsman. So, So he could have been a carpenter. Also he could have worked With stone and been something more like a stone mason. We're not a hundred percent sure. Now, here's what's interesting. If Joseph Was A stone mason and not a carpenter, that means that Jesus Would've Been a stone mason and not a carpenter. Now also What's fascinating is after This scene in Luke chapter two, verse 41, Where the 12-year-old Jesus is At the temple, and remember there's this whole crazy thing where they leave him and they go back and They're like, Hey, where were you? And He says, I was in my father's house. Joseph Is in that scene, but, but We don't ever Find him again. Now, Luke chapter two, we're Towards the end of that chapter. We see Joseph Present, and then we never See Joseph again. And we're not sure Why most scholars would, Would assume, or, or, or just take a best guess that Joseph likely passes away Sometime between the age For Jesus, that he's 12 In the age that He's 30. Also, we know that Joseph Is described As being righteous, Or He's being described as being just now. Now I think the challenge with Christmas is we're looking at these different perspectives Of characters of The Christmas story, is We're Familiar with The story, And so we can just kind of float on through it. But, but my challenge for us today Is to Lean into the person of Joseph's Joseph because I think there's A lot for us To learn. If you've got a Bible, turn with me to Matthew chapter one, Matthew chapter one. Last week we looked at Mary and we were in the gospel of Luke. It's interesting that the gospel of Luke, the Christmas story is told from the perspective of Jesus' mom, Mary, the genealogy in Luke, chap Luke is all about Mary Matthew is the Christmas story told from the perspective of Joseph. So the genealogy, that first section is going through Joseph and his lineage. We're gonna pick up in the Christmas story in Matthew chapter one, verse 18. It says, now, the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way when his mother, Mary, had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit and her husband, Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. Now, there's a few things that we just jump to conclusions about or we make assumptions about that the text really doesn't tell us. One of those is how Joseph finds out that Mary is pregnant. Like for most of us, in my mind, there's a conversation that happens that Mary at some point goes over to Joseph and says, Hey, I got some crazy news to tell you. It is gonna be wild. I know you're probably going to find it hard to believe, but this is what happened. But the text doesn't tell us that that's what happened. So it could be that, that he has a conversation with Mary and, and she tells him. Or it could be that a friend of his comes up to him and say, Hey, Joseph, I I, I just saw Mary and she looks pretty pregnant, man. Or it could be that he saw her and she looked pregnant and, and he said, oh man, she's pregnant. So we're really not sure the context. We just know that he finds out that she's pregnant and it causes him to have this internal struggle that he starts wrestling with. Now, there's a few phrases in there that are slightly confusing in our cultural context, because in the first century, Jewish marriage looked different. It talks about them being betrothed, and then it talks, it, it uses, Joseph uses the term husband as Joseph for Mary, and then it says that he's gonna divorce her. And you're like, wait, what a second, what, what, what does that mean? So in the first century Jewish marriage, there's a few things that are a little bit different than than how we view marriage. The first is that there marriage was a two stage process. So there was betrothal, which was legally binding first, and then roughly a year later would be when the wedding happened. Now, during that season of patrol tro it was considered real marriage status. So they could call each other husband and wife, which is why it does that in the passage. But they didn't yet live together, and they hadn't consummated the marriage. That wouldn't happen until their wedding night. So, so during this year, Mary would've been living with her family. She would've been raising up a, a dowry for their marriage. Joseph would've been trying to get his business in order so that he could take care of his own family. Now, a betrothal also required this contract. It was a very serious formal thing, which meant that breaking that betrothal was considered a divorce. It wasn't just breaking an engagement. And now, I think one of the challenges is that how marriage worked in the first century looked and felt very different than when we think about marriage. When we think about marriage, we think about romance. And so because we think about romance, we naturally take some of those feelings and we superimpose them onto this story. Like probably in in our minds, unintentionally, we think, well, probably Mary Joseph, they dated for a while. Like, like they're in junior high. And Joseph is passing her a note that said, will you be my boyfriend a girlfriend? Check a box, yes or no? Like he passed it over to her and like they're holding hands and like they're, they're going to, to movies together. Like that's not how it worked. There was no romantic feelings. It would've been an arranged marriage like Mary's family. And Joseph's family would've predetermined and said, we, we think these two should get married. Likely at a very early age, like way before they were old enough to get married, they had already predetermined and made that decision. Mary would've been somewhere around the age of 13. Joseph would've been somewhere around the age of 19 or 20. And part of that marriage contract would be Joseph's family entering into the Betrothal by taking some financial amount of money and saying, we're committed to this relationship. We're gonna give you this money in order to enter into Betrothal. So for Joseph, now with all that in context, here's what that means. That means he finds out that she's pregnant and he has a choice to make. What could he do? Well, he's really got these three different paths. That one path would be to publicly shame Mary. Now, in the first century, many people would say, well, that's what she deserves. She's pregnant, and you're not the dad. You know, you're not the dad. And, and so if you wanna get your money back from this betrothal, the best way to do that is to shame her publicly and let everybody know that she has been unrighteous. Or second path would be that, that he could savor the shame by very quietly divorcing her, breaking the contract. Now, that would mean for him that, that he wouldn't get the money back. There was a cost that went with it. It says that that's what he's contemplating. He's contemplating this girl that, that he doesn't probably know that well, like he's met her, but they're, they're really not romantic with each other. They're just this arranged marriage. He, he cares about her enough, wants to honor her enough that he is going to not shame her, which means he's going to bring some of that shame on himself. Or the other option would be to marry her, to raise a child that is not his child as his own. Let's continue in verse 20. Matthew chapter one, verse 20. It says, but as he considered these things, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as Your wife, For that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She'll bear A son and you shall call his name Jesus, For he will save his people From their sins. Now, something fascinating happens here, because almost every time that an angel shows up in scripture, They start out with do not Fear Or do not be afraid, or, Hey, calm down. But, but typically it's because people are scared of The angel. The angels an intimidating character, and they say, Hey, I want you to calm down. You don't need to be afraid. And the angel does Tell Joseph To not fear, But The angel's not talking about the angel. What Is the angel talking about? It says, do not fear to take Mary As your wife. And now pause for a second and ask yourself Fear of what? Like what did the angel know That Joseph was scared of? What, What were the things that he would've been fearful Of? Well, he, He would've been afraid of What other people would think. He would've been afraid of what his family would say. Then He's gonna go and say, Hey, hey, Yes, she's, she's Pregnant and we're gonna get married anyway. I mean, because his family would be, well, hey, was Were you unrighteous in getting her pregnant before the wedding day? Or was She unrighteous And that she was unfaithful to you? Like no matter what The family's like, Hey, We don't understand what's going on. He would've been fearful of what his neighbors would've start Whispering About Joseph And Mary. He would've been fearful about what might happen to his Career, Like in an honor, shame culture, That The community would've gone to the Carpenter or, Or the stone Mason, the tecton who had a Good Reputation, who was honorable. They Would want to Bring it their Services, Their money to, to Buy the Services of someone who Deserved that. Joseph. Now, what would've been in a shameful position, which means that his business would suffer As a result of He was also gonna be afraid of the stigma of marrying a supposedly unfaithful woman. So imagine these are the fears, the real wrestlings that Joseph Has. And so he has to make this decision and this decision based off what the angel says, means that to Obey, to obey God, Joseph Has to embrace the story that he can't fully explain and to lose A Reputation that he's worked So, so hard to build. That's His dilemma. His dilemma is the angel of the Lord Shows up and says, this Is what I want you to do. But his Obedience to follow After God Is gonna come with a cost, and it's gonna come with a very, Very high cost. We, we like to say, well, we don't care what Other people think, but but deep down, we really do Care what other People think. And in order to be obedient, what other people think of him is gonna be really, really negative. You ever had that happen in your life? And now in, in, in our Christian culture, oftentimes falling after Jesus really doesn't have a cost. But there are moments, but where there is a tangible cost, like what will people think of me if I morally, ethically follow after the teachings of the Bible and do what the Bible tells me I should do that if you're a high school student, there's these moments where there's peer pressure or a junior high student, there's peer pressure where everybody else is doing something. You know that ethically, based off of what the Bible teaches, I shouldn't do that. And that's easy to know up here, but it's really hard to live that out when everybody else around me is doing something. What about the sexual ethics of the world around us? Well, hey, everybody does this. It's, it's not that big of a deal. Everybody lives this way, that the Bible's just old. So choosing to do what the Bible says that comes at a cost of what other people might think, choosing to not enter into habits that you see other people having that you would say, well, well, I think those are unhealthy, not very biblical habits. Well, what about generosity? So, so often what you hear inside the Christian circles is everybody arguing against generosity. And yet what the Bible would teach us is radical generosity. So what if I lived in a way that was just radically generous? It would people, it would cost people to say, well, hey, why are you doing that? Why, why are you using your money in such a way? And what, what about biblical forgiveness? That the world would say, Hey, that person has wronged you. You should cut them off. You should, you should hate them. You should never have a conversation with them again. And yet, the Bible talks about forgiveness, radical forgiveness, not not letting that person harm you again, but truly forgiving that person. Oh, what about evangelism? Evangelism? The reason primarily that we don't share our faith is because it comes with a cost. I'm concerned. What, what are they gonna think of me if I talk to 'em about Jesus? Oh, what is my neighbor going to think if they find out that I I really love Jesus, or invite them to church with me or invite them to a, to a Christian event with me? Well, why do we not do that? Because I'm so worried about what other people might think. Joseph, he is worried about what other people will think, and yet he intentionally chooses to be obedient to God despite the cost that it's gonna come with. Let's pick it up in verse 22. It says, all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus. And now there's, there's one passage in there that I wanna highlight and underline. It says He did As the angel Of the Lord Commanded him that, that we don't, we don't Hear Joseph utter a Word. We, we don't know his thoughts. We don't know his views, But We do know his actions. And what were his actions He did As the angel Of the Lord Commanded him. If you wanna sum up Joseph's life, What we know of in just a few chapters in scripture that we See Sum up his life, it's simply this Quiet obedience. He's got no stage. He Gets no applause. He just has faithfulness. He does what God Asks him to Do. And now It's easy to, To hear that on the surface and say, yeah, That's, that's Who I am, and that's what I do. And, and yet, If I peel back The layers of my heart and my life, I like to think what? Well, I care more about what God thinks about me than anybody else. And yet my life sometimes reflects it. Well, no, I, I actually care a whole lot about what Other people think about me, That, That so much of who I am and how I act and how I look and how I talk is because of this, this Worry, this concern about other people. And, and the truth is, all of us, Our lives are influenced in ways that we know and don't know By other people. And there's This fascinating story that reminds me of this concept. It's a story Of the inventor of Nathan's famous hot Dogs. Nathan, the inventor of Nathan's famous hot dogs. He was a Polish immigrant in New York and around the Coney Island area, You had all these Little, not quite Food stores, they were just little, little shops, little carts that people would Wheel around. And So his wife had this recipe For hot dogs. Now, hot dogs were relatively new at the time that they weren't very common. And so hot dogs now in 2025, like if somebody offers you a Hot dog, You look at it and you're like, yeah, I'm not really sure what's in that. I'm not sure if I'm game to eat that or not. Like I have found that you eat way more hot dogs as a kid than you do as an adult, Because as an adult, you're Like, not sure that's what I want to do with my stomach later on. So, so That's true now, but, but you imagine in 1916 when he launches the Hot dog, like people are looking at like, what is that? And the Reputation about food Carts was just pretty bad because There was nobody policing food carts. And so it was a little bit of the wild west Of, am I gonna get sick? Is that safe to eat? Is that not safe to Eat? So you have all these food carts, And Nathan launches His Food cart, Nathan's famous hot dogs. And, and at first nobody wants to buy his Hot dogs. And So he has this brilliant idea. So He goes and he hires actors, and he has those actors put on doctor uniforms. Dr. Whites have the stethoscope On, and he had them stand around his Cart Eating hot dogs. He would, He would Stagger them throughout the Day. So you just have a new doctor would show up and they'd order a hot dog, and they'd be sitting there eating it . And, and, and you think, well, that sounds crazy, but guess what? It worked. It, it worked. It caused, all of a sudden people were looking and saying, well, I mean, I don't know what a hot dog is. And, and it's questionable what's inside that thing, but if a doctor's willing to eat it, clearly it's be good for me. And that was the moment when it caused the hot dog to take off. Now, now, they weren't real doctors like, like there was no medical expertise whatsoever. These were just actors being paid to look like doctors while eating a hot dog. And yet it caused people to say, if that guy's willing to do it, then I am too. And I don't think anybody in their mind was, was saying, oh, hey, this is why I'm making that decision. It was probably more of a subconscious thing. And yet subconsciously our decisions are affected by other people's opinions all the time. Yet somehow Joseph can ignore the opinions and the shame and the hostility that everybody else around him will have because he's obedient to God. And it's not just once we, we see that Joseph is consistently obedient. Look down in Matthew chapter two. Flip the page. Matthew chapter two, starting in verse 13. It says, now, when they hit departed, this is talking about the Wiseman. So the Wiseman Jesus, about two years old, they depart this says, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you for Herod is about to search for the child and destroy him. Verse 14, underline it if you can. And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet out of Egypt. I called my son. Now, I want you to understand Jesus is about two years older. They're in Bethlehem. Joseph has family in Bethlehem. They got relationships in fam in Bethlehem, but like they're making a place for themselves. And then in the middle of the night, maybe it's midnight, maybe it's two o'clock in the morning, an angel appears to Joseph and says, Hey, now take your wife. Take your kid in, and I want you to go 150 miles away to a land where you know no one to a land where you have no family, no relationships. And and I want you to go there until I tell you otherwise. Now, most of us, like you get that and you're like, Hey, can, can we look? Maybe I just dreamed something a little crazy. I had a wild dream last night. Can we pause? God, if you could just a second time, maybe a burning bush like you did with Moses, if we could clarify. I got a few questions here about what this trip entails. That's not what Joseph does. And it says that in the middle of the night he wakes up, he takes a 2-year-old and his wife and they truck it 150 miles. It, it would've taken roughly a week of them walking in order to get there. Now, a, A trip with a 2-Year-Old, not a fun thing in A car, When you give 'em an iPad and they're watching Bluey, Joseph Didn't have any of that. Like, like Joseph is Walking with a 2-Year-Old. What, what God is Asking him to do is Really hard And really challenging. And yet It says he Does it and he does it immediately. Here's What I want us to unpack, that that Real Faith is not measured by a moment of emotion, but instead By A pattern of obedience. That, That sometimes we think of, Of faith as well, I had this really Singular emotional experience and this moment, and, and, and that's what it is. And that's, that's sometimes the beginning of our Faith. But what faith looks like when it's lived out is it's A pattern of obedience over and over and over and over again. And that's what we Get with Joseph, that God cares more about Our Obedience than about our image. Can we Say the same thing about ourselves? Like, Like how often am I really concerned about weighing my image? And I'm sending out the, the Christmas card, which, Which we haven't sent out in a really long time, but we used to send out a Christmas card and, and all these things that, that I'm carrying about the image. And It's Not that those things are bad or not important, but, but God is saying that what's more important is Obedience. That God cares about Our holiness more than our comfort. And Here's what's amazing about Joseph. Joseph doesn't say a word. We know very Little About him, and yet we know that He was obedient. And and here's why I think that Joseph Was able to be Obedient, Because As a Jewish man, he, he understood what it meant, That Name Jesus. The, the angel says, you should call him Name Jesus, and he Will save the People from their sin. It, it's interesting, the name Jesus would've not been pronounced Jesus, that That's, that's The Greek and then the Latin, and then to English Jesus. But, but it really Is in the Old Testament. It it's the name Joshua Or Yeshua. Now, what's fascinating about Joshua in the Old Testament is that was not his original name. That, that Moses changes Joshua's name, his name didn't have the front part on it. Originally. It was just Ua, essentially Yeshua. Yeshua Is what his name becomes. It was just Yeshua. And, and that, that Word, the second half of Yeshua means to Save. So Moses was worried that that as Joshua Was becoming this bigger and bigger figure, That people were Gonna look at his name and say, well, Well, God Has sent him Joshua To save us. And so he says, no, I'm gonna change your name. And instead of it being Eswa, I'm gonna add The, the, the Yahweh on the front of it, which means now God Saves, Yahweh, saves the Lord saves. And so Joseph, When, when the angel Says, you shall Call his name Jesus, because He's going to Save the people From their sins, Joseph Understands what that means, That God is going to save his people From their sins through Jesus, Joseph, That the son that you are raising as your own, he Is The Messiah. And so I, I Don't think that Joseph's obedience was just purely that Joseph was So awesome and so amazing, although though He Is awesome, Joseph Understood Who Jesus Was. And because Joseph understood who Jesus was, it made Obedience follow As a result of it. You see here, here's What I found in my own life, Then. When I don't Really understand Jesus, when he's not at the center of my life, it's Really hard to obey. But When Jesus is at the center, when I understand who he Is And why he came that he died, the cr died on the cross for my sins to save me from my sin. That perspective helps change everything. And, and when I care more about what Jesus thinks about me than what the world thinks about me, obedience is the natural Overflow of that. Joseph Is an amazing guy, but he's not the hero of the Story. Jesus is. And and here's gonna be something a little challenging for us to Wrestle with. God is not intending for me to be the hero of my story either Or for you to be the hero of your story either. And that's what we sometimes try and do. We Think we're the hero. We're so Focused on image and what other people think. 'cause It's all About us. And what Jesus says is actually Jesus is the hero of the story. And if we're willing to make him the sinner of our life, it changes everything. It makes obedience so much Easier. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, God, we thank you for Joseph, The life that he lives. We thank you For his Faithfulness That he demonstrates over and over again and we know so little about him. And yet He helped Change history because He was faithful to you. God, I pray that in this room That you would raise Up a generation of us that would Be faithful, that we would put Jesus At the center of our life, and that that would Overflow In obedience. God, I pray for in the, the room right now that doesn't know you God, that that they could understand That Jesus came to save them from themselves. God, I pray for any Christian in the room that right now is struggling with obedience. They're worried about what other people Think. God, I pray That today can be a day That you stir inside of them, this passion to put you at the sinner, To Obe Obey in the small things and in the big things. We pray all this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.