Episode 1604: Signs and Faithfulness

===

Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,604 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Julia Gentry: I'm Julia Gentry. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. The ability to awaken and live your big dream is key.

And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this The Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

Scott Maderer: The angel says it doesn't take a gift for things to be special. God has already made it special. All you have to do is name it. All you have to do is receive it. All you have to do is reclaim it as a new path forward. [00:01:00] Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling.

In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Matthew chapter one, verses 18 through 25. I also talk about how the story of Joseph and Mary is one we know and don't know at the same time, and I also talk about how this reset in the story shows us the path to finding the new path in our spirit.

Matthew Chapter one, verses 18 through 25 [00:02:00] says, now the birth of Jesus. The Messiah took place in this way when his mother, Mary, had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant from the Holy Spirit. Her husband, Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to divorce her quietly.

But just when he had resolved to do 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 as your wife, for the child conceived in hers from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet. Look, the virgin shall become pregnant and give birth to his son and they shall name him Emmanuel. Which means God is with us. When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord, commanded him. He took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had born a [00:03:00] son and he named him Jesus.

You know, this story is one that I think most people are familiar with for various reasons as part of the Christmas story in it, you know, Joseph clearly had a plan. And he was well into executing that plan when it all went off the rails. I don't know about you, but that happens to me all too often. In his plan, he was Behr to Mary.

It's a love story, right? It's a head over heels story. And Joseph has worked and planned and organized himself into this almost to be wedding. And maybe that's true, but historically we know that at this time in history. Many, if not most, almost all. In fact, marriages in those days were actually arranged by parents or family members.

Maybe it had been worked out by Mary's dad and Joseph or Joseph's father, but it happened [00:04:00] regardless of how it happened. It happened. Documents were signed, handshakes were exchanged. It was a done deal, a plan well on its way, and traditionalists have been troubled by Joseph's disappearance from the story.

So quickly, and we sort of in invented a story to account for it. And the story is perhaps he was older, maybe even a widower, maybe even. He had kids from a previous marriage, which would perhaps also explain those pesky references to Jesus' Brothers and sisters. They were half siblings and thus Mary bore no other children.

But that may not even be true or necessary, but it's a story that was invented. To fill this emptiness, to comfort his loneliness. Maybe young Mary was given to older Joseph and now the plan is set in place. The truth is we don't know it. It's not explained in this story [00:05:00] by Matthew, but what we do know is there was a plan when his mother, Mary, had been betrothed to Joseph.

A wedding was on the way, but then. It met an obstacle. She was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. At this point, Matthew knows more here than Joseph does, more than anyone at that time, or us now knows. There's an interruption to the plan, an interruption that is so severe that the plan needs to come to a stop and cannot possibly continue.

This isn't just a little bump in the road, a little diversion. It this historically and culturally, this is a dead end. That's, that's a non-starter. There has to be a whole new plan now, a whole new approach, a whole new relationship, a whole new way of treating the one in this case, Mary. Who drove the plan off the side of the mountain.[00:06:00]

And when we join the story in this passage, it's almost like Joseph is finishing Plan B. What now?

Plan A wasn't going to work. We were not explained, it's not told to us how Joseph found out all that Matthew says, as Mary was found to be with child, how, who found her? How was this found out? Was this nosy neighbors? Was this somebody coming up to Joseph and saying, guess what Joseph? You'll never believe, was it rumors?

Was it gossip? Did someone bear that brown? Bad news to Joseph? We don't know, but somehow it's clear. Joseph knew and he had to go back to the planning table and make a decision. Maybe this is even just a literary device, a way of getting to what Matthew. Knows is the real important part of the story.

This isn't an event. It's a sign that change is on the way. [00:07:00] Not an easy one. There's a dilemma hidden there. In verse 19, Matthew lays out the problem this way. Joseph was a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace. If you hear a righteous man and you think, well, that means he's an observer of the law.

It was about being obedient to the practices of the people of God, following those rules and regulations laid out by the scribes and the Pharisees of the white right way to live with obedience to God. If that's true, then obedience to the law in this case means it's Joseph's duty to expose Mary, expose the sin she committed to the community so that she could be punished, driven out, and perhaps even stoned to death.

That was the law. Now, at this point in history, maybe they weren't stoning people to death anymore, but they were certainly shunning them. This is a scarlet letter kind of situation. She needed to be disgraced, cast out, [00:08:00] punished. That's what the law called for. It was the only way to make sure that that shame didn't rub off of Mary and onto him and his family.

He had to do it. But it says too, he doesn't want to do that. He doesn't want to expose her to public disgrace. So plan B maybe is to just dismiss her quietly and send her on home to her family, call off the wedding. It's embarrassing, but he wasn't going to say why. So that there wouldn't be shame. That's why it's quiet.

Tear up the contract, call off the wedding, send her home, it's over. It's not legal in the strict sense, but it's a plan and it's probably something that could and did happen at this point in time. But Joseph lays down and decides to go to sleep [00:09:00] and he dreamed he dreamed of an angel. And we're supposed to hear an echo in this.

See Joseph, his ancestor was also Joseph. Joseph the dreamer who dreamed himself a Princeton in Egypt, who dreamed himself out of, and then back into the favor of his family. And now Joseph, the descendant of Joseph, dreams of a new plan. This third plan sounds oddly like the first plan, the marriage plan.

But it's the marriage plan. Resurrected, intensified, and redefined. The angel changes everything back to how it was before. Kind of like from, it's a wonderful life when Clarence shows that after the dream it all goes back to the way it was, but now it's different. It's the same, but it's also different because the character is changed.[00:10:00]

See, Joseph is different now. Now he's aware of God's presence. He's aware that this is part of a plan that he can't imagine. He can't even see it, but he's blessed by an invitation to come alongside the transformation of the world. See, Joseph's plan A was to get married, raise a family, do the best he could with what he had.

But God's plan a. Was for Joseph to get married and raise a family and be part of the salvation of the world to join in bringing life abundant, eternal life in the form of Jesus into the world. Joseph was invited to be a sign of faithfulness to live his righteousness in a new way, a risky way, but a way that is focused on the person and doing what is right for relationship and for them.

Not what is seen as the law. [00:11:00] It's a way of faithful living. Setting aside what you want long enough to hear the invitation of an angel. I think that voice is with us all the time with the Holy Spirit, that God is present within reach right here, born again in us and between us, but so often we just aren't listening to that voice.

We dismiss the Christ quietly covering it up with busyness and distraction. The angel says it doesn't take a gift for things to be special. God has already made it special. All you have to do is name it. All you have to do is receive it. All you have to do is reclaim it as a new path forward. Thanks for listening.[00:12:00]

Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor. Go over to facebook.com/inspired stewardship and like our Facebook page and market that you'd like to get notifications from us so that we can connect with you on Facebook and make sure that we're serving you to the best of our abilities with time and tips there.

Until next time, invest your time. Your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.