Fear Not - Mary and Joseph

Now we open the word to Matthew 1 and we discover Joseph caught in a dilemma. I suppose at times in our lives we've been on the horns of a dilemma; no matter what we do, we're in trouble. You see, he loved Mary very, very much. They were engaged to be married, and of course among the Jewish people, engagement was almost marriage. They didn't have the privileges of marriage, of course, but they called each other husband and wife during this engagement period, and the only way to break it was to get a divorce. So this was something rather solid and it couldn't be destroyed overnight.

But Mary had been gone for at least three months, possibly four months; she stayed with Elizabeth to help when John the Baptist was born. And now she comes back to Nazareth and she is with child. And of course, the neighbors had their solution to the problem and their explanation for the situation, but Joseph just didn't believe that.

You know, love always thinks the best of the other person. Joseph deeply loved Mary and he wanted to marry her, and yet whose child was this? He knew the teaching of the law; he could have made a big public scene out of this, but he didn't want to do that. Or privately, he could have just put her away and divorced her, but he didn't want to do that. He loved her.

And so here we have the conflict between love and justice, between love and law. I might add that this is the situation that our Father faced when He looks at sinners. In His love, He wants to forgive us, but in His justice, He has to punish sin. And of course, you know what He did: He sent His Son, the expression of His love, to pay the price for our sin.

Well, while Joseph was sleeping one night, while he was thinking about these things, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream saying, "Joseph, thou son of David, fear not." Aren't those great words? Oh, they must have comforted him. "Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins."

Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet saying, "Behold, a virgin shall be with child"—literally the virgin, the one God had chosen, shall be with child—"and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us." Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife, and knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus.

Now let's gather together some practical lessons from this experience of Joseph. It was not an easy experience, was it? I can imagine how shocked Joseph must have been when he discovered that Mary was with child, and this conflict, this perplexity, this dilemma that came to his life.

Well, lesson number one: God has His plan. Now Joseph didn't understand it; he didn't know what it was until God revealed it to him. But God has His plan. His plan, of course, was to bring His Son into the world, the Messiah, the Savior of sinners.

This plan was really thought out way back in the councils of eternity. Long before there ever was anything else, when only there was God, the Covenant of God was established: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit working out the plan of redemption, the plan of salvation.

Now it was revealed at first in Genesis 3:15. Many of you are fine Bible students and you know this, but some of you may just be starting in your Bible study. This marvelous line of redemption begins in Genesis 3:15 where God declared war on the devil, and He said that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.

Now this seed of the woman, of course, is the Messiah, the Savior. How is this Savior going to come into the world? Well, as you read the Old Testament, it's a beautiful story. God unfolds in the Old Testament Scriptures how His Son is going to come into the world. God chose Abraham and established the Jewish nation. Salvation is of the Jews; our Bible came through the Jewish nation, our Savior did. And so it was through the tribe of Judah and the family of David that the Messiah came into the world.

How is He going to come? Well, Isaiah 7:14 tells us that: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive." This is a miracle. You can't explain it; you just simply accept it and bow and worship and adore. And this is what Joseph discovered, that in the life of Mary, this promise in Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 9:6-7 was going to be fulfilled. Then in Micah 5:2, we're told where He's going to be born, in the little village of Bethlehem.

So God has His plan. The second lesson we learn from Joseph is this: God carries out His plan a step at a time. My wife and I, when we travel, get the atlas out and the maps. I have a difficult time with maps; I only know two directions: up and down. But my wife has built-in radar and she looks at the maps and she tells me what direction I should drive.

Well, God does not hand us a map, does He? Oh, I wish that God would reveal His will to me a mile at a time, or maybe a half a mile at a time. But God doesn't. God reveals His will a step at a time.

God sent the angel down to tell Zacharias that he and his wife would have a son and that son would prepare the way for the Messiah. Six months later, that same angel spoke to Mary and said, "Mary, you're going to be the channel through whom the Messiah will come into the world." And now three or four months later, God is speaking to Joseph and saying, "Now Joseph, here's the way it's going to be." I'm glad that God reveals His will a step at a time.

I know some of you right now are perplexed. There are job decisions to make, family decisions; I don't know what it is that perplexes you and you're saying, "Oh Lord, if only I could see ahead." Oh no, no, no. God has His plan and God carries out His plan and reveals His plan a step at a time. So be patient, be prayerful.

A third lesson I learn from Joseph is this: God expects us to think. Matthew 1:20, "But while he thought on these things..." Joseph was a thinking man. He pondered all of this. He was not impulsive. He didn't understand all that was going on, but he thought it through.

You know, many people have the idea that the will of God bypasses the brains of the child of God. God expects us to use our common sense, although I'm discovering common sense is very uncommon. God expects us to think.

Now at this point, you may say, "Wait just a minute, Brother Wiersbe, Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding." That's right. Doesn't say you shouldn't have understanding, doesn't say you shouldn't think, it says you shouldn't lean on that alone. Many times our thinking is not God's thinking. But you know, it does us good to think.

When I have decisions to make, I pray about it, I search the Word of God, and then I think. I ask the Holy Spirit of God to quicken my mind, to renew my mind, to enable me to think God's thoughts after Him. Then I often compare my thinking with spiritual Christians who can guide me, and in this way, I help to determine the will of God.

I'm a little bit afraid of this mystical approach to the will of God where you sort of empty your mind of everything—that's a good invitation for the devil to move in. You empty your mind of everything and you sort of just mystically wait for some impression. Well, I recommend you do what Joseph did: while he thought on these things, God then revealed His will to him.

Finally, there's a fourth lesson that comes from this passage. God has His plan, and God carries out His plan a step at a time, and God expects us to think, and God expects us to obey. Oh, the more I read about Joseph, the more I am encouraged. Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him and took unto him his wife. Instant obedience.

Now remember, Joseph was identifying himself with Mary's shame. I know what the neighbors were saying in Nazareth, this was the latest scandal. I know what they were saying and you know what they were saying. But Joseph identified himself with Mary, protected her, and together they waited for the fulfillment of this miracle.

Together they were having the excitement of the blessing of God; publicly, well, they were going through the fellowship of His sufferings. In fact, later on, a sword went through Mary's soul, spiritually speaking, when she saw her son hanging on a cross. It took faith for Joseph to obey. It took courage for Joseph to obey.

But the will of God is fulfilled when we obey the Word of God. Well, let's not be afraid; when He does show you what to do, do it, and He'll say to you, "Fear not, don't be afraid. You and I together are going to work and fulfill my wonderful plan."

Luke 2:8-20, the story of the shepherds out in the field. Now this story is so familiar that we tend to take it for granted. We just have heard it over and over again, but oh, there is so much here to encourage our own heart. You see, all of this was the grace of God. God's grace in sending His Son, God's grace in sending the angels to announce the birth of the Son, God's grace for opening the way that we might be saved.

Oh, the great message of the cross is the message of Christmas. The Lord Jesus Christ is not the babe in the manger; He is the exalted, glorified Savior in heaven today, and He died for us.

I'd like to trace with you the stages in the experience of these shepherds. We don't know their names; we're going to meet them someday in glory. But there are three stages in their experience that night, and the stages are these: First, we find them working, Luke 2:8. And then we find them wondering in Luke 2:9-14 as they see and hear this spectacular thing, the angels coming down from glory. Working, and then wondering, and then finally witnessing, Luke 2:15-20. By the way, that's a good pattern for us to follow, isn't it?

Let's begin with working. These shepherds were out in the field, they had no idea anything special was going to happen. They had been out in the field for some time. There is good evidence that the flocks they were caring for belonged to the temple. It is likely that these were the temple flocks used for the temple sacrifices.

You see, two lambs had to be sacrificed every day of the week, and two extra lambs on the Sabbath day, and then they would sacrifice seven he-lambs and a ram each new moon. And of course, there were the sacrifices needed for the special feasts.

If my calculation is correct, they would need over one thousand animals at the temple every year just for the regular routine of sacrifices. And these shepherds were probably taking care of the temple flocks. Now right away that says to us, of course they were taking care of the temple flocks and those lambs, those sheep, were pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ. "Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world."

Is it not interesting that God revealed His good news to busy people? These men were out there in the country, keeping watch over their flocks by night. It was not easy work. But God came to busy people, people doing their work. God wants us to take time for meditation, contemplation, but you know, God talks to busy people, God talks to people who are doing their job.

So here they are working, having no idea what's going to happen. By the way, that may happen to you today. You may head off for your job and it may just be like any other day. But it won't be like any other day; God's going to do something special for you. God is going to reveal something very wonderful to you.

Which takes us to the second stage in their experience: we go from working to wondering. All of a sudden, the angel of the Lord appears, and the glory of the Lord shines round about them, and the Word of God says they were sore afraid—very much afraid. They were very frightened, and I would have been too. Quite a contrast here between the darkness on earth and the glory of God from heaven.

The glory that the shepherds saw there on the hillside was just a little evidence of the glory of Jesus Christ. "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory," John 1:14. And so they saw the glory of God.

By the way, do you know where that glory is today? Well, of course Jesus is glorified in heaven, but that glory dwells in us. In John 17, Jesus said, "The glory which thou hast given me I have given them." And now our bodies are the temple of God and God's glory dwells in us, and someday we shall go to glory and we shall be in that heavenly city where it's nothing but glory for all eternity.

They saw the glory of God, and they heard the message of God. Now the angel saw how frightened they were, and so the angel said, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings"—good news, we've run across this word before back in Luke 1:19. The good news. What good news? Well, this good news of great joy.

Now there's not much good news in the world today, and for that reason there's not much great joy. There's a lot of shallow, short-lived happiness, but there's not much joy today and not much great joy except where people love the Lord Jesus and serve Him.

Now what is this good news? Well, it's good news for all people. If you had to give good news to everybody in the world, what would it be? What would it be? It couldn't be good news about money because not everybody in the world uses the same kind of money or is in the same economy.

What would be the good news you could give to everybody in the world? Well, it would have to be good news about something everybody needs. And what is that something that everybody needs? A Savior.

"For unto you"—it's personal—"is born this day"—that's the miracle—"in the city of David"—fulfilling the Old Testament Scriptures, Micah 5:2—"Jesus is a Savior." Where He is called a Savior, and He is. He is the one who saves us from our sins. This Savior is Christ the Lord, not Moses, Christ the Lord.

Now the shepherds are just standing there wondering; they have seen the glory of God, they've heard about the grace of God. Suddenly this multitude of heavenly host begin praising God and giving glory to God. "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace"—there's not much peace on earth. He's talked about joy on earth and peace on earth; these can only come through the Lord Jesus Christ.

So we find them wondering. Now let me remind you of something very important: shepherds were outcasts back in this day. I know in the Old Testament the shepherds were honored, but at this period in history, shepherds were considered outcasts.

For one thing, they couldn't go into the temple; they were out in the fields for great periods of time, they couldn't bring sacrifices, they had to touch unclean things, they had to deal with death when animals died, and so forth.

They were considered at the bottom of the social ladder. In fact, if you were a shepherd, you were not permitted to give witness in court; they wouldn't accept your testimony. And yet look what God did. God said, "I'm going to give this good news to shepherds. I'm going to start at the bottom of the social ladder."

Now they are outcasts, they're considered unclean, they can't be good Jews. Well, I'm going to reveal my word to them. The shepherds wondering.

Now the third stage in their experience: we find the shepherds witnessing. After the angels had disappeared, they said, "We had better do something about this." Now you can't live on visions; you can't live on these spectacular things. All of these things happened to bring them to Jesus.

They said, "Let's go even to Bethlehem." Luke 2:16, they came with haste. Someone has said this is the first Christmas rush. They came with haste, and sure enough, they found it just as it had been told them. And they believed.

They said, "Well, the Word of God said don't be afraid, the Savior has come," and they believed, and they were saved. And you know what they did? They witnessed about it. "And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds." Now shepherds were not allowed to give testimony in court, but God used these shepherds to give testimony to lost sinners.

And the shepherds returned—that means they returned to their job. They didn't start a new organization, didn't write a book or make a film, they just went back to the old job, new men. They went back to the old calling with new glory, glorifying God and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen as it was told them.

That's what a witness is: a witness is somebody who tells what he has seen and heard. God says to us today, "Now don't be afraid; the world is full of war, but I bring you a message of peace. The world is full of sorrow, I bring you a message of joy. The world is full of sin, but I bring to you the glory of God." And it's all wrapped up in the Lord Jesus Christ. "Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord."