Try Standing in Joseph's Sandals, Part 3

Joseph had every reason to walk away from his fiancée, Mary, when he learned she was expecting a baby.

In fact, in 1st century Jewish culture, after this kind of breach, a man had license to break off the wedding through a formal divorce. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll invites us to enter into Joseph's predicament, and along the way, to admire the tenacity in which Joseph stood in defense of Mary. He was a model of integrity and grace. Teaching from Matthew chapter 1, Chuck titled his message, Try Standing in Joseph's Sandals. It's all spelled out for Joseph in the dream, and he woke up. He woke up. And all of this is ringing in his mind.

He's turning it over in his mind. The Holy Spirit has, just as he hovered over creation in the Genesis creation account, somehow the same Holy Spirit has hovered over my beloved, betrothed, bride to be, and that has made that embryo, that fetus within her, the incarnate Son of God. I believe it. I will do as I'm told. It's all in verses 24 and 25.

Look at it. When Joseph woke up, first, he did as the angel commanded. Second, he took Mary as his wife so there was an actual wedding ceremony performed by the rabbi. Whether they told him or not, we're not told. Whether they revealed it to their parents or not, we're not told. But we are told that he took Mary as his wife, and what a treasured thing it was, the secret they had between themselves is now shared deeply. And we read on top of taking her as his wife, he doesn't touch her intimately until after the birth of this first child. And ultimately Joseph does as he was told. He names him Jesus. Think about this outstanding individual, Joseph. He fully accepted what he could never later fully explain.

When any of his friends asked him, when a neighbor poked her nose into their business and said some things that were inappropriate, Joseph could simply say, this child is of the Holy Spirit. Can you imagine the eyes that rolled when they heard that? And you know how scandals are. You don't outgrow scandals.

Think about it. Anyone who has been in a scandal is remembered for that scandal until he dies. Joseph knew that from the moment the word got out that the baby is born so quickly after the marriage, he knew what was in front of him. And people never forgot.

And they never stopped mentioning it. Let me show you an example. Turn from Matthew 1, hold your place here, and go to John chapter 8.

We're going to do a little correlation, and we're going to move ahead 30 years or so. Jesus is now engaged in ministry, and he's now facing these people who are the officials among the Jewish religion. They're having a dialogue, and Jesus says to them, verse 37 in John 8, Yes, I realize that you are descendants of Abraham, and yet some of you are trying to kill me because there's no room in your heart for my message.

Keep reading. Still the words of Jesus. I'm telling you what I saw when I was with my father, but you are following the advice of your father.

Well, what is the implication? My father is not the same as your father. You claim Abraham. You claim God the Father as your father. No, he was my father. We'll see later what he meant by your father. Look at this. I'm telling you what I saw when I was with my father, meaning when he was with the father in eternity past, when it was the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the Godhead.

I'm telling you what the plan was when I was with him. This is blasphemy to these people who don't believe he is who he says he is. He says, no, you are imitating your real father.

Now look at their response. Right in the middle of verse 41, they replied, We aren't illegitimate children. God himself is our true father.

You know the implication of that. I'm not like you are. Jesus told them, if God were your father, you would love me because I've come to you from God.

I'm not here on my own, but he sent me. That to them, again, was blasphemous. Why can't you understand what I'm saying? It's because you can't even hear me, for you're the children of your father, the devil. And you love to do the evil things he does. Now I remember someone calling Jesus meek and mild. I remember verses like this.

Please. I doubt that you, and I know that I, have never said to someone you are of your father, the devil. Never said that. I'll tell you, that's a courageous statement to make, especially since it's true.

And since they would be the last ones to ever believe it. You represent the voice of the enemy. And I'm here to tell you the truth. I've been sent by God. I've come to save sinners from their sins.

And I represent him because he is my father. Now back to Matthew 1. When Joseph woke up, he did as he was told.

You know what's interesting also? The Scriptures move quickly from the time that they marry until the scene at Bethlehem. So we know nothing of the six months that has passed if they married right after she got back. And I have the feeling it was certainly shortly after she returned that there was the marriage ceremony, the wedding ceremony.

None of it is revealed. All we know is that, get this, Joseph took the role not only of her husband, but her advocate, which she greatly needed. I checked the meaning of the word advocate. One who supports or defends a cause.

One who pleads in another's behalf. Mary needed more than a husband. She needed one who would be her courageous advocate, and Joseph proved himself to be that. Interestingly, after Jesus reaches adulthood, Joseph is never mentioned again. Most likely, Joseph dies early in life. Again, we have no biblical record of the time of his death. But by the time Jesus is now beginning his ministry, Joseph is out of the picture.

Mary is seen occasionally even with the siblings of Jesus, as we have seen in a previous message, but never with her husband again. Now, before I close this message, you know me well enough to know I'm not going to leave it where it is. I'm going to help bring you and me into this picture. I have three questions to ask you in doing so. They're personal questions. Only you can answer. The first is this.

And each, by the way, ties in with something Joseph experienced. Here's the first. Are you being forced to face a tough, life-altering decision right now? I know that the audience I have is broad, and I do not know most of you.

I do not know many of your names. Therefore, I do not know what you're living with. I know humanity well enough to know that in a gathering this large and in one larger than this as days pass, and these messages recorded go literally around the world, I know that some of you find yourself facing a tough, life-altering decision, one that may call for sacrifice. In order for you to obey the Lord, you need to do it.

My response to you, my counsel, is go there. You can weigh the odds, you can count the cost, but having done so, follow the model of Joseph. Do the hard thing. I've learned in my years on this earth that the right thing is rarely the easy thing. When I look back over my life, some of the best decisions I ever made were some of the hardest decisions I had to make. You may be facing one of those kinds of decisions, and I'm deliberately leaving it vague so it can fit whatever may be your life-altering situation. Don't be afraid. The words to Joseph apply to you. Don't be afraid to make this decision.

Second question. Are you now experiencing the brunt of others' criticism by doing what's right? You may have made a tough decision, and now you're living in the backwash of others' wagging tongues and ugly comments.

A situation comes to mind that may apply, and certainly would to a few of you, maybe more than I would name. Some of you have had an addiction for a period of time. You have finally faced the truth of the addiction, and you now have the rehabilitation in front of you. For you to go through the rehab time, there will be people who will find out that you have had that addiction.

It may seem humiliating to you, and especially so when they make comments that are unfair, inappropriate, and even ugly comments. You're coming to terms with this addiction, and you're determined to break it, and I commend you. Many of us commend you, but there will be some who will hold you hostage because of your long-standing addiction that never became known until now.

You've done what's right, but there will be those who will not let you off the hook and commend you for doing what is hard. Go there. Stay with the rehab program. Don't run from it. Don't hide.

Part of the recovery will be the humility that you will gain by facing it and having others face it, though they may not find that comfortable for them. Here's the third. Third question. Are you aware of someone who needs you to be their advocate? You're needed to be a support to her or to him.

Go there. Sometimes it's a parent that needs to be in support of the child, an adult child. It's a tough thing to do. Sometime being an advocate means you say the hard thing, but you love them throughout the process. Occasionally it will be a husband or a wife that will need to be an advocate for the partner as you go through this tough time together, as it was with Joseph and Mary. I'll tell you, having done a serious study at the end of Matthew 1, my respect for Joseph is as great as my respect for Mary. All she had to go by was the word of an angel. That's all Joseph had to go by.

She could not explain her own pregnancy to the satisfaction of the critic, just as Joseph never would be able to. Both of them together are in this, but she needs him to be her defense on those occasions when there was no one else to speak for her. All of this reminds me of a true story. I end my message with this story. It happened many, many years ago when my wife and I met a couple that we were immediately drawn to. She was as sweet as she could be, and he was one tender man.

I've always been drawn to men who have a tender spirit, a gentle spirit, though fully masculine, tender understanding. He was that. They fell in love, and as we heard their story, they realized that this was no shallow summer romance. This was a marriage that God had ordained, and being that deeply in love, they would certainly want to take it to the full extent and be married. However, she had a secret, and her secret was a scandal that he knew nothing about.

They told us of this as we promised our confidence in our living room, sharing the evening together. She said with tears, during my unsaved days, I was a call girl in Las Vegas. I worked for an escort service.

During that time, I can't number the men I was with. She said I lived in that situation for a period of time, and finally through a chain of events that she told us about, I'll not go into them. She was led out of that life and lifestyle as a very close friend told her about Christ and his ability to forgive, no matter what may be the sin or the scandal, no matter how deeply she may have been involved in it. He was there, and as she turned to Christ, he would by his grace forgive her of all of this.

She was genuinely born again. As she told the story, I remember the man standing next to her in our living room wept. She was still touched by all the sadness that this had brought to her in her life. Not long after their conversion, after her conversion, they met, and that was when they fell in love, and before they married, she realized I can't keep this secret from the man who wants to marry me.

She told him the full story. Like Joseph, he was stunned. Though the details were altogether different from Joseph and this man, still the news was shocking. He faced an extremely difficult decision, knowing the woman he married would be anything but a virgin. He had to work through all of that.

He had to think through all of it. And though he was shocked, he said, my love for her was such that I could never turn her away. They married. That's not the end of the story. Through an interesting further chain of events, they were led to Dallas Theological Seminary, where they kept a secret between them.

As I know, we were one of the few couples they ever told. He trained for ministry, received his Master of Theology degree, and went into the pastorate. I smiled because for the last 40 years, he has been the pastor of various churches, maybe one you used to be a part of. I agree, it's time to be quiet and think. Let's see. Go back over churches you've been a part of.

Who knows? I don't know of a man who would be a better shepherd or a woman who would be a finer pastor's wife than this couple. He took her as his wife and increased her love for the Savior. He turned from the scandal to the dignity and devotion of a marriage, and now to their role as a pastor and his wife. Modeling a life of grace among those in their church, and for all we know since we've lost touch with them in the churches they have served since he graduated. A man and a woman whose love for Christ is deep, passionate, and sincere, leading others to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus.

Isn't that a great story? God so loved the world, the world of people caught in scandals, the world of sinful people like you and me, the world of those whom others would write off. He so loved us that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever would believe in him would never perish, never be condemned, but would be fully forgiven and would have eternal life.

There is no love like that that I've ever known about, like the love of God the Father for people as unlovely as we are. The details of our life may be different, but you may be sure sin is sin, and the Lord in faithfulness and in grace promises to forgive us if we will simply trust his Son as our Savior. Please bow your head. For a moment, sit quietly before him.

You are somewhere in this picture. You may be the woman who has a secret, and only a few know, and you may have allowed that secret to make you think that God would have nothing to do with you, how wrong you are. He knows that secret. He will never condemn you because you are sinful. The condemnation will come because you refuse to believe.

There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ. You may be a man going through a period of rehabilitation, or whatever may be your difficult call and circumstances. Your situation is not the kind that will turn God off. There is no such kind, and the Lord has sent his Son for you, and he waits for you to trust him with your life and with your future, that you not live in the shame and guilt of your failure, but you live knowing now that you have a Savior who died that you might live, and took your sin that you might be declared righteous. So I plead with you now, trust in him.

Turn to him. We have individuals who would love to talk with you following this service. If you choose later to connect with us, that's why we're here, to help you know what knowing Christ is all about. Father, we're grateful for the story of this love relationship between this fine man and this woman who found herself in a most unexplainable, yet remarkable situation, and it was all of you, our God. How grateful we are for their courage to step into the ranks of an unbelieving world and to live their lives and rear their child and their children, knowing all of the things would be said against them that would be untrue.

May we learn from their courage and their advocacy. May we be strong in our faith, determined to represent you in whatever circumstances we find ourselves. And finally, Lord, I pray for those who struggle with faith in your son. May they come to know him. May they trust him with their whole heart, confident in his forgiveness and grace. In his blessed name we pray, and for his sake.

Every one said, Amen. Chuck's comprehensive study in Matthew has never been shared on Insight for Living until now, and we're confident you'll gain a whole new understanding of Jesus' life and ministry by joining us for this fascinating study. It begins with the birth of our King and concludes with his Great Commission. At Insight for Living Ministries, it's our hope that you'll resolve to listen every day. Matthew's unique perspective provides a magnificent view of our Lord's life, and when we truly engage with the biblical Jesus, our love and affection for him grows immensely. Concurrent with Chuck's new teaching series on Matthew, you'll be glad to learn that he's just completed an accessible commentary as well. It's titled Swindoll's Living Insights Commentary on Matthew. It comes in two hardbound volumes, and we encourage you to purchase your copies now in order to make the most of this in-depth series. To purchase Swindoll's Living Insights Commentary on Matthew, call us.

If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888, or go to insight.org slash store. And here's another resource for the entire family. Many of us are making every effort to understand our changing times, and we're learning how to communicate truth with the next generation. Chuck has been impressed with the insight in a new book he's recommending to you called A Practical Guide to Culture.

The authors, John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkel, provide a biblical view on key issues in our culture that all of us face, such as sexual orientation, gender identity, racial tension, and more. You can purchase a copy right now by going to insight.org slash store. The book is titled A Practical Guide to Culture. And there's a similar book targeted for younger readers titled A Student's Guide to Culture. So call us. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888, or go online to insight.org slash store. Next time, Chuck Swindoll describes wise men, wicked men, and us.

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