The Mystery Of The Baby – 3 of 3

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. In the Bible He never says a word, but without His help Mary would not have been able to carry out her mission to raise the Christ child. His name is Joseph, the legal father of Jesus.

His role in the drama took the form of three dreams and his three responses. Stay with us as we learn more about the family of Jesus. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, Joseph had to walk a painful road and some think he did not live long. You know Dave, the reason that many of us believe that he did not live a long life is because the last time he is mentioned in the Scriptures is when Jesus was 12 years old. You remember Christ was left back at the temple and they came to get him? After that, Joseph does not appear on the pages of Scripture and all of the interaction of Jesus when he began his ministry as it relates to his family had to do with Mary, and she is the one who stands at the cross. Joseph is not at her side.

She experienced being a single mother. Let me ask you a question. Have you heard of Corrie ten Boom?

Of course you have. Lloyd John Ogilvy, who's written the devotional that I have in my hands, asked her this question, how do you deal with all of the compliments that you receive after giving a speech? And she gave a very interesting answer. If you want to know how she answered, I'm going to be mentioning that at the end of the sermon today. But this book can be a tremendous blessing to you. I'm speaking about a daily devotional entitled God's Best for My Life, written by Lloyd John Ogilvy.

And also I'll be giving you info as to how this devotional book can be yours. As many of you know, during this Christmas season, we're emphasizing the family of Jesus. We talked about his genealogy, and last week we spoke about Mary, and today we come to his legal father, Joseph. Joseph is the forgotten man of the Christmas story.

Sometimes in pageants he barely shows, but actually he should be in the middle of it all. Now, interestingly, Joseph says nothing in the Christmas narratives. There are others who have things to say, including the shepherds, but Joseph is silent, but he is silently obedient. Today he's going to teach us about dreams and also about God's relationship to us and how God works in our lives. He's going to teach us about dreams, and he's going to teach us about real life. First of all, a word about dreams, because Joseph had three of them as recorded in Scripture, and he obeyed them all. I'd like to know, and I'm not going to ask for a show of hands because I think you have to think about this question for a little bit, but it would be interesting to find out how many of you have had a dream that you really thought was guidance and direction from God. I don't know about your dreams, but mine are put together.

They're bits and pieces of experience and ideas that are notable for their absurdity. You have no idea what I dream about and how silly the dreams become, and yet at the same time I need to say that at least on one occasion God gave me a dream that I believe he allowed that was from him ultimately to warn me. Back in about the mid 90s when we connected to America online, I'll never forget it, we had internet in the home. I remember that night dreaming a horrific dream about demonic spirits wanting to put me up against the wall, and they were telling me, now we can destroy you in your own home.

Wow, it was awful. I took that as a warning from God and whenever I've been tempted to say, oh yeah, I wonder what pornography is like or other things on the internet, I'm always reminded that thanks to the internet, though we thank God for it and all of its advantages, there are now means by which we can be destroyed in our own home. I take that dream as a gift from God, horrific though it was. Many of my dreams, however, really don't come to pass if I dream about the future. I remember in high school dreaming that my brother and my mother, who were on their way to somewhere, were killed in a car accident.

I saw it so vividly, that old 1957 Pontiac was so beat up, I knew exactly how the accident happened. I assumed that God was preparing me for bad news. Turns out, not only was there no accident, but my brother is still living and my mother is 99, so my dreams don't come to pass in terms of my predictive ability through dreams. This past week, I talked to the staff about dreams and then later on, I had the privilege of meeting with a number of pastors in the Chicago area, some of the best known pastors in the Chicago area, we meet four times a year.

And I introduced the subject and we talked about it for about an hour and 15 minutes with great interest. One of the things I discovered is that a staff member on our staff here had a vivid dream about someone and some sin that this person was to avoid. And I'm being very general here, but she called the person the next day and said, you know, God warned me about what you're going to do or that what you are tempted to do.

Interestingly, a week later, that person did not take the warning. But I believe that that was a dream that was a warning from God that was not heeded. Discovered a pastor who said that in college, he dreamed that he was in a church that was pure and white and everybody was walking around in white robes. But outside, there were people who were dirty and muddy and they weren't allowed within the church because after all, the church was too pure and holy for them. And the muddy people don't get into a church. Well, today he's ministering to the inner city, to some of the poorest of the poor, some of the most difficult areas, and he's inviting the unwanted and the unwelcomed into his church. We hope that here at the Moody Church, we are a church like that too.

Never welcome are the strangers and the poor, it says outside. But later on, when he came to Chicago and began his church, he began to reflect and thought, you know, that's what God is calling me to do is to reach the people that no one else wants, the muddy people. Also discovered someone else, a pastor who said that he was given some money for the church that came from the lottery. He didn't know whether or not he should take it and he decided not to. But in a dream, it became clear that that's not what he was to do. Now, interestingly, when he turned it down within three weeks, three times the amount of money came unexpectedly in other ways.

Well, what do you say about these dreams? I have a nephew in heaven who was killed at the age of 15 riding along in a car with a young woman in the back seat memorizing scripture. They were on their way to a Bible quiz. In the front seat, not on the passenger side of the front seat, was a young woman, a young mother who was kind of the captain of the quiz team and a young man driving. They hit a stretch of ice and a truck hit them.

The driver walked away, but all three of the others were killed. Well, my nephew's name was Dallas and his sister went through a great time of mourning. She was maybe four or five years old at that time because her brother was dead. And then God gave her a dream. And in the dream, she could see Dallas being taken from the coffin all the way to heaven. And so she knew that she didn't have to cry for him anymore. I think that that was a gift of God to a little child that says, okay, your brother's all right.

He's here with me. Well, all that by way of introduction, because Joseph had three dreams. Now, Joseph and his dreams are recorded in Matthew chapter one and chapter two, and we'll go over them hurriedly and then Joseph will teach us about dreams, but he will also be teaching us about real life. In order to understand the first dream, you must realize that in those days when you were betrothed, that's a good word. We don't use it too often. It meant more than our engagement today. Today, you can be engaged and then you can break off the engagement.

Some of you young women can take that fish and throw them back into the lake, which sometimes is a good thing to do. And it just is the breaking up of a relationship. The engagement is broken.

In those days when you were betrothed, it was so serious and so final that the only way that you could break that relationship is through divorce. Now, there was no sexual relationship during that time, but it was a certain commitment and that's what Joseph and Mary had. And then Joseph discovers that Mary is pregnant. Maybe she told him, maybe Mary's father told him the story. And now as a young man, he has to handle this surprise pregnancy and what does he do? So he's thinking to himself, I don't want to make a spectacle of her.

I am going to divorce her privately and just move on, I guess. And it's in that context, dream number one takes place. The angel of the Lord comes, it says in verse 20 of chapter one of Matthew. It 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 will bear a son and you will call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins. And all this took place to fulfill the scripture. Isaiah 7 14, a virgin will conceive. Notice what the dream was, was an angel of the Lord saying, Joseph, go ahead and marry Mary, accept her as your wife, name the child Jesus.

And here's the agenda for the child. He shall save his people from their sins. Great Christmas verse. You know what the real astounding thing is about all this is that God would entrust the Messiah to a teenage girl and a young man who is not prepared to be the father of the Messiah. And God says to this plain couple, unknown, unhonored, you have the privilege of bearing the one who will save his people from their sins.

Absolutely astounding. Well, that's dream number one and we hurry on to dream number two. You remember the wise men came to Bethlehem and by the way, though they came to Bethlehem, they did not come to the manger. If you get a Christmas card with the wise men coming to the manger with a little blow dry donkey standing off in the corner, you know that that is an unscriptural card. It is the shepherds that came to the manger. When Jesus is born, Mary and Joseph stay in Bethlehem for a while, for maybe at least a year or two. And so when the wise men come from afar, they come and they come to the house it says.

And they of course worship him and they leave gifts. All right, because they don't go back to Herod and Herod, you remember, was deeply threatened because of Jesus. He was scared of a baby, which is interesting in itself. The Bible says that the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. Now we're in chapter two, verse 13. When they, that is the wise men had departed, 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 to destroy him. The previous dream, it says Joseph did as he was told. Here it says he arose and took the child and his mother by night.

What an obedient man. But I find this remarkable. Jesus has a very miraculous birth, but he does not appeal to miracles.

God does not do miracles to keep him alive and to keep him safe. When Joseph and Mary leave to go about, what are we talking about? 60 to 80 miles. You have in your mind, I'm sure a map of Israel. There's Jerusalem, south of that is Bethlehem.

Then they go to Hebron through the Gaza strip and on their way to Egypt following a caravan trail, 60, 80 miles, depending on how far they went into the land of Egypt. No miracles, no stars, no angel, nothing but hard work and sweat and difficulty. Being with a baby that's perhaps one year old, perhaps nearly two and finding their way all the way down to Egypt and using the gold and the frankincense and the myrrh along the way to sustain them and to keep them in Egypt because they're going to be there a couple of years. And so here we have Joseph understanding that God's purposes are not always easy. God could have made it easy.

God could have made it very, very easy. What he could have simply done is to say that Jesus is going to be protected. Herod dies, whatever.

But God says, no. He says, you take the baby to Egypt and you escape and to keep him well. Well, they do that, of course, and then they come to the third dream.

But before I get to the third dream, let's keep in mind that Herod, knowing that he had been tricked and deceived by the wise men, they were supposed to come back and tell him where Jesus was and they didn't. And he became angry. And so he asked his soldiers to kill all of the male children two years of age and under in the environs of Bethlehem to have them all massacred.

Now, scholars estimate that this was perhaps between 20 and 60 children based on the population of that time. Imagine soldiers coming into the home and saying, you have a little boy and he fits the category. He's two years of age or younger and we're going to kill him. Herod hoped that in the process he'd kill Jesus. He did not know that Mary and Joseph had taken him to Egypt.

Can you imagine that? These little children are really the first Christian martyrs. They died because of Jesus. And Jesus always causes division, as we shall see.

So now comes the third dream. Herod is dead. He killed others. By the way, Herod was really a piece of work. If you've ever studied Herod, and there is good evidence that they found his tomb recently in what is known as the Herodium. When you're in Jerusalem and you go to Bethlehem off in the distance, you can see this flat mountain.

That's where he had a lot of his summer palaces along with Masada. But anyway, it was always believed that he was buried there and they believe that they found his burial, his place of his demise. But when Herod died, now we're into the third dream, verse 19. Behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph, saying, rise, take his child and his mother, go to the land of Israel. For those who sought the child's life are dead.

And so they leave and they come back. Now let's have a brief conversation with Joseph. Even though he doesn't talk in the scripture, he has a great deal to teach us. And the conversation is going to be about dreams and it's also going to be about real life issues and what he learned as a young man needing to adopt and care for the Messiah. First of all, we'd say to Joseph, Joseph, how did you know that your dream was of God? I think that he might answer this way and I give these answers, but also throw in some contemporary examples and issues as we go through this, because people ask about dreams. I think the first thing Joseph would say is this, that these dreams were initiated by God.

I wasn't seeking them. I wasn't thinking that I had to connect with an angel. In each of his dreams, by the way, an angel appeared and spoke.

Talk about clarity. But he wasn't seeking that. And I would say to you and I would warn you, don't you ever seek angels. All those books on shelves that adorn bookstores today about angels, how you can connect with your inner angel and so forth, all those are occultic. Remember this, that when you seek angels, the wrong angel might actually appear. If you're a Catholic, he might appear to you as Mary. If you're a Protestant, he might appear to you as Jesus.

But you say, well, how do we know that that's the case? Because of the utterances, because of the revelations that are given, we have many examples of this in history. So don't ever seek the dreams. I think also that Joseph would say in regard to this, if you don't have one, don't think that you're neglected by God or you are less spiritual. Interestingly, sitting around with these pastors the other day who have been so effectively used by God in different contexts and different ministries, there was one of them who said he doesn't, he's never had a dream. The others talked about, yeah, I think I had this dream from God and so forth. I've never had a dream from God.

It's been all just slugging hard work and trying to figure out how God is leading. Well, that doesn't mean he's less important or less significant. So don't look upon dreams as that which somehow sets you apart. Indeed, God can give dreams even to unconverted people, as in the Old Testament, when Nebuchadnezzar had this awesome, amazing dream and Daniel had the gift of interpretation. So Joseph would say, well, I wasn't expecting it. I wasn't seeking it.

I didn't think I had it coming to me. Second thing that I know for sure Joseph would say is that if your dream is of God, it has to be thoroughly biblical. Now interestingly, in his case, each of his dreams was a fulfillment of scripture.

You can't go wrong there, can you? The first one, take Mary your wife, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, behold, the virgins shall conceive. The second one, go into Egypt and take the baby there so that it might be fulfilled out of Egypt.

Have I called my son? God says, just like Israel came out of Egypt, I want my son also to come out of Egypt. So it was fulfilling that quotation from Hosea. And then the other one that he might be a Nazarene. So go live in Nazareth. That is not a direct quotation from the Old Testament, by the way, but it captures the essence of Isaiah's prophecy. So each was rooted in scripture. Now your dream and mine, of course, would not be the fulfillment of scripture. But make sure that it is thoroughly, totally consistent with scripture. And if you wonder about it, then talk to somebody who could give you some guidance as to whether or not your dream is really consistent with scripture.

Well, this is Pastor Lutzer. And you know, as I talk about dreams, I'm not necessarily talking about the experiences we have when we are asleep. There is such a thing also as dreams that we have for ourselves, burdens that we bear. And God is with us.

And as I mentioned in the message, I trust that all that we believe is consistent with the word of God. I'm holding in my hands a very beautiful devotional, and today is December 13th. Now, if you were to open it to December 13th, you would discover that Lloyd John Ogilvy asked Corrie Ten Boom, how do you deal with all of the compliments that you receive?

And she answered and she said, I accept them like I accept flowers. And at the end of the day, I take this very beautiful bouquet, I get on my knees, and I give it to the Lord. And I say, Lord, this is yours.

Anything good said about me is all because of you. I think that this devotional would be of tremendous blessing to you and to your family. For a gift of any amount, we are making it available. And as you think about the beginning of the new year, you think about the privilege that we have to begin every day with God.

Here is what you do for a gift of any amount, it can be yours. Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now, because I think that this is so important, and of course we're coming to the end of the year and we're thinking about the beginning of the new year, I'm going to be giving you that contact info again. The name of the devotional, God's Best for My Life by Lloyd John Ogilvie. Every single day as you open this book, you'll discover a reading for the day.

And it will encourage you, it will focus you, and you will know that this is an opportunity for you to give every day to God. That contact info again on rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. And I want to thank you so much for your generosity. It's because of people just like you that this ministry can continue to expand. And we thank you very, very much for becoming a part of the Running to Win family. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 N. LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. Next time on Running to Win, more about the part Joseph played in the drama of Jesus' birth and early life. We'll focus on how the most extraordinary things happen to the most ordinary people. Make plans to join us. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.