Welcome Christmas - Peace in the Promise - Matthew 1:18–25

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Well, good morning. Are you like me? I'm waiting for the video. I'm waiting for the video. I'm waiting for the video. It's coming somewhere along the way. Listen, if you're here today and you're a guest, we are so excited that you're here today. I was looking out and I'm recognizing or not recognizing several people. So, let me just say personally, thank you for coming and joining us here today. You may feel on the outside because as I look around, there are a number of people with the welcome Christmas t-shirts on and you're going, "Did I not get the message? Did they not include me in the inroup?" Listen, we would love to include you in the end in group. And here's how you can do that. Show up tonight at 6:00. Our welcome welcome Christmas is going to be just a fun event for people of all ages in here. We'll start with just kind of a program in here and then after we finish that program for about 30 minutes, then we're going to go out and we've got hot chocolate and cider and food and there's Christmas characters, there's Christmas games and there's just all kinds of fun stuff. So, I hope you will come tonight at 6 o'clock. And so, look to the person next to you and say, "Here's the deal." Repeat after me. Here's the deal. If you don't come, the Broncos are going to lose. Okay? So, there you go. We got that settled right there. how that works. Listen, speaking of Christmas, I was reflecting back as my wife and I were putting up the decorations in our home this week and I was thinking back to just previous Christmases in the Smith household. And I remember one particular one when both my kids were probably kindergarten, first grade. They were old enough to like really take it all in. They were old enough to anticipate special guests that would come on Christmas Eve. It was just one of those that that Denise and I probably put everything into it making it special. It was one of those Christmases that there was actually a thing called Black Friday where you actually went out and you went shopping for all the good deals. We had all the presents bought early and so Christmas Eve came around. We put the kids to bed because they had to go to bed early waiting for that special someone. And then we like looked at each other going, "We've got some time just to sit on the couch. I mean, like we can get our own cup of hot chocolate. We can watch a grownup Christmas movie that we want to watch." And so it just felt like so peaceful sitting there. And then all of a sudden, about five minutes into the show, Denise goes, "I forgot about Alex's kitchen." Alex was my 5-year-old daughter at the time. And so she goes, "Let me go get it real quick." And so she runs in there, and I'm expecting her to bring out the kitchen that we had seen at IKEA, the one that, you know, was probably four or five feet big, and it was all put together, the doors and the faucets and all that. And so I'm thinking she's going to get it, I guess, by herself. So she goes, "Let me go get it." and she came into our peaceful Christmas Eve living room with a box that was about 4 feet wide. It was about three feet or four feet long, three feet wide, and about 6 in thick. You know what I'm talking about? And the piece of Christmas went right outside the door. We had to put together that that that IKEA piece of furniture, that little kid's kitchen that I thought surely shouldn't take more than 30 minutes. About 3 hours later, after 147 pieces, 64 pegs, and so many screws, there was probably 20 left over and instructions that looked like they were hieroglyphics. Okay, the piece was gone. Anybody ever had one of those type of Christmas Evees? Yeah, I can feel the pain right there. Okay, if you're a parent and you've not had that type of Christmas yet, God bless you. We're praying you experience it this year. Okay, if we've had to, you have to experience that type of Christmas. But we talk about peace, right? and and and peace can be taken from us in so many more situations besides that toy that you've got to put together on Christmas Eve. Um in a more serious note, peace can be robbed in ways that seem so lifealtering. We can have our peace robbed when the doctor has you instead of calling you with the test results said, "Why don't you come in so I can talk to you about those test results?" And that can rob your peace just not waiting to talk to the doctor, but once you hear what the doctor has to say or this time of year or maybe all year when the bills seem to stack up higher than the income is stacking up, that can rob us of our peace. Or maybe you've had some kind of relationship relationship shift. Maybe that relationship shift in this thing called marriage. Maybe it was a dating relationship. Maybe it's a lifetime friendship that somehow things went skew and you're just going the peace that I used to have in this relationship is absolutely gone. You know, we could go down the list of different ways that we lose our peace. Um, as we begin our Advent season, this is the second week of Advent season. Last week we talked about hope. This week we're going to talk about peace. And we're going to look at this idea of peace through the eyes of an individual in the Christmas story that when you read about it now, you're going, "Oh, it wouldn't have been nice to be there." Unless you were there in real time. The character that we're going to look at, and we're going to use the book of Matthew in this entire series called Welcome Christmas. But the character that I want us to look at is that of Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus. I mean, think about it. any Christmas story that you read, any Christmas show that you watch, here was this almost like this calm, peaceful man that he's always po portrayed and he just seems to kind of walk through life knowing the news that his wife or soon to be wife is pregnant with the Christ child. And you've seen manger scenes sometimes and sometimes they have those like glowing halos over the characters and you just feel like they're just walking in the peace of God. But for a moment, I want us to think about what was really like to be there. Like, did Mos did no did Joseph find out that he was going to be the father of the Christ child and all of a sudden he just wanted to sing out hallelujah, this is wonderful. Or did he have a different Christmas Eve experience like I experienced where the peace was just gone. So, if you have your Bibles and we'll have it up on the screen or if you have a handout, it's there. We're going to be looking at Matthew chapter 1 and we'll start in verse 18. and we're going to be just looking together and exploring just this idea of peace in a stressful, seemingly unpaceful season of life. And here's what it says starting there in verse 18. And this is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother Mary was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Can you imagine that conversation that took place between Mary and Joseph when Mary found out that she was pregnant with a Christ child? Probably Joseph walked in one day going, "Hey, how are all the wedding plans going?" She's going, "Great, Joseph, can can you sit down and I need to talk to you about something?" And he's probably thinking like most men that are getting married going, "Oh, you've exceeded the budget. Oh, the color flowers that you are expecting to have aren't coming in." And so he sat down thinking, "Okay, we'll have this conversation, but we'll work through it." And she looks at him and says, "Um, Joseph, I'm pregnant." If there was any peace in the room, it probably had to be Zap just like that, right? Because as soon as he heard she's pregnant, what's he thinking? Who is he? Why would you betray me this way? We had our whole life in front of us and you just messed things up and the peace was just gone. But the story goes on to say this in verse 19. So Joseph to whom she was engaged was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly. So he decided to break the engagement quietly. So he considered this. An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. Or as he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. Joseph son of David. The angel said, "Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit." Now, I if if the peace was zapped out of the room when Mary told Joseph the news, can you imagine what kind of peace is stirring in the dream that Joseph had or after he woke up from the dream? Again, we so often look at it through rosecolored or maybe I should say in this season candy cane colored glasses and we just sense, oh, this glorious moment. But can you imagine having that kind of dream after having that kind of conversation with your fiance? And the angel shows up and says, don't be afraid, Joseph. I'm thinking to myself, I'm looking back at that angel going, "Don't be afraid. My fiance just told me she's pregnant and I know I'm not the father. Don't be afraid. I just found out that she's going to give birth to the Christ child. That means I'm the father of the Messiah that all my relatives have waited for year after year after year. And you're telling me, don't be afraid. And so again, this idea of peace is may not at this moment be in the room. Now, here's why it's such an important story for us to think about. Not just because we're reflecting on Christmas. How many of your lives right now would resemble the same thing that for whatever it is, whether it's financial problems or relationship problems or health problems or you fill in the blank with what kind of problems going on, but you're just going the peace in the room seems to be gone because of the circumstances in my life.

And so the angel goes on to say, "And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. And all of this occurred to the Lord's message through the prophet." Look, the virgin will conceive a child. She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us. And when Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded, and he took Mary as his wife. But he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born. And James Joseph named him Jesus. So here is Joseph finding himself in this seemingly impossible situation. And we can suppose and we can wonder of the lack of peace. But yet, here's what I also know. As I read of scripture and how he handled the situation, there had to be some kind of peace that he did find. Like the circumstances merited lose all peace. But the steps that he takes in his life after hearing the news exhibited that there had to be some kind of peace that he grabbed hold of. And so the question I have for us as we look at this passage, how did he find peace in this situation? How did he get news that totally rocked his world, but yet somehow he grabbed hold of what he knew of God and he walked through it hanging on in the faith and trust of God? I want to share with you this morning that I think there's three pieces that we can kind of look deeper in his life and then we can discover where he found the peace and how he found the peace. And I share this with you because every one of us may need to hang on to these same things in different circumstances and different situations of our life. And so if you're taking notes, here's the first thing. The first way, the first thing that that Joseph held on to that gave him peace in a seemingly impossible situation to find peace. The first one is this, that we need to believe the promises that God has given us. We need to hang on and believe when life turns upside down. When we're experienc this lack of peace, we need to hang on and believe the promises that God has already given us. There's no doubt since Joseph was a little boy that they would sit down at the dinner table every night like every good Jewish family and the father would tell them stories about the father's faith of the past generations that Joseph probably knew by heart and could recite it. The story of Moses and his faith, the story of Abraham and his faith. That's just how the Bible was passed ba down in those days. It was an oral tradition. And because every good Jewish family as they talked about their forefather's faith, they were always looking for the day the Messiah would come. And so in those stories that Joseph's father had told him, just like his father had told him and his father had told him, they would have mixed in there all the different prophecies about the coming Messiah one day. And so this angel is delivering the news to Joseph that he is going to be the father of the Messiah, the Christ child that rocked his world. And he's just going, "What I grab hold of? What I grab hold of?" I believe this that Joseph grabbed hold of the very promises in scripture that God had been delivering to his family for all these years. He might have grabbed hold of some prophecies like in Isaiah 9 6 and 7. For to unto us a child is born and he will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace. Or maybe in this moment that the angel is talking and Joseph is trying to figure out everything he thought of this of Jeremiah 23 verse 5 and 6. And I will raise up for David a righteous branch, a king who will reign wisely. And so while his life is being up turned upside down, he's grabbing hold of things that he already knew true out of the scripture. Now, the angel looked at him going, "Okay, just in case you don't remember everything your dad taught you, let me remind you." Look in verse 23. The virgin will conceive a child and she will give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel. God is with us. The angel was prophesying the very things that Joseph's father had told him about in his life growing up. Joseph would find this peace through the promises of scripture. Do you realize this that in scripture there's over 7,000 promises? Like scriptures full of it that you and I can grab hold of in in difficult times in our life. Yet the problem is instead of grabbing hold of the promises, we often grab hold of the circumstances and our life gets turned upside down because we're just looking at what's in front of us and not what God's already said. Several years ago, I had the opportunity, a friend of a friend invited me to visit a Navy base in San Diego and just do a tour of it. And he had a the friend of the friend was the one that was leading us on this tour. He was an officer there and in this particular base. I didn't know much about like officers and how they ranked. But when we walked in and everybody saluted him, I realized this guy's kind of important around here. And so he gave us this tour around this base. And we got to where they got the um where they would train the pilots. And there's this big machine with a in a big room and he said, "That's our flight simulator." He said, 'Would you like to take a run at it? I said, "Sure." Like, I've played video games and put me in the real deal one. And he said, "Now, I got to tell you, don't post anything that you're about to get on this this Navy flight simulator. It's $25,000 every time somebody gets on." Like, woo, this is good. Let me in. That's better than a quarter I usually stick in the machine, right? And so, I get in there and it was the coolest thing. Like, I'm in this flight simulator. He goes, "Let me just go ahead and punch since you're from San Diego. Let me go ahead and punch in here." And I got to take that jet and take the joystick and I flew around the the San Diego Harbor. I flew and did a fly over Petco Park where the Padres's play. I went ahead and took that plane by Baloa Park. I mean, all the hot spots that I knew in San Diego, I flew all around. I'm going, "This is really good." And I'm really good. And then he got on the speaker. Hang on. I'm going to give you a little bit of just what we consider trouble. And all of a sudden, I'm in this Navy jet simulator, flight simulator, and it starts snowing in San Diego. And with the snow comes this heavy fog, and I'm flying it. And they can move the machine a little bit. They can shake it a little bit. I want you to know I'm sitting in a chair, but I feel like I'm upside down at that moment. And the screen that I'm looking at, I've lost every bit of my bearings in there. And all of a sudden, I hear this noise.

And the officer leaned in going, "That's what we call in the video game arcade, game over. You just crashed the jet." And so I got out, we went to lunch, and we were talking about it. And he said, "You know what? I put you through is where most pilots struggle struggle the most." He said, "Because there's a feel when you're actually flying a jet. There's a feel that you have. But when the elements start playing against you and all of a sudden you feel out of your your bearings and you feel out of control, instead of looking at the control panel, pilots start trusting their own instincts." And he goes, "And that's where most pilots mess up." Now watch this, church. God has given us a control panel. In fact, he's given us 7,000 control panels called promises of his. Yet, the problem when stress comes our way, when situations come our way, when circumstances enter our life, rather than trusting the control panel that God has given us called the promises of scripture, we start relying and trusting on our own feelings, our own emotions, and our own instincts. And that's when the stress of life no longer turns into the peace of God. it just turns into the game over in life. But Joseph, rather than trusting his own perception, his own feelings, can you imagine all that he was going through? He's going, I am going to hang on to the things that I know of God. And so, if you're in a difficult season of life right now, that is my encouragement to you. Hang on to the things that you know of God. the 7,000 promises that he gives us in scripture. But that's not the only thing that Joseph did. I think there's a second thing he did to to grab hold of the peace in that moment. And that is he and you and I strengthen yourself before the pressure ever hits. If we're going to find peace in a difficult situation, we have to make sure that we're strengthening ourselves before the pressure ever hits. You know, scripture doesn't tell us a lot about Joseph. We know more about Mary, the mother of Jesus, but we don't know very much about Joseph. In fact, in verse 19, he tells us really all that we know about Joseph. It says, "Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man." A righteous man. Now, what does it mean to be a righteous man? Here's what we know. That he was probably full of compassion. I mean, go back to the story. The Bible says this, that when he found out that Mary was pregnant, before the angel came to him, it says this. He did not want to disgrace her. In some versions even says he was going to put her away quietly. Here's what that means. It was the order of the day. It was the law of the day that Mo Joseph could have had her stoned, could have had her put to death because she was pregnant of a child out of wadlock and it wasn't his. At the very least, he could have humiliated her and brought her before the whole town and going look what type of person that I thought I was going to marry. But the Bible lets us know he had compassion. That when he found out she was pregnant and it wasn't his child before he knew it was the Christ child, he was straight just going, "How do we work this out in a nice way, Mary, that you can just kind of go on your way and you don't receive a lot of humiliation from the town people?" And so his righteousness, he was full of compassion. He wasn't just full of compassion, he was also sacrificial. Think about what Joseph did once the baby Jesus was born. He sacrificed all of his life to take care of this child. There's a point in the story as you read on further and in the in the Nativity story that they find out that Herod the king is out to kill the baby Jesus. And so what does Joseph do? He picks up his wife. He picks up his new baby and he takes them to live in a country that he had never been to before. He sacrificed everything he was and everything he had in order to take care of Mary and the baby. And so in his righteousness, he was full of compassion. He was full of sacrifice. The list goes on and on. He was full, he was faithful. He was self-controlled. Notice the very end it says this. And when he found out that she was with child, he did not have sexual relationship with her until they were married after the child was born. So he had self-control. He was trustworthy. We can go on. What does it mean to be trustworthy to be to full of righteousness? It was a life that Joseph led. But here's what we need to understand. The righteousness did not come at the moment in the dream when the child when the angel said, "Don't be afraid, Joseph. It's Jesus, the the son of God." And all of a sudden, Joseph wakes up going, "Whoa, I'm righteous." It wasn't this instantaneous thing. Where did the righteousness come from? The righteousness came from day after day after day after day of growing up that he sought God with his life. And so, ever before the stressful situation of finding out that he's going to be the earthly father of the Christ child, ever before that moment ever came, before his life was rocked and turned upside down, Joseph had been preparing himself for whatever God wanted to do in and through him. And so the question comes up to us, how do we prepare ourselves or or what do we need to do in order when we have stressful situations that we have that type of strength? We just do the hard work. We we do the small work. We do the work in our spiritual lives that seems like that doesn't make a lot of difference until you really need it. I think of the story of Debbie Dona, our children's pastor. this past year she went through that horrible just battle of cancer and when she came out of it and she gave testimony up here on the stage and the question was asked how did you get through something like that and she said I just called and recalled in my mind all the memory verses I learned as a child and she said I just began to recite them out verse after verse after verse

I remember growing up when when all of a sudden I found out the Bible was more than just something you carried to church on a Sunday and you pull out on Easter and Christmas to read. All of a sudden, I realized there's something in there for me. And I remember as a middle school boy taking my Bible into my room and I'll never forget this, laying on my bed and I would always lay diagonal. I don't know why I would lay diagonal, but when I hit that moment of diagonal laying on the bed and I opened the scripture and began to read it, all of a sudden it's like God was in the room with me. I can't tell you one story. I read. I can't tell you one big truth, a profound truth that I understood. But reading the Bible and just day after day as a middle school child, there's no doubt in my mind that when struggles and trials and situations hit my life to now, like now, God was using that moment to put in me what needed put in me so I'd be able to endure what happens in days like this. I gave the challenge to you last week as we hit the nativ or have hit the advent season. If you take the book of Luke, there's 25 chapters. If you start on chapter one on day one of of of December, you'll get all the way through it by the time we hit Christmas. And there's several people I'm on a group text with. It has been the most encouraging thing to see these groups text going, I read it today. I read it today. I did my stuff. And I'm sitting there going, I am so excited for them. Not because they checked off their box and did their homework, because they're doing the little things that God will prepare them when the big things come their way.

And so as we think about preparing ourselves before the battle ever hits, it's working out the spiritual muscles to be ready when they're needed. Here's the third the third thing I see that Joseph did. The third thing that he did was um that he would take the next step in front of him or in your your your outline there says take the next step in front of you. We're talking about how do you find peace in the middle of a non- peaceful situation? H how do you how do you work it? How do you move it where you can experience and move forward like Joseph did? And here's what it is. You just take the next step in front of you. And verse 24 says this. When Joseph woke up, listen, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and he took Mary as his wife. At that moment in his life, Joseph had so many unknowns. I mean, think about this for a second. We have the the benefit of looking back at a story and we know how it's all going to work out. Joseph doesn't have that benefit. Joseph is in it real time. All that he knows is he had this dream. This angel came to him and said, "Don't be afraid. Take Mary as your wife because y'all are going to be the parents of the Christ child." Woo! If that doesn't make you want to hit the snooze button a couple of times once you wake up from your dream, nothing will like there is so much unknownness in there. He had no idea that at some point Herod wouldn't be looking for them and trying to kill the child and he'd have to flee to to Egypt. He had no idea that when he took his wife to Bethlehem for the census that there'd be no room in the end that they'd have to give birth to baby Jesus in a stable. He had no idea that the first people that would ever come visit his new baby would be some stinky shepherds that no one even liked and cared about. He had no idea that days, months, or weeks later, there'd be magi coming from a different um land to bring these great gifts to him. Like all the pieces of the Christmas story that we reflect and we're going, it's such a beautiful thing. Joseph is in this situation going, I don't even know about these things and I can barely get through today. So what do I need to do to get to tomorrow? Just take the next step. So in all the unknownness, he just knew the angel told me to take Mary as my wife and that's what I'll do. You see, sometimes when we don't understand the next steps, when we don't see the full picture, rather than obediently taking the next step, often times when we're overstressed, we simply just freeze. You ever been there before? You freeze emotionally. You freeze physically. You just you can't move because you know why you can't move? Because you want to know the next three or four steps before you take the first step. And here's what I know. God has never promised us in his 7,000 promises. He's never promised us he'll let us know what's down the road. He just says, "Trust me in your first step." And when the angel showed up and said, "Do not be afraid." The angel did not promise the days ahead would be easy or not difficult. You see, peace comes not from denying danger, but it comes from trusting God in the middle of the danger. The peace comes when you're looking out there going, "I don't even see it all and what I see is really scary, but God, I'm trusting you and I will take the first step." And so here we look at Joseph in this beautiful thing that we call the Christmas story. But when you really step into the story, it may not feel as beautiful to Joseph back then as it seems to us today. But somehow in the middle of it, he found the peace. Somehow in the middle of it, he experienced everything that God wanted him to experience. And as we reflect on the life of Joseph and we reflect and look at it through the filter at our own lives and the circumstances and we look at the stress and we look at the problems of what we're experiencing. Here's what I want us to know, church, that you and I can experience peace just like Joseph did. See, the whole reason we do Advent, Advent is more than celebrating the birth of Jesus. Advent is even looking at the second coming of Jesus, knowing that Jesus came for us. And there's peace in that. There's a story about a little boy that was on a commercial flight by himself. And he was only seven or eight years old, but it was obvious that people sitting around him that that he was on this flight by himself. And so as people just kind of watched him, made sure he got his snacks, made sure he got his drinks coming by, all of a sudden the plane started hitting this turbulence, some pretty severe turbulence. the kind of turbulence that if you're flying on that flight, not only do you like buckle the seat belt better, you're looking over at the flight attendant to see what kind of expression they have on their face to give you a little bit of peace in the moment. And so the adults sitting around here, they were nervous, they were scared. It was obvious everybody around them, but this little boy just smiled, kind of kicked his feet up, looked like he was having a great time, and everybody's kind of scared and they're looking at him and he's still having fun, but they're just so so terrified on this flight because of the tur turbulence. And finally the flight got out of the turbulence and things settled down. And the flight attendant walked around everybody to make sure they were okay. And one little old lady sitting next to this little boy looked over and said, "Listen, we were scared to death. Weren't you scared?" And the little boy smiled. He puffed up his chest and said, "I was never scared. My daddy's the pilot. My daddy's taking care of me. Here's what I want you to know. As we enter into Advent season, our daddy's the pilot. As as we think about um just celebrating the holidays, don't let the stress push out the reason we celebrate the holidays.

Our daddy is the pilot. I'm gonna ask the band to come back up here. And as we wrap up, one of the things that we're doing each week in our Advent series, Welcome Christmas, is we're lighting the Advent candles. Last week, we lit the candle of hope. Um, today we're going to light the candle of peace. Now, here's what I want us to do. So many times, if you've grown up lighting Advent candles, it becomes just another tradition that you do in the host of Christmas celebration. Yeah, we light this candle this week and we light this candle this week and we light the other candle the next week and we don't really take the time to think about the candles. The candle of peace. And here's what I love about it. Each week as we go through Advent, another candle that gets lit, another candle gets lit. And here's what it symbolically does. As we light more candles, the light of the candle and candles drives out the darkness that life can present. And so as we light the second Advent candle today, as we welcome Christmas, but more than welcome Christmas, we invite Jesus to be right in the center of it. I'm going to invite you to take a moment to pause.

Whatever situation that so tries to crowd the pauses of your life out, will you take just a moment and welcome the peace of Jesus? In fact, I'm just going to ask you, would you close your eyes right there? Just take a moment. The peace of Jesus.

Just invite him in.

you'll now look up here and join me as we light the candle of peace. So Jesus, we come before you now

and we invite you not just into this room, we invite you into our lives this holiday season.

And we confess that we let the business of life, we let the circumstances of life, we let the conflict with people, we let the expectations of day-to-day crowd you out. So in this moment, we invite you in,

Jesus. We welcome your peace.

A peace that only you can bring.