SPEAKER_00: You know, this morning I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you before we even start the sermon the punchline.
SPEAKER_00: You're not supposed to do that, you're supposed to save it.
SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, is that it's so prevalent in this text.
SPEAKER_00: And that's that in in life where our plans fail, God's plan prevails.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I'm gonna come really clear through the story of Joseph in just a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a shortened version, so if you needed to get home, you could know.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read through the text and and let's see how it plays out.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew chapter 1, starting in verse 18, says this.
SPEAKER_00: This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.
SPEAKER_00: His mother was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Because Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
SPEAKER_00: But after he considered 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 home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: She will give birth to a son, and you were to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.
SPEAKER_00: All of this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet.
SPEAKER_00: And they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us.
SPEAKER_00: When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded, and he took Mary home as his wife, but he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son, and he gave him the name Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we ask that you would use these verses today to teach us something of your plan, of your heart, of your control, of your power to resurrect our failed lives, and that when things are falling apart around us and our plans are breaking, teach us to have faith that your plan is never thwarted.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we come into this, and it's very simple.
SPEAKER_00: We start this passage with an engagement that then becomes shattered.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, reality is a man's plans are shattered.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph, a man, was engaged to a young woman.
SPEAKER_00: He intended to marry her, and then it all crumbles right before his eyes.
SPEAKER_00: It just crumbles.
SPEAKER_00: Once he learns, she's pregnant.
SPEAKER_00: And it that's it.
SPEAKER_00: It's that simple.
SPEAKER_00: A man's plans are shattered at the start of this.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't have all the details.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have all the explanation of how he found out, when he found out, how long it took him to wrestle through what was going on, when he came to the conclusion that he would divorce her quietly, as opposed to bring her out and disgrace her publicly.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have all the details.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, we don't have a lot other than a man's plans are shattered.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to tell you, as someone who had to preach this text, I was frustrated with the fact that we didn't have the other details.
SPEAKER_00: I wanted the details.
SPEAKER_00: You can preach the details, right?
SPEAKER_00: They give you holes to fill in, timelines to construct, conclusions to make.
SPEAKER_00: And I first thought when I was going to preach today, I'll teach Joseph's story.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought that'll be simple.
SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't as simple as I wanted because I wanted details that weren't there.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, did Mary tell Joseph she was pregnant?
SPEAKER_00: Or did he hear from townspeople that were spreading rumors?
SPEAKER_00: Or did her parents sit him down?
SPEAKER_00: Or did it just wait till she started to show?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, who knows?
SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say.
SPEAKER_00: All it says is that he was pledged to be married to her.
SPEAKER_00: It says, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: She was found to be with child.
SPEAKER_00: No conversations.
SPEAKER_00: No, she told him.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have an explanation.
SPEAKER_00: If she talked to him, did she try to go, no, no, no, Joseph, you don't understand.
SPEAKER_00: An angel came and told me this was going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: And is he going, oh yeah, right?
SPEAKER_00: An angel told you.
SPEAKER_00: No, you know, is there disbelief?
SPEAKER_00: Is there an argument?
SPEAKER_00: Is there crying?
SPEAKER_00: Is it I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I'm imagining how he would have responded in each circumstance, depending on how he heard.
SPEAKER_00: How long did it take him to conclude that he was going to divorce her quietly after he heard the news?
SPEAKER_00: Minutes?
SPEAKER_00: Days?
SPEAKER_00: Months?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I want to know.
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to figure these things out because I thought if I could figure out his circumstances, I could better understand how to preach this passage.
SPEAKER_00: So I worked at piecing it together.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, you know, scripture's broad, there's a lot going on.
SPEAKER_00: Let's compare some of the other passages.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to Luke and look at the accounting in Luke and see what we learn about when the angel visited Mary.
SPEAKER_00: See, Mary had the benefit of an angel telling her what was going to happen before it happened.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph didn't have that benefit.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph didn't get visited by an angel until after he found out she was pregnant.
SPEAKER_00: Might have been easier if an angel came and said, Hey, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: This is going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: But it didn't.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: So I go to Luke and I learn in Luke that when the angel visits Mary, he tells Mary that her cousin, Elizabeth, is pregnant and that she's in her six months of pregnancy.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going, okay, so six months of pregnancy there.
SPEAKER_00: She's pregnant with John the Baptist inside of her womb.
SPEAKER_00: And it then says, after the angel visited Mary, that she went with haste to the hill country of Judea to visit Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so with haste.
SPEAKER_00: So she probably left town quickly.
SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of confirmed because it then says that Mary visited Elizabeth for three months.
SPEAKER_00: And if if you take the fact that she visited Elizabeth for three months, and then it says that she went home, and after she went home, it says in Luke, that Elizabeth gave birth.
SPEAKER_00: So you take, if Elizabeth was six months pregnant when Mary found out, and Mary visited her for three months before she gave birth.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we have nine months, which could only have been possible that she left before the baby was born if she had hightailed it out of town.
SPEAKER_00: So, so if you look at then what are the chances that she told Joseph before you let out of town, you piece these things together, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I still have no clue how Joseph found out.
SPEAKER_00: And I wanna know.
SPEAKER_00: This thing's making noises.
SPEAKER_00: I want to know.
SPEAKER_00: I want to know the details.
SPEAKER_00: I want to know the circumstance.
SPEAKER_00: Why doesn't God put it in here?
SPEAKER_00: Is this me making the noise?
SPEAKER_00: I don't am I doing something wrong?
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I want to know.
SPEAKER_00: I really, really, really want to know.
SPEAKER_00: But why isn't it here?
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't God know that if he gave me more details, I could preach it better?
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't he know that if I had circumstances to refer to, maybe I could do one of those cool narrative storytelling things that Pat did a couple of weeks ago and then I could look as cool as him, but I can't.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have enough details to tell you a story.
SPEAKER_00: And then I realized something.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have the circumstances around how all of this happened because this story isn't about Joseph's circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: This story is about his God who's in control of the circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't need to get bogged down in the details of human circumstance when there's a God in heaven telling Joseph and us, I've got this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in control.
SPEAKER_00: See, Joseph's plans have failed.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph planned to marry this woman and thought, you know, the life goes a certain way.
SPEAKER_00: You get married, you have a family, it goes on.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden she's pregnant before they're married.
SPEAKER_00: Now, a couple of interesting things we do have in the text, which just interesting.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot we don't have, but some things we do have.
SPEAKER_00: One, before they're married, it says Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but it refers to her, him as her husband, and says that he planned to divorce her quietly.
SPEAKER_00: In that culture, when an engagement happened, it was so strong that to break it required a divorce.
SPEAKER_00: Just an interesting cultural tidbit.
SPEAKER_00: It's different than our culture.
SPEAKER_00: But this was serious.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like they were dating, playing with the idea of getting married.
SPEAKER_00: They were getting married.
SPEAKER_00: This thing was gonna happen, and to break it required a legal contract.
SPEAKER_00: But if you look at Joseph's life and how he does respond to his plan falling apart, I find it interesting.
SPEAKER_00: Because it says that because he was a just man, and when I read it, it said righteous man, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: I read out of the NIV.
SPEAKER_00: If you were reading along with your Pew Bibles in the ESV, that might have confused you.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
SPEAKER_00: But in the in the NIV it says righteous man, in the ESV it says just man, and it says because he was just, he planned to divorce her quietly so as not to shame her.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going, why is that a just move, right?
SPEAKER_00: Why is it just?
SPEAKER_00: Just is where we get the term justice.
SPEAKER_00: They're part of the same root there.
SPEAKER_00: And justice under the law, if she had committed adultery, which he's assuming she did, by the way, and he had every reason to come to believe that she committed adultery, because every single other time on the planet Earth that a woman was with child, it came about because she'd come together with a man.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's assuming things are happening the way they've happened throughout all of history.
SPEAKER_00: And if she had committed adultery, the law would have allowed him to shame her, to stone her for committing adultery, to demand justice.
SPEAKER_00: So why does it say he was a just man for trying to handle it quietly so as not to shame her?
SPEAKER_00: I found that interesting.
SPEAKER_00: And so I looked at the word that's used, it's translated just or righteous there.
SPEAKER_00: And the Greek word there is de chaos.
SPEAKER_00: And if you look at this Greek word, dechios, it's often translated righteous or just.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, of the 79 times this word appears in the New Testament, 48 of those times, the New American Standard Version, translates it righteous.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going, what was righteous about this?
SPEAKER_00: But when you look deeper at the Greek word, you see that it bears this meaning of conforming to the standard, will, or character of God.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden I get it, because what conforms to the character of God more than showing mercy when you believe you've been wronged?
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden it makes sense why it says he was a Dekios man, a just man.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this isn't to say that Joseph is this great example that we follow.
SPEAKER_00: See, he was so good, so we should be good like Joseph because we know that we can't be good like Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: We know that Joseph wasn't inherently good.
SPEAKER_00: We know that if he came to this conclusion that it was because the Holy Spirit was already working on his heart.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, it was because of God's work in his life that he was conforming to the will of God.
SPEAKER_00: He was being conformed to the will of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so we see evidence, even before the angel tells him what's going on, that he is reflecting God's will.
SPEAKER_00: And in the face of his plans being shattered because he's submitting to God's will, because God is working in him, he does not throw a fit publicly.
SPEAKER_00: He does not drag her into the town square.
SPEAKER_00: He does not demand this justice, and he says, I'm gonna let it go.
SPEAKER_00: This is a man accepting when his plans fail, but we don't like to do that, do we?
SPEAKER_00: We don't like to accept.
SPEAKER_00: If things fall apart with what we had intended, we fight and scratch and claw to make it happen, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: We rail against our circumstances instead of turning to the God in control of our circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: So what does this mean for us, right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, when our plans blow up, which they will and they have, and they will again, what do we do?
SPEAKER_00: Because our lives fall apart, do they not?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you can say that you've never had your plans fall apart?
SPEAKER_00: Everything's gone exactly the way you intended from the day you were born.
SPEAKER_00: And this happens in small ways and big ways, right?
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's the dinner plans we had with old friends, and then the snowstorm comes and we can't get out, and so okay, well, those plans didn't work out.
SPEAKER_00: Where they get a little bigger, I talked to a young woman not long ago who was talking about when she was 16 years old, all she wanted to do was try out for American Idol, right?
SPEAKER_00: She just wanted to try out for American Idol, and her parents, she had a singing gift, and her parents were willing to support that, and they were gonna take her on a trip, had hotels booked and everything, to go to another city so she could try out for American Idol.
SPEAKER_00: And and the night before they left, they're reading the fine print of the terms and conditions, and she had to be 16 to try out, and so she was 16 and had just turned 16 right before she was gonna go try out.
SPEAKER_00: But if you read the fine print, she had to turn 16 before the first tryout city started, which was like a week before.
SPEAKER_00: And so they had to cancel their reservations and cancel their trips, and that's one example of our plan so now it gets more serious than that, though, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: A man and a woman get married with every intention to raise a family and they find out they can't have children.
SPEAKER_00: We swear when we have children, when they're not going to be raised in a house full of turmoil and drama like we were subjected to.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want them to know that, and then we find out maybe it's not that simple.
SPEAKER_00: The dream job we've been working at forever is always out of our grasp.
SPEAKER_00: And things fall apart right in front of us, and our plans don't come to fruition.
SPEAKER_00: That dream vacation that we want to go on, we finally get to go, and then right before we leave, major car repairs are needed.
SPEAKER_00: I say these things, and you can probably all identify similar situations that have happened in your lives or those close to you.
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is man's plans fail.
SPEAKER_00: Our plans will fail.
SPEAKER_00: But what we learn here is that God's plans never fail.
SPEAKER_00: God's plans prevail even when our plans fail.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, the failure of our plans are a part of God's plan, and he will use it to grow us to him and through him.
SPEAKER_00: And we see that in Joseph's life.
SPEAKER_00: We see this in the first chapter of Matthew in extreme ways.
SPEAKER_00: The entire first chapter of Matthew is screaming out God's plan cannot be stopped.
SPEAKER_00: God's plan cannot be stopped.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the genealogy that we went through with Luke last week as he taught us Matthew chapter 1 and the genealogy right before the story of Joseph, and it walks through the descendants of Jesus and it takes us through this giant roadmap that God's plan happened exactly how he said it would happen, exactly when he said it would happen, and nothing stopped him.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you like superhero movies?
SPEAKER_00: Anyone here?
SPEAKER_00: I love superhero movies, I love action movies.
SPEAKER_00: And inevitably, in every action movie or superhero movie, there's some scene where everything looks like it's hopeless, right?
SPEAKER_00: That you know, that the world's about to explode under threat of alien attack, or the damsel in distress is tied to the railroad tracks and the trains coming careening down.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: And everything looks completely hopeless, and then all of a sudden the hero of the story steps on the scene and goes, Don't worry, this is all going exactly as I planned.
SPEAKER_00: And at that moment we go, ah, and we sit back in our seat instead of on the edge and we breathe deeper.
SPEAKER_00: And why is that?
SPEAKER_00: Because we rest easier knowing a plan is in place.
SPEAKER_00: Plan makes us feel good.
SPEAKER_00: And Matthew chapter 1 in that genealogy is God looking at a macro view throughout the history of his people in a large scale across nations and travel and time, he protected his plan.
SPEAKER_00: And he walks through that entire entire genealogy.
SPEAKER_00: And as Luke pointed out, there were murderers, there were thieves, there were adulterers, there were baby killers, there were prostitutes in Jesus' family tree.
SPEAKER_00: And did any of that stop his plan?
SPEAKER_00: Do you think that their lives were going according to their plans when that was happening?
SPEAKER_00: When David was running for his life from Saul and the foothills of Israel?
SPEAKER_00: Do you think he was going, I think God's doing exactly as he planned?
SPEAKER_00: Well, sometimes he did and sometimes he didn't.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he was really sure of that, and sometimes he doubted and questioned.
SPEAKER_00: And in our lives, sometimes maybe we have an easier time trusting God and sometimes we don't.
SPEAKER_00: But you look at this genealogy and you say, if that couldn't stop God's plan, then what can?
SPEAKER_00: And while we have that macro view right before Joseph's story, Joseph's story serves as a micro view where we narrow into the details of one man's life.
SPEAKER_00: And in Joseph's lives as well, in each and every one of your lives, God is saying, I'm in control.
SPEAKER_00: My plan can't be stopped.
SPEAKER_00: Your plans fall apart, and not only am I still in control, but my plan is going to work out better than yours.
SPEAKER_00: And in the moment that life is destroying you, when you are depressed and hurt and broken and without hope and without answer, and the ones that you love are in pain and you're powerless to stop it.
SPEAKER_00: Do you stop to realize the promise that in this not only is God's plan not stopped, but his plan is going to work out better for you in the long run than what you think should happen?
SPEAKER_00: That's what we have.
SPEAKER_00: In Romans 8, 28, when God says, and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
SPEAKER_00: So when things in our life fall apart and are ruined, are we going to stop and realize that our hero is saying, Don't worry, this is all going exactly as I planned.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph's story at the end of this chapter provides this micro view that we get to see the details, and God sends an angel to visit Joseph in his dream and tells him that though your plans seem to be falling apart, God is actually using this to carry out his plans, and they're better than what you could have done for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And it says, After he had considered this, in other words, after Joseph had considered divorcing Mary, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.
SPEAKER_00: And this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet.
SPEAKER_00: And the angel lays this beautiful plan in front of Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: And Joseph, it says, obeys.
SPEAKER_00: It says, when Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded and took Mary home as his wife.
SPEAKER_00: But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son and he gave him the name Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have this beautiful story.
SPEAKER_00: This beautiful story about a man's plans failing and God's plans prevailing.
SPEAKER_00: And that man walks in trust of his Savior.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, Well, that's great, Craig.
SPEAKER_00: But Joseph had something I don't have, right?
SPEAKER_00: Joseph had a benefit I don't get to partake in, and that's that he sent an angel of the Lord in a dream to speak the very voice of God to him to tell him exactly what was going on.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if God was telling me audibly what I should be doing, then maybe it'd be easier for me to obey too.
SPEAKER_00: But in the midst of my turmoils, I don't get to hear the voice of God.
SPEAKER_00: God's words don't minister directly to me like they did to Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: Do they?
SPEAKER_00: Don't they?
SPEAKER_00: Is that not what we see in 2 Timothy 3.16, where it says, all scripture is God breathed, in other words, directly from the mouth of God?
SPEAKER_00: And we have our Bible and we sit there in our turmoil and it stays closed, and we don't seek his plan spelled out.
SPEAKER_00: And he has given us his word directly from his mouth the same way he did Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: So do we lean on it?
SPEAKER_00: Do we lean on his promise?
SPEAKER_00: Do we lean on the promise of 828?
SPEAKER_00: Do we lean Romans 8 28?
SPEAKER_00: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.
SPEAKER_00: Who have been called according to his purpose.
SPEAKER_00: And what is this plan that he's working out?
SPEAKER_00: What is this plan that isn't stopped?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the plan that he has for you and me is the same plan he had for the nation of Israel that we trace in the genealogy of Matthew 1.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the same plan that he's working through Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: And that is a plan that a loving, powerful God chose to love an unlovable, undeserving, sinful people, and that he gave his only son to do it.
SPEAKER_00: And it's what he did when he told Abraham that the nations would be blessed through his offspring, and the promise of the Messiah was born, and he looked forward to that moment, and everybody looked to the arrival of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And as Joseph sat there and the angel said, He's coming through you.
SPEAKER_00: And you will father the Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And now he looks at us and he says, My plan for you is the same, my son.
SPEAKER_00: It's a central point of all of human history.
SPEAKER_00: God's plan is the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It's the story of a perfect and loving God rescuing an imperfect and unlovable people and adopting them as his own children, despite the fact that we don't deserve it and our lives are a train wreck.
SPEAKER_00: If anything proves that God's love is not halted by our messed up lives, is that list of names at the beginning of Matthew?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' own family tree includes those murderers, prostitutes, and self-serving bunch of sinners that we talked about.
SPEAKER_00: And if you really think your mess-ups are gonna stop him after you look at what hasn't stopped him, then you're missing the big picture.
SPEAKER_00: And where your plans fail, God's plans prevail.
SPEAKER_00: That's love.
SPEAKER_00: That's God's plan.
SPEAKER_00: It was working itself out then, and it's working itself out now, and it's gonna keep working itself out until we sit in glory beside our Father in heaven with no pain, no failure to distract us from his goodness.
SPEAKER_00: And trust me, that plan is better.
SPEAKER_00: It's better than that perfect family you wish you had, or that perfect job you wish you had, or anything you can plan for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is when I'm dangerous up here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna stand like this, okay?
SPEAKER_00: The reality is that when our plans break, it's usually not as simple as our broken dinner plans.
SPEAKER_00: It breaks our heart.
SPEAKER_00: It breaks our spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It breaks our will.
SPEAKER_00: It takes away years of effort.
SPEAKER_00: It makes us feel hopeless and helpless.
SPEAKER_00: The ones we love are hurting and we're powerless to stop it.
SPEAKER_00: Circumstances beyond our croll control keep us locked into a life we wish we didn't have.
SPEAKER_00: We hurt.
SPEAKER_00: And that's when we need to realize that this story isn't about our circumstances, but about the God in control of them who brings these things into our lives to grow us, shape us, mold us, teach us that he's gonna be there when no one else will.
SPEAKER_00: And that his plan is better.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to close with a video.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do this a little differently.
SPEAKER_00: And after the video, we'll still have our usual closing song.
SPEAKER_00: But this is a song that's ministered to me this week.
SPEAKER_00: It's called Though You Slay Me.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a song written out of a place of pain, realizing that though there is pain in my life, though you've brought pain into my life, God, I mean, Joseph's engagement was broken because of God's choice, right?
SPEAKER_00: And though sometimes God may bring pain into our life, he does it for our good.
SPEAKER_00: He does work.