003 Joseph Was a Righteous Man

Believing that you're destined for heaven when you're not would be the most tragic self-deception. David Servant's book, The Great Gospel Deception, will help you be sure that heaven will be your eternal home. Order your copy at heavenword.tv. Okay, previously we were starting to look at the genealogy of Jesus Christ through his stepfather, Joseph, in Matthew chapter 1 through about verse number 17.

It is not my intention to try to read through this entire genealogy, other than to point out the fact, as I already have, that Jesus had the credentials, had the pedigree, for a lack of a better way of saying it, of the Messiah, because he was a direct descendant through both his mother and his stepfather, Joseph, of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and David. Right? And so that's very clear here. And as you read through this, a lot of really interesting names pop out.

If you've read through the Old Testament, this encompasses a lot of the Old Testament. We're starting with Abraham here, and that's going all the way back to Genesis chapter 11. We're going up through the time of David and the kings of Judah, and so on and so forth.

And right to verse number 17, where ... Well, let's read verse 16, we might as well read something here. Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah, the anointed one. Okay? So, clearly established where Jesus came from.

And that was very important to Jews, because he had to fulfill prophecy. But Jesus has a lot more credentials, doesn't he, than just the fact that he was a descendant of all the right people, because there were others who could have fit somewhere in this chronology. Right? Jesus had brothers and sisters, didn't he? The scripture makes that very clear, who had the same mother, of course, different father.

So they all had almost the identical lineage as he did. And if you work your way back further, of course, many more people could have fit this. But Jesus had much more credentials.

Of course, his miracles testified of him that he was the son of God. If he wasn't the son of God, he played the part better than anybody ever has. And so, as Matthew's finishing this, he says in verse 17, so all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations.

From David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, 14 generations. I think he wrote that really just to help people to memorize that, because there are a few folks missing actually from Jesus' genealogy here, and it's not exactly 14 in every case. That's not important.

That doesn't help us to make disciples, so we're not going to belabor that point. Now, we come to the next few verses as we close out in Matthew chapter one that tell about the birth of Christ. These verses have lost their punch, because we've heard them so often.

I'm just going to ask you for a moment just to pretend like you've never heard this story before, because it is a magnificent story. This is the entrance of the Messiah into our world. God became a man.

Think about that. It boggles the mind. There's tons of mystery involved, but it's a true story.

We read it every Christmas, but we're going to read it right now again. We see in verse number 18, now, the birth of Jesus was as follows, when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph. That is, she's engaged to be married.

Back in those days, engagement was a very, very serious thing. If you're engaged, of course, not lawful to consummate your marriage until actual marriage, but to get out of that engagement required a formal process, almost like a divorce. Betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.

Of course, Joseph didn't know that, but he notices his fiance is pregnant. That's why, in verse 19, it says, and Joseph, her husband, isn't that interesting that even at that point in time, he has called her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. Again, you've heard this story many times before, but I want to focus on something that maybe you haven't heard anyone talk about before, the fact that Joseph was called in scripture, inspired by the Holy Spirit, a righteous man.

We think of a righteous man as someone who keeps the law down to the last jot and tittle. We know that the law of Moses, in the book of Leviticus, it required adulteresses and adulterers to be stoned. That's what Joseph assumed, having no better knowledge, that she was guilty of.

He had every legal right to expose her and to demand the penalty of what the law prescribed. We don't really know if the Jews were even keeping those kind of prescriptions and stoning adulterers and adulteresses, but nevertheless, he didn't want to see her disgraced because he was a righteous man. We get a little insight into righteousness here that I think is really interesting.

Righteousness doesn't necessarily want sin to be exposed. Righteousness still is motivated by love. We know that God is righteous, right? There's nobody more righteous than God.

Well, is he instantaneously exposing every adulterer and every adulteress? Is he immediately killing every adulterer and every adulteress? No, he's not. No, he's not. He's being merciful to them.

He doesn't in any way compromise his holiness, but he gives them time to repent. He convicts them deep within their conscience to try to call them to repentance. He may send someone across their path who would share with them the word of God, that would make them even feel guilty again, and call them to repentance.

So he's merciful. Remember that time when that woman was caught in the act of adultery and brought before Jesus? Jesus played the part perfectly. The law called for stoning.

It was a law given by Jesus. But had Jesus stoned her yet? Had Jesus killed her yet? God already knew that she had committed adultery. No, he did exactly what God had been doing, showing her mercy, but calling her to repentance.

And so Joseph was a righteous man. He showed her mercy. He didn't want to see her disgraced.

But I might also point out that a lot of people think that love and mercy shows infinite toleration for anything. And that was not the case. Joseph still took action.

He was going to put her away, that is, divorce her, as it were, break off their engagement secretly. Secretly. Because love covers a multitude of sins.

And so we ought to follow that example. Follow the example of God, who's righteous. Follow the example of Joseph, who was a righteous man, showing mercy to others, not demanding the exactitude of the requirement of a law being met in them because we don't require it in ourselves.

We all want mercy. Okay? All right. Thanks so much.

See you next time.