When Life Doesn't Make Sense

Well it is so good to be back in town and with you. Why don't you grab your message notes that look like this as we continue our Christmas series, Fear Not, Messages of the Christmas Angels. In this series we are looking at every single angelic appearance in the Christmas story and let me start kind of with something lighthearted here this morning.

You know I am so thankful that we have the internet because we have this amazing multi-billion dollar technology which exists so that you and I can spend time researching on sites like awkwardfamilypictures.com. This is a fascinating site because you can find actual family Christmas photographs that were tucked into actual Christmas cards and somebody scanned these and put them all on this site and these are all just, well they are just awkward. If you know what I mean this is why would somebody put this in their Christmas card?

What is wrong with that guy's neck? I love so many of these like this one, what is this picture saying? We traveled all the way to the front yard to chop down this festive shrub, you know? I love this picture because everybody is having fun with dad's idea for the Christmas picture except for a little sister who wants to kill someone. That whole thing was kind of a theme, there is always one party pooper in every picture right? Or more than one like in this vintage photo.

There is so much to look forward to this Christmas and I actually do not know where to begin with this one. There is just so much wrong here. Merry Christmas from me and my monkey and this is what you two would look like if you waited all year long for a GI Joe and what you got was a Mr. Coffee. Now this next one is kind of a personal favorite, I love this picture, just look at this for just a second. And you just know that they were at this for half an hour and this was the best photograph they got.

Little kids screaming and you know grandpa is going "have we got the picture yet for crying out loud?" He is dripping with holiday spirit there. But finally this is my ultimate favorite and you know why? This is the Spurlock family. Those two boys, that's Mark on the left and that's Paul Spurlock, two of our pastors right there. Paul is apparently seething with anger because somebody cut his tie. Awkward family pictures.

Well you can say there is a very awkward family picture of the very first Christmas family in the book of Matthew 1. In fact it's about as awkward as a family portrait can get. This in fact is Rembrandt's painting of the family portrait that we're going to look at this morning and I think he totally nails how awkward it was.

I love how in Rembrandt's painting Mary is in the light. She is serene. Why? Because as Mark brilliantly pointed out last weekend she's already heard from the angel. She knows what is happening. She's at peace. She's relaxed. In fact in this picture it shows the baby already born and Rembrandt meant that to be an expression of Mary's thoughts. You see in Mary's mind she sees her baby boy born.

But meanwhile there's Joseph and this was intended to portray the moment before he hears from the angel. The angel is bending over him almost ready to speak to him. But at this moment Joseph is literally in the dark. Troubled. Confused. Head in hands. Why? Because his fiancée, the woman he was betrothed to, Mary is pregnant and he knows the baby is not his. And to make it worse now Mary's saying things about an angel appearing to her.

And that the angel told her that this baby is born of the Holy Spirit and it doesn't make sense. Look at that picture. Maybe you can relate to that expression on his face because maybe you look like that this week. You got a doctor's report and it's not good. And your whole life you've lived so healthy and now this and it doesn't make sense.

Or layoffs were announced at work. Probably including you right before the holidays. And you've given your heart and soul to this company. And now this and it doesn't make sense. Or maybe there's a relationship in your life and it's not working out and strangely it seems like there's an inverse relationship to how much you work on the relationship and how bad it seems to be getting. The more you work on it the worse it seems to get.

And you just feel like Joseph looks like you just got punched in the gut. Well this morning I want to look at Joseph's story and I want to talk about what do you do when life just doesn't make sense. What do you do when you're going through something like Joseph went through in this story and you just don't know what to do.

Let's zoom in on this story a little bit starting in Matthew 1:19. The Bible says because Joseph her husband, Mary's husband. Now in this culture they had something called betrothal where for a year before the couple moved in together in marriage they were still considered husband and wife but they lived separately. They had no marital relations but that betrothal period could only be broken by divorce.

All right. So Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace now that she's found to be expecting a baby. And he had in mind to divorce her quietly. Now stop right there for just a second. Because we can hear this verse and it's got the pledge of allegiance factor blah blah blah blah blah because we've heard it a million times.

But in reality there are truths here that are so rich if we'll just pause for a moment before we get into the outline and really investigate this. For example who really was Joseph? You know the Bible doesn't really tell us much about him but here is what we know. In Matthew 13:55 it says he was a carpenter which we imagine means a guy who works with wood. But actually the Greek word there is tech tone which means a craftsman specifically somebody involved in building things.

Now let me ask you a question. In that area Israel in the mid-east what was the primary material that people would use for building things? What was it? Shout it out. It was stone. It wasn't wood. And so that image of Joseph in a carpenter's shop is probably not very accurate. He was more likely a stone worker.

And in fact with that in mind we now know where Joseph probably worked during Jesus's childhood. You see Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth which was not then considered to be a very high class place to be from. It was really decaying. It had a lot of crime. It had a bad reputation. And so the Roman government decided to build a new neighborhood just a few miles away named Sephorus and it would be gleaming and beautiful and it wouldn't have Nazareth's problems.

And Sephorus has beautiful ruins that you can visit today. In fact we're planning to go there on our church's real trip in April. There was a large Jewish neighborhood in Sephorus. There was a synagogue there. And so there's a very good chance historians say that this is the place that if a man named Joseph was a tech tone, a stone worker in those days, he was getting work right here.

In fact we might be looking at some of his stone work in these pictures. Now why bring this up? Well the picture the Bible paints is this. Joseph was in the trades. Yet he was a blue collar guy like some of us. It was like he was a roofer or a plumber or a sheetrock guy. The point is this all happened in the real world not some fairy tale. These were not stained glass window people.

He wasn't even like a typical Bible profession like a shepherd or a prophet or somebody who wore you know some kind of a weird robe and a staff. He was a contractor of some sort. And then it says he was a righteous man. That phrase is a technical expression. In Hebrew the same expression was a single word, sadeek. Say that with me. Sadeek.

This word meant that Joseph was righteous according to the strictest interpretation of Torah, the Jewish religious law. Whatever Torah said, Joseph did. These days we would say that Joseph was a religious fundamentalist. He hewed to the most literal interpretation of his religion. Every little rule he followed as perfectly as he could.

But he was sadeek with a problem. Because guess what the Torah says to do in his situation. If a woman pledged to be married was found with child and the fiancé was not the father, Deuteronomy 22:21 says she should be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of the town shall stone her to death. And this is causing Joseph agony.

It's not just about oh my fiancée is expecting. It's about this rule. Even though his whole life he has lived strictly by the letter of the law, he just now cannot bring himself to lead the parade to Mary's father's house. And so he decides on option B. He says well I want to divorce quietly.

By the time first century came around this had become a legal option so that people didn't have to be stoned to death. You know if you were like a liberal you kind of opted for this. But I love the fact that this very modern word divorce intrudes into the Christmas story. This is Joseph and Mary. This is Joseph and Mary who posed together in your little nativity set and a few months before that scene with Jesus and the straw they were not on good terms and they were saying we are getting a divorce.

Don't miss that. Again not stained glass people this happened in the real world. And I think that at this point this is about as gracious as Joseph can imagine being as a sadeek man to go out on a limb and say all right I'm not going to require that you're stoned to death but you've got to move away and quietly have the baby and live your own life. But I want nothing to do with that.

But then God asks this man to go a step beyond law to grace because look what happens. But after he had considered this an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said Joseph son of David do not be afraid. Now we've seen so far in this series every single time an angel appears to somebody in the Christmas story this is their lead phrase. Fear not. That's why we call the series. Fear not. Do not be afraid.

But they always say this to the characters in the story for a different reason. Their motivation is always different. So what's the reason that they're saying do not be afraid to Joseph? What would Joseph have been afraid of? What do you think? What people might say right. But even more so Joseph would have been afraid of offending God.

Joseph a man who just did the right thing his whole life would have been afraid. Am I doing something that God can't bless? And so the angel says don't be afraid to take Mary home as your wife because what's conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She'll give birth to a son and you're to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.

I never used to understand why there was that because there. But then I discovered that the name Jesus means Jehovah saves. His name was his mission. So Joseph goes beyond just sadeek righteousness and in his culture would be showing a lot of grace to Mary to bring her in and say I'm going to raise this child as my own and I'm going to love her as my wife no matter what other people say about this.

And they did talk. The gospels talk about this later. There were rumors swirling around about the circumstances of Jesus's death. And personally I like to think that when Jesus later on in the Sermon on the Mount said your righteousness needs to surpass that of the Pharisees your sadeek ness needs to go beyond that of the Pharisees. I think he might have been thinking of his earthly dad whose righteousness went far beyond just the letter of the law and extended into a real godlike generosity of spirit and grace.

Now this is not the only time an angel appears to Joseph. Joseph actually gets three different visits from angels during the Christmas story more than anybody else. And they always come at three different times in his life when his life just seems to be going upside down and not making sense. And his responses to the angels show you and me four traits of a consistent God follower.

You see I want to live like Joseph. I want to be a man like Joseph. I want to obey God like Joseph. And the more I learn and you learn to obey God with his kind of simple gracious faith the more of an impact for God you and I can make even when the world doesn't seem to be making sense. So jot these down. How do I obey like Joseph?

Number one do it now. Obey immediately when God asks you to do something. Do it now. The Bible says when Joseph woke up watch what happened. He did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. He got up he did it. Like Psalm 119:60 says and Joseph as a tzedik man would have been very familiar with this. Let's read this out loud together. It's on the screen. It's in your notes. Let me hear you. I will hasten and not delay to obey your commands.

Now why is this a smart way to live? Because correct me if I'm wrong but the longer you wait to obey God the harder it gets. Right. The Bible says in 1 John that God's commands are not burdensome but if you're honest they feel burdensome sometimes don't they? Why is that? Well one reason is this. We delay.

Let me give you one example. Let's say you've said something snarky to somebody in your office. Some kind of jab and the Holy Spirit prompts you. You really should go apologize to them and you think right I will go and apologize to them and you're walking up to their office and you think tomorrow I will apologize to them. The timing would be much better than let me ask you if you wait a day does it get easier or does it get more difficult? It gets more difficult. That's right. So Joseph's example is do it now.

Every single time God tells him to do something it says he got up and he did it. Obey immediately. Second thing I can learn from the life of Joseph keep on trusting. Keep on trusting. A lot of people are very good at the first point. Do it now. Immediate. They jump right into things but they're not very good at keeping on keeping on and Joseph was good at both and I want to be good at both.

The Bible says but he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son and he gave him the name Jesus. Wait a second no union with her until birth. This went on for months. Now Joseph was a young man. Some of you are young men. Some of you remember what it was like to be a young man. He desired his wife every day of his life but to protect the prophecy that a virgin would give birth to a son he had no union with her until she gave birth.

This definitely was not the early marriage Joseph had planned. It was not the honeymoon Joseph had planned but he kept on trusting even though it seemed to not make sense but he trusted what the angel had told him. I love what the Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:8 about times like this. Let's read this out loud together too. Let me hear you. We are perplexed because we don't know why things happen as they do but we don't give up and quit.

I want you to circle two phrases. Circle don't know why and circle don't give up. So many times in my life I feel like I'm holding on to both of these truths at the same time don't you? I don't know why but I choose to not give up. I still don't know why. A lot of things happen in my life the way they did. None of us do. We're not God but I don't give up.

Why? Because I know this there is a God who knows why these things happened and there's a God who loves me and he has a plan for me that stretches into eternity so I'm going to choose to keep on trusting even when I'm in the dark. Listen maybe you're facing a situation right now and it doesn't make sense and you're waiting for an explanation you're waiting to figure it out. Let me just tell you something it may never make sense and you've got basically two choices.

You can look at what you think God owes you or you can look at what you know God gives you. You can look at what you think God owes you or you can look at what God gives you. You can either say to God God you owe me an explanation for this. Good luck. Or you can say God thank you for what you've given me. I choose to trust in you. That's what Joseph did so what are you gonna do?

How do obey like Joseph? Do it now. Keep on trusting and number three stay flexible. You gotta stay flexible if you want to obey God. After the baby is born when they the wise men had gone an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. Get up he said. Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.

And so once again right away he got up took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt where he stayed until the death of Herod. Here God says for your own good literally move on. Move from your comfort zone. Israel this is as it's a deep man this was Joseph's whole identity. He's leaving his religion you know area. His the birthplace of his faith. He's leaving the place of his citizenship.

He's leaving the place where he knows all the customs and he has him just dialed and he's moving way out of his comfort zone to pagan Egypt. But it's for the family's good and sometimes God's going to move you out of your comfort zone for your good. Now I don't like this part but God sometimes interferes with our plans in big ways.

Some of you know I just got back from a great week at Oxford England visiting our daughter Elizabeth. She's studying there for a year and we had a blast as she showed me around town. In fact here's a picture of the two of us last Sunday morning. We were on the way to her church together here in this picture and I just had a great time and I'm so thankful that Mark could preach for me while I was out there visiting with her.

But I had an interesting experience one afternoon Elizabeth had to go to a lecture and so I just kind of walked around Oxford on my own and I went up in this ancient tower, Carfax Tower it's called, and it had a great view of the city and while I'm up there I see a huge parade coming my way down the street. I thought wow cool a parade and so I took out my cell phone I took this video with my phone so you can see what I was experiencing.

There they come right toward me right down the street. Drummers and people chanting and holding up banners and I at first thought it was some kind of like a Christmas or Thanksgiving Day parade or something and then they came right to the foot of the tower and I thought they'd turn the corner but they stopped and they kept banging their drums and shouting chants and stuff but they stopped at the foot of the tower that I was leaning over looking down.

And all like 3,000 people were all chanting and drumming and looking up at me just standing up there. And I said will the ushers please come forward we will take the offering right now. No I didn't say that. I wondered why they were all staring up at me what's what's going on here right and suddenly a man bursts onto the top of the tower shouting something like occupy, occupy, occupy Oxford and he throws over the side of the tower a banner that's all these bed sheets that were stitched together and he had spray painted some sort of a slogan on this and it went furlong all the way down the tower and all the people on the street are looking up at me and this guy we were the only people up in this tower and they're all cheering and they're drumming their drums more frantically.

And the problem with the banner was that it was it was about maybe as wide as this speaker to that speaker and the guy's arms weren't long enough to completely unfurl it and so it just kind of ended up kind of curled down the side of the tower and whatever he had written on it you couldn't really read it looked like the Cyrillic alphabet or something like it said miska blabe or something that we couldn't understand and so he's like oh oh and he looks at me standing over there he goes might might take this and stretch the banner we'll just stretch the banner occupy and I look at him and I said dude I'm just a tourist from Santa Cruz man I did no kidding.

And he goes come on mate come on do a friend a favor and I said uh I don't think I want to get involved and he starts cussing me out just royally and while this is going three thousand people on the street are going looking up at us I'm thinking how do I get myself into these situations seriously and I looked at him I said was this seriously your plan three thousand of your friends were out down there and you couldn't come up with one of them to the tower that he just swears at me more and then in that instant a policeman bursts through the top of the tower door and he goes all right you lock off with you and now I'm getting arrested and I said dude dude I'm just a tourist I'm trying to really put on the American accent thick I'm from Santa Cruz dude I'm not from these parks now I'm untying look I'm untying a dude untying the thing and people realize I'm not on their side and there's like shouting pitchforks like this in the air finally the cop leads the guy away the banner is down the crowd is dispersing and the guy says to the cop wait a minute wait a minute and the banner guy comes up over to me and he says hey mate sorry about the language they don't want to make a tourist uncomfortable.

And at that moment I knew I'm no longer in Santa Cruz but I thought to myself seriously all I want is to have an afternoon where I can relax and be anonymous and not be in the center of attention next morning I opened up the front page of the oxford newspaper and the picture of the protest was on the front page of the oxford paper and I thought I just wanted to be an anonymous tourist you know go about my own business and I was thinking about this experience and I thought I bet joseph felt much the same way.

I built joseph's plans for life where listen I just want to work and get married and settle down and have babies and I don't want to be the center of anybody's attention you know I'm just kind of this blue collar righteous man and god says well change of plan joseph you are now center stage in the primary drama in human history and joseph could have said hey I want to wash my hands of this I don't want anything to do with it kind of like zechariah did a couple of weeks ago and instead he's like all right god if you tell me to do it I'm gonna take a risk and I'm gonna do it.

And guess what in many ways god says something similar to you and to me right we have our own plans we have our own desires for our life but at certain strategic moments god steps in and says guess what you're part of my plan for redeeming the world and so I want you to do this now one thing's for certain life is going to be different from what you have planned god is going to stretch you so stay flexible.

In fact part of god's plan is to make you uncomfortable why? Because when you stay comfortable you don't grow so obey like joseph do it now keep on trusting stay flexible and then finally joseph appears from the angel a third time and he learns that sometimes obeying god means I take a risk I take a risk.

The Bible says after Herod died an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said get up take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel for those who are trying to take the child's life are dead. I think how scary this must have been for joseph there has been a mass murderer of infants in the very place we're now in this dream the angel is telling you to return if the dream is wrong he is taking his family back into danger but he totally trusts god because the first two times you know it worked out and so he takes another risk and he moves back to Israel.

I want you to ask yourself this question when was the last time I took a risk because of my faith when was the last time you took a risk because of your faith a big risk or a little risk maybe the big risk of moving to a new place or taking on a new ministry or maybe a little risk of inviting neighbors to the christmas concert or the christmas candlelight services the little risk of picking up the phone and calling somebody who maybe needs a word of encouragement.

Now let me explain what I mean by risk when I say take a risk every time I talk about risk in a sermon some people just go nuts and you end up talking to them six months later why did you do that because you said take a risk so let me just explain here there are three kinds of risks number one there's crazy risk right I'm gonna go to vegas I'm gonna put everything I got on lucky number seven because that's god's favorite number that's not a risk that's just stupidity all right then there's calculated risk in business in finance there are calculated risks that you have to take at times and sometimes they pay off and sometimes they don't but and they're fine but that's not the kind of risk I'm talking about right now what I'm talking about is christ like risk.

Christ like risk what is christ like risk taking the risk to love somebody that other people reject or taking the risk to forgive somebody that you feel didn't deserve forgiveness of course forgiveness is never deserved but it's a risk to forgive you know when you take that third kind of risk it opens up a brand new joy in life it opens up a brand new level of life experience.

So let's wrap this up how does all this apply to you and me? Well if you're a human you've stood where joseph stood haven't you when life just doesn't make sense maybe you feel that way head and hands confused in the dark right now or maybe you're sitting you're going you know i'm doing fine i'm not in the dark either way every one of these four points applies this is how to obey god and make an impact with your life obey quickly consistently flexibly and daringly that right there that's how to live like a history maker that's how to make an impact.

But don't miss something here I want you to think back on every single time the angel appears to joseph and notice one similarity every single time god through the angel gives joseph the big picture and he gives him the next step he always gives him the big picture jesus is the savior and the next step take mary home is your wife or flee to egypt or come back home big picture next step.

What god does not do is tell joseph all of the intermediate steps he does not say and he never says oh and by the way you're gonna have to go to betlam for a census when she's almost ready to give birth it's gonna be a drag you gotta find a donkey and there's gonna be no room in the end there's gonna you're gonna have to find a stable good luck with that and wise men are gonna show up with their weird pointed hats you're gonna get frankenstein she wonder what it is don't eat it and apparently there's a lot of stuff that joseph just has to kind of figure out on his own right it's in the story but god never directs joseph a lot of those places god gives joseph the big picture and the next step and then joseph has to connect the other dots very little intermediate information.

And you know what that's exactly how god operates with you and me he gives you and me the big picture i'm saving the world by my grace and life is operated best by grace and it gives you the next step so when you're going through something that doesn't make sense say god i don't understand why am i going through this it doesn't make sense but i know you understand it that's the Romans 8:28 big picture so god what is just the next thing for me to do god would you show me how to act in this situation and god doesn't always tell you the specific steps like where you should move like he did to joseph but he always shows you how you should be compassionate gracious forgiving restful.

You might say well one of the big difference i don't have the words of an angel to tell me the next step like joseph did maybe not but you got something better you got the words of jesus who says anybody who hears these words of mine and obeys them as like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

So what is in the bible that you know god wants you to do next forgive somebody it's been on your mind or rest jesus said to his disciples come away with me by yourselves and take a rest and that's the next thing for you or maybe it's you're going to persevere and work hard and pray through it whatever god showing you is the next thing do it now that's the bottom line.

When i look at joseph's example i may not know everything but i can do the next thing i may not know everything but i can do the next thing i want to make something clear here think back over all of the angel appearances in the christmas story to zechariah to mary today to joseph and on christmas eve we'll look at the appearance to the shepherds and i want you to notice the angel's message is never behave right the message of the angels is never i have a message from god work hard to improve yourselves try harder and i want to make this clear because the sermon today if i'm not careful could be misinterpreted as try harder be better obey harder but the angel's message is never behave it's believe believe in what god is at work doing and then your trust in god influences your faithful choices am i right do you see the difference?

The angels just are announcing god is on the move now what is your response to that you can disbelieve like zechariah did mark talked about that two weeks ago and your disbelief can move you into delay and freeze you into inaction or you can trust and obey like joseph and mary did.

Someone let me close with this this morning do you recognize yourself in joseph in that picture of joseph we started out today talking about family portraits so let me show you one more this is a very famous fictional family portrait from the movie it's a wonderful life show of hands how many of you seen this movie it's a wonderful life all right it's a classic down right do you remember shout it out if you do what's the name of the littlest girl that jimmy stewart is holding what's that zuzu that's right zuzu's petals little zuzu was played by a woman named carolyn grimes carolyn is now 71 years old here she is today and she was so little when she was in the movie she wasn't even six years old that she forgot she was ever in it.

Here's her story she was featured in an article in the washington post this last week she had lived just around the corner from the studio when she was little and her parents used to bring her there to be an extra in movies she remembers that vaguely but when she was still a little kid her mom died of early onset alzheimer's and less than a year later her father died in a car crash and so as an orphan little carolyn who had played zuzu was sent to live with a super legalistic religious aunt and uncle who lived in the midwest and they thought it was unchristian to ever even go see a movie and so they never let her see it's a wonderful life and in fact she forgot all about it.

She got married very young but her first husband died in a hunting accident got married again her second husband died of cancer and at age 39 she was a single mom raising seven kids two of her daughters were teen mothers themselves and then one of her sons when he was 18 years old took his own life at that moment she says she found herself whispering a prayer to god praying to god even though she left christianity behind because of the the way her legalistic aunt and uncle had sort of pushed her away but still her life had gotten so desperate that she was whispering a prayer to god father help me.

And it was then in that moment in her kitchen december 1979 out of the corner of her eye she saw a black and white movie playing on tv because of the 1970s the studio had let the copyright lapse and suddenly tv stations could play this movie for free and she sees it on the tv screen and she recognizes herself and realizes hey that's me and she says she was swept away by a story she had never heard before riveted when her movie dad george bailey prays to god for help she found herself thinking that's my story i've been praying those same words father help me my life is not making sense.

Well since then she's made a livelihood of her connection to the movie but she says she relates to that movie because everybody does. I want you to listen to this quote from her she says everybody has some sorrow and worry and everybody asks god for help maybe not in a church at christmas maybe in martini's bar but one way or another we all do.

There's times for all of us when life just doesn't make sense she says that prayer in that movie is a universal prayer. Well maybe in a way you have had her experience this morning because as I've been talking about this you've seen this scene in the christmas story and like her when she saw herself in the movie you've looked at joseph hanging his head in his hands here and you've thought hey man that's me god has been doing some weird stuff in my life and it doesn't make sense and i'm confused and i feel like i'm in the dark.

Well now this morning I believe god has given you a message through the angel in this story and his message is this big picture jesus christ has come to be your savior from your sin and he's got a plan for you and he's got a purpose for your life and now he says do you believe that do you trust that then let your trust in him lead you the rest of the way step by step.

As I said maybe you're already a believer and you know what god has been asking you to do right now do it now take the risk but maybe you're new to all of this and you just kind of came with some friends because it's christmas time and what you're sensing in your spirit right now is that the next step for you is to simply place your faith in jesus christ who came to save you from your sin and give you a purpose for living.

I'd urge you to take the risk and take that first step right now. Let's pray together. Let's all bow our heads with your head bowed just listen to me for a moment have you been praying to god father help well he's here to help you first place your trust in the big picture he loves you so much that he came to rescue you in jesus christ and he has a plan for you that stretches all the way into eternity you have a purpose in your life and you say no not me i'm disqualified there's so much water under the bridge well he came to save you from your sins.

Maybe just pray lord thank you so much for your love and grace i don't understand it all but as much as i understand i want to place my trust today in the christ of christmas in his death on that cross in his resurrection power god thank you help me to follow you step by step from now on or maybe you prayed that prayer quite a while ago in your life and you just want to say god i want to trust and obey like joseph thank you god that you leave some of the intermediate steps up to us to figure out but you give us the big picture you give us the essential next step so god guide me and lead me i choose to say this morning with joseph i have decided to follow you i have decided to follow jesus.

In your name we pray amen.