So, we are going to look at Joseph. And not the Joseph of the Technicolour Dreamcoat, but Joseph, earthly father of Jesus. So I know it's not Christmas, and usually it's at Christmas that we go over these passages, but today that's who we're looking at. So Father's Day is one of those days that often carries a mix of emotions. For some, the day can be really joyful, full of gratitude and the making of memories.
But for others, it can be complicated by relationships that might be strained by distance, be it emotional distance or physical distance, or by a kind of silence that somehow seems louder on this day. And for some, this day can be downright painful because of loss or absence or a longing for something that never quite was. And then there are those who stepped into fatherhood in ways that they may not have planned: stepdads, adoptive dads, foster dads, grandfathers, teachers, mentors, all of which are examples of those who became what we might call bonus dads. So today we're gonna look at one of the most important and least talked about fathers in scripture, Joseph, the man who raised the Saviour of the world. So we can clearly see the massive impact that Joseph's faith had on God's plans.
And yet we don't really know that much about him. So think about it. Can you tell me something that Joseph is recorded as saying? Nope. I don't know.
[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] He didn't say it. Oh. Nice to pick up on that line though. Joseph never actually speaks, not once. In all of the Bible, which is filled with speeches and prayers and sermons and songs, Joseph is actually completely silent.
He never preaches a sermon, he never performs a miracle, not a single word of his is recorded in scripture. And yet he's not absent. Yet he was given the role of raising Jesus. So the little we do know about him we learn from a handful of verses in Matthew and Luke's Gospels. In Matthew we read that he learns about Mary's pregnancy, hears from God in a dream, chooses obedience.
There was that little blurp that Bethany mentioned in there. [LAUGHTER] Then later we find out that he takes his family and he flees to Egypt in the middle of the night, eventually he returns and he settles in Nazareth. And then in Luke we read that Joseph travels to Bethlehem for the census, that he presents Jesus at the temple, and that he makes the annual journey to Jerusalem where we see him searching for 12-year-old Jesus. And that's it. That's the entire picture.
No backstory, no personality profile, no final words, just moments, decisions, actions, and then he's gone. After Luke 2, Joseph disappears. By the time Jesus begins his public ministry, Joseph is not mentioned. At the wedding in Cana in John 2, we only read of Mary being present. And at the cross, Jesus entrusts his mother to John.
Most scholars assume that Joseph has died by this point. Why else would Jesus need to ensure his mother is taken care of and protected? Mm-hmm. That's also why some people have been led to believe that Joseph was much older, but just because he died doesn't mean he was, but that's a whole other story. But scripture doesn't actually explicitly tell us that he has died by that point of the cross.
And that silence can make the narrative feel like it's unfinished. We want more details. We want to know how his storey ends. But the Bible doesn't give us that. And in that absence of detail, Joseph's life reminds us of something important.
A person's impact is not found in how much they say or how visible they are or how many details of their storey are known. Our impact is found in our faithfulness in the moments that we are given. And this is the quiet power that we see in Joseph's life. Even though we know so little about him, what we do know is incredibly revealing. He obeyed God quickly.
He protected his family sacrificially. He showed up consistently. He lived faithfully without recognition. And in a world that tells all of us to build a platform, to make our voice heard, and to be seen and recognised, Joseph reminds us that a life of quiet faithfulness is never wasted in the hands of God. Thank you.
So you may feel unseen, you may feel like your role is small, and you may wonder if you're doing what really matters. But Joseph's life answers that question. It does. Because God is not just working through the loud and the visible, he's working through the faithful and the present. And maybe that's especially true for fathers, stepparents, caregivers, those who quietly invest in others.
People who may never get the title or the recognition, those who may never get the full storey told about them, but whose faithfulness shapes lives in ways only God can fully see. We may not know much about Joseph, but we know enough to see that his quiet, steady faithfulness helped make space for the Saviour of the world to grow. And that kind of life is never small or unimportant. Um, unimportant. But that kind of faith also doesn't happen just by accident.
It's refined in moments of decision when what is right and what is easy are not the same thing. And Joseph certainly had one of those moments, a moment where he shows us that obedience is more important than reputation. And we read about it in Matthew chapter 1, verses 18 to 25. This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about. His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.
Because Joseph, her husband, was faithful to the law and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. 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 to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 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. All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him, and he took Mary home as his wife.
But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son, and he gave him the name Jesus. So notice how Matthew, as the Gospel writer, begins his telling of the story. He starts in a straightforward way by saying, "This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about." But then he doesn't go on to tell about the birth. He doesn't give us the nativity. There's no mention of Mary's labour and delivery, and unlike Luke's Gospel, where we see the events unfolding from Mary's perspective, Matthew tells it all through Joseph's eyes.
So verse 18 lays out what has happened, and from there the focus turns to Joseph and how he processes and responds to the reality of Christ's conception. Joseph is the subject of most of the sentences in this passage. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Which means this isn't just a birth announcement. It's like a window into how one man wrestles with what God is doing. Joseph is engaged to Mary.
Life is moving in a normal, expected direction until it isn't. In a moment, everything changes. Mary's pregnant, and Joseph knows the child's not his. Now, in our culture, This kind of situation might be painful and complicated, but in Joseph's world, it was far more serious. Their engagement wasn't casual, like it wasn't just a— like today you get engaged and it's not considered— you can get out of it still, right?
There's still a way out. But it wasn't back then. An engagement was legally binding. It was already as though they were considered husband and wife. Even though they weren't actually living together.
The only way out was divorce. At this stage, unfaithfulness was considered adultery, which means this isn't just awkward, it could be devastating. 'Cause public shame would almost certainly fall on Mary. There could be legal consequences and at the very least, a very public divorce. At worst, although rare by this time, even something as severe as a stoning could happen to Mary.
Joseph is described as a righteous man, which means he cares deeply about doing what is right according to God's law. So he finds himself in a tension. He cannot in good conscience go through with the marriage as if nothing is wrong. That would ignore the law, and it could even imply guilt on his part. Mm-hmm.
But at the same time, he's not willing to expose Mary to public disgrace. So Joseph makes a decision. He chooses a quieter path, a private divorce done before a few witnesses and permitted within the law. It allows him to remain righteous but also compassionate. Even before the angel speaks, we see his heart.
He is a man who takes God seriously and who treats people with kindness and mercy. Mm-hmm. And that alone tells us something powerful about the man that Joseph was. But then, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and tells him, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit." Joseph wakes up and does something I think is pretty remarkable. First of all, he believes what the angel told him in a dream.
Yes. He accepted— accepts it as truth. So he believes and then he obeys. No debate, no delay, no conditions. He chooses obedience over reputation.
Sometimes following God will cost you your image. Sometimes doing the right thing won't make you look good. Sometimes it might even make you look foolish. But Joseph reminds us that faithfulness is not about managing perception, it's about trusting God. And it raises a simple but searching question for all of us: Are we living for the approval of the people around us or for the will of the God who calls us?
So let's just listen to the last couple of verses of the passage again. When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus. So Joseph doesn't just agree in theory with what the angel tells him, he steps in fully.
He takes Mary as his wife, he takes responsibility for this child, he becomes the earthly father figure to Jesus. So looking at this from our context today, we can say that Joseph is a stepdad, a bonus dad. And if you've ever been in that role, you know that it can be hard. Is that someone who takes, someone who takes on this role steps into a storey that already exists. They carry responsibility, but they don't always get to carry authority.
They give love, but it may not always be returned the way that they hope. They may never be the mom or the dad in that child's eyes. But think about Joseph. Let's talk about a high bar. He's raising the Son of God.
No pressure at all there. And every parent has had that moment where they think, "I have no idea what I'm doing." Yes? Scripture doesn't tell us this, but I imagine Joseph had many of those moments as he's raising a sinless child. It would be like being asked to step in as a substitute teacher and then realising you've been given a class full of geniuses.
Right? You walk in thinking, I'm supposed to lead this? I don't feel prepared for this. I don't have all this figured out. And yet you still show up.
You will still stand up in front of that room. You still do the work that has been given to you. Or on a more personal level, I remember being, when I was a recent grad and I had just been ordained as a pastor and I was called to Wolfville Baptist Church. And the location of that church is right across the street from Acadia University and Acadia Divinity College. The congregation was full of all the preaching profs, biblical study profs, and theology profs.
Every sermon felt like it was under a microscope. Every word, every interpretation, I knew it would be noticed. And more than once, I found myself thinking, "Really, God? Why me? I am not ready for this." But the calling wasn't about having it all figured out.
It was about showing up faithfully in what I'd been given. Mm-hmm. Joseph didn't let what he didn't know or what he wasn't keep him from embracing what God called him to be. And he shows us that presence matters more than perfection. Showing up matters more than having it all figured out.
Love shows up as time given, consistency lived out, and commitment kept. You may not feel like the main character in someone's life. You may feel unprepared and unsure and even inadequate. But your presence, your steady, faithful showing up, be it as a parent, a stepparent, a foster parent, a mentor, a teacher, a youth group leader, you get the idea. Your faithful showing up can shape someone's life in ways that you may never fully see.
Then what we learn next about Joseph comes from Matthew chapter 2, verses 13 to 15, and then verses 19 to 23. So, First, let's listen to 13 to 15. When they 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." So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod.
And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet, "Out of Egypt I called my son." So God warns Joseph, Herod's coming for the child. And he tells Joseph, get outta dodge and take yourself off to Israel. And what does Joseph do? He does what God tells him to do. He gets up in the middle of the night, he takes Mary and Jesus, and he leaves everything behind and flees to Egypt.
No hesitation. There's something in him about the instinct to protect. And if you've ever seen a parent react when their child is in danger, it's immediate. There's no committee meeting, there's no long discussion, you just act. And Joseph embodies that.
But this isn't just a father who's reacting, this is a man who's responding to a divine responsibility. God has entrusted Mary and Jesus to him, and he moves to protect what God has given. And that is the heart of spiritual leadership. It's not about control, it's about care. And Joseph reminds us when God entrusts something to you, it's worth protecting, even when it costs you.
So then moving on to verses 19 to 23. 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 were trying to take the child's life are dead." So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.
So Joseph's life becomes like a series of moves: Bethlehem, Egypt, Nazareth, each step guided by God, but never with a full picture, right? God doesn't give him a 5-year plan. All he gives him is the next step. And many people, especially fathers and leaders and caregivers, feel pressure to have all the answers. We don't really know how Joseph felt, but we do know that he had enough faith to keep on taking the next step.
Mm-hmm. And sometimes that's all God asks of us. Now the final clues written about Joseph are found in Luke's Gospel, chapter 2, first in verses 25 to 35, where he's just mentioned in passing as being with Mary when Simeon saw baby Jesus and blessed both parents, right? And then in verses 41 to 52, which is where we find one of the only glimpses into Jesus's early life. Mm-hmm.
And Joseph is there, again, quietly present in the background. Every year the family travels to Jerusalem for Passover. This isn't a one-time spiritual moment, it's a pattern, a rhythm, a habit of worship. When Jesus is 12, they make the trip again. And on the way home, everything takes an unexpected turn.
Jesus stays behind. And what follows is every parent's nightmare. Confusion, anxiety, a frantic search. Ever lost your kids in the store or in the mall? Yep, lost my nonverbal son in the mall.
Mm. Right? But they find him. But they find him in the temple, and they see him there listening and learning and asking questions, already growing into who he is. And verse 48 tells us that when his parents arrived and saw him, They were astonished.
But it is what is said next that connects us today. His mother said to him, "Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have anxiously— been anxiously searching for you." "Why were you searching for me?" he asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" But they did not understand what he was saying to them. So did you notice the subtle but Powerful tension in those verses.
Mary refers to Joseph as your father, but Jesus refers to God as my Father. And the text says they did not understand what he was saying to them. We're not told what emotions Joseph experienced in that moment, but I think we can feel the weight of it. Because in one sentence Jesus reminds them there is a relationship that exists beyond what Joseph can provide. Mm-hmm.
And there are men and women today who can imagine because of firsthand experience some of what Joseph may have been feeling in that moment. Loving a child deeply, investing in them fully, showing up day after day, and yet being reminded, sometimes subtly, sometimes more directly, that there's a part of their storey that isn't mine. We're not told what Joseph felt in that moment. Scripture doesn't give us his reaction, but if we kept reading a bit further, we would see that it does show us what happened next. Jesus went home with them.
He was obedient to them, and he grew, which means Joseph was still there, still present, still part of the story. Joseph seemed to have understood something every spiritual parent must learn: that you don't have to be the source of someone's identity to be essential in shaping their life. Joseph wasn't replaced by God as father. He was entrusted by God as a father. Which brings up an important question: Why Joseph?
Why would God choose him for this role? Why place Jesus into his care, his name, his family? 'Cause the answer isn't random. It's really deeply intentional. Because when Joseph steps in, he doesn't just provide protection or stability, he does provide identity.
And as we see— and we see that in what Joseph does. So Joseph takes Jesus as his own son, giving him a name, a place, and a position in the line of David. And that matters more than we might realise. Mm-hmm. Because when Joseph names Jesus, he is doing more than caring for a child.
He is legally claiming him as his own. And in doing that, he places Jesus into the royal line of David, the very line that God promised the Saviour would come from. So Matthew makes this clear by tracing the line from Abraham to David and then down to Joseph. Joseph is called "son of David." So even though Jesus is born to Mary, It is through Joseph that he is given his royal identity. And in that culture, legal identity came through the father, which means Joseph's role isn't secondary, it's essential.
Through Joseph, Jesus is recognised as the son of David. Through Joseph, he has a rightful claim to the throne. Quietly, faithfully, Joseph ensures that Jesus stands exactly where God promised within the royal line of kings. Mm-hmm. But that doesn't just explain Jesus's story, it points to ours.
Because through Jesus, God does the same for us. We're brought into his family, not by birthright, but by grace. We are no longer outsiders, we are adopted, given a new name, a new identity, and a new belonging. And just like Joseph's quiet faithfulness helped shape the environment where Jesus grew, God now places us in his family to grow, to belong, and to become who he has called us to be. Joseph's life reminds us all that whether we are fathers or not, that family is more than blood.
You don't have to be perfect to be faithful. You don't have to be visible to make an impact. And maybe most importantly, you don't have to fully understand God's plan to be part of it. Thank you. So where is God asking you to step in?
To stay faithful, to show up, even when it's hard or unseen? Because the truth is, God often does his greatest work through people like Joseph—quietly faithful, consistently present, and willing to say yes. And today we celebrate men who have lived that kind of faithfulness, men who have stepped into, or will step into one day, the role of father in all kinds of ways, who have carried responsibility, offered guidance, and shaped lives through their presence. And we especially honour those who, like Joseph, stepped into a storey that they didn't biologically begin, but chose every day to stay. To stay when it wasn't simple, to love when it wasn't automatic, to lead when it required courage, to show up not because they had to, but because they chose to.
And just like Joseph, what they give is not second-rate. It is sacred, it is God-ordained, and it shapes identity. And it leaves a mark on the future in ways that may never be fully seen, but will always be felt.
Let's pray. Lord God, we've heard the storey of Joseph, his quiet faithfulness, his willingness to trust you. His readiness to step in, to stay, and to follow. And if we're honest, we know how full our lives are of noise— noise in our schedules, noise in our thoughts, noise in our hearts. So as we come to you now, God, we ask that you would begin to quiet us, to slow our minds, to settle our hearts, to help us to realise what we're carrying, the distractions, the worries, the things that pull our attention away from you.
Give us the kind of attentiveness that Joseph had, a heart that is open, a spirit that is listening, and a life that is ready to respond. And in these next moments, as we sit in stillness before you, Would you meet us right here? So speak, Lord. Your servants are listening. So as we continue in this time of listening and prayer, I invite you to just sit comfortably, feel your feet grounded, have your hands relaxed and open, keep your eyes closed if you're comfortable doing so.
And prepare yourself by doing the slow breathing that we've been practising, taking a slow breath in and a slow breath out. Again, breathe in deeply and release that breath. And as you continue doing that, begin to notice the noise that you carry, the thoughts, the worries, the to-do lists, the conversations that are replaying in your mind. Don't fight them, just notice them.
As we gently pray, God, I give you the noise in my mind.
God, I give you the weight in my heart.
Keep the slow breathing growing— going as you, as you think about Joseph's life, how it's marked by quiet obedience. No long speeches, no spotlight, just a heart that was ready to listen.
So we ask God now, Lord, quiet what is loud in me so I can hear what is true.
Just keep breathing as we sit in silence, and if your mind wanders, just gently bring it back by saying, speak, Lord. I am listening.
We ask God, is there something that you want to say to each of us?
Don't rush to fill the silence. Don't force an answer.
But pay attention to a word or a nudge or a scripture or a sense of direction or peace. And if nothing comes, that's okay. This is about learning to be present.
As we discussed earlier, Joseph didn't just hear, he acted. So now we ask the Lord God, where are you asking me to step in, to stay, or to trust you?
Hold whatever he shows you.
And simply say, "Yes, Lord." Let me just close us in prayer. God, in a world full of noise, teach us to be the people who listen. Like Joseph, quietly faithful, attentive to your voice, and willing to respond. Give us the courage to trust what you say, even when we don't see the whole picture. In Jesus' name.
Amen. Amen.
