Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash

Audio: iTunes | Spotify

An angel of the LORD appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Arise and take the child and His mother…” “And he arose and took the child and His mother…”

᛭ INI ᛭

What a thing to happen! A guy by the name of Joseph has a dream, a dream that tells him to go down to Egypt! Later he has another dream that tells him to leave Egypt. Not that the trip to Egypt was about Joseph. It was about the only Son Christ who went there because the said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”

This evening we’re celebrating St. Joseph, Guardian of Our Lord. We rejoice in how God used Joseph to care for Christ, His eternal Son. Saints, like Joseph, aren’t saints because they did anything great, but because God did something great for them or through them. We see that in Joseph. In him we also see a picture of true Christian fatherhood and manhood.

Yet, Joseph’s Christian life isn’t just a picture for Christian men or husbands or fathers. There’s something here for all Christians. It’s just especially so for Christian men and fathers. To see it we get to rejoice in the gift and the power of the preached Word. The Word of God is chief in any Christian’s life, and more so for men and fathers who are to become or be head of household.

What is the gift and the power of the preached Word? Well, as we can see from St. Joseph,

THE PREACHED WORD CREATES ACTION IN THE LIFE OF A BELIEVER.

(I. The Word creates action.)

The angel preached to Joseph: “Arise and take the child and His mother”—first to Egypt, then back to Judea. Each time Joseph “arose and took the child and His mother”—first to Egypt, then back to Judea. He ended up in Galilee, because he was afraid of Herod’s son ruling in Judea. He was “warned by God in a dream” with, you could imagine, the same message! He eventually took them to “dwell in Nazareth,” for the Christ “shall be called a Nazarene,” as the prophets say.

The Word of the LORD creates action. It doesn’t create the possibility of action, otherwise what power does the LORD even have? When the LORD said, “Let there be light,” “there was light.” When He created the seas, He “said, ‘This far you may come, but no farther!’” (Job 38) “And [each day] it was so.” When the Lord said, “Follow Me” to the Apostles, they followed Him. (Mt 4; Mt 9) When He spoke to the dead, “Arise” (Lk 7; Mt 9) and “Come forth,” (Jn 11) they did!

THE PREACHED WORD CREATEd ACTION—same thing with Joseph in Matthew 2. “Arise and take the child and His mother…” “And he arose and took the child and His mother…” And this is the power of the Word even for you and for me. The LORD promises this through Isaiah and St. Paul. “My Word doesn’t return to Me empty, but does the thing for which I gave.” (Is 55) “The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe.” (Rom 1)

We’re instruments not agents. To live the life of faith is to live from and toward the Word of God. Faith is enlivened by the Word and lives for the Word of God.

Unfaith rejects the Word of the Lord, puts it in the review mirror (Ps 50), tries to control the Word, and even changes or ignores the Word. That’s what Adam and Eve did in the Garden! Mankind’s been doing it ever since, acting like we’re agents who are in charge of the Word. Like we’re the bosses of our own lives or the lives of others. But that’s the devil’s lie to “become like God, knowing good and evil,” (Gen 3) judging good and evil by our standard or our personal application of God’s Word.

But the Lord says something different. He says His “Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.” (Dt 28) You only do it if it’s in your heart—faith. If the Word isn’t within you, if it’s outside of you for you to assent to or manage or implement, well, have you even done it yet?

You also only do the Word, if you have the Holy Spirit. As the LORD promises through Ezekiel: “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” (Ezek-36:27) After all, as the Spirit says through Paul, “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” (Gal 5)

(Transition.)

THE PREACHED WORD CREATES ACTION. Apart from the Word there is no action! But the action takes place in very specific places. It takes place through you, as it did through Joseph. It happens your vocations, your callings. To put it another way: THE PREACHED WORD CREATES ACTION IN THE LIFE OF A BELIEVER.

(II. The Word creates action in your life.)

When the angel’s sermon came to Joseph, it created action in His life. By faith Joseph acted accordingly to what the Word of the LORD said to Him. “Arise and go” became action: “He arose and went.” Now for Christian father’s there’s no life-specific Word like that—move here, move there. But the Lord does have something to tell all Christian fathers: “Do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.” (Eph 6) “You shall teach [God’s Words] diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” (Deut 6) Indeed, even Christian mothers do the same, as evidenced by St. Timothy’s mom, Eunice, and grandma, Lois. (2-Tim 3)

But all Christians, beginning with the men, to hold to the divine Word. As the Proverb says, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold In settings of silver.” (Prov 25) And the Word of God is “More to be desired than gold, Yea, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.” (Ps 19) For “by the Word of the LORD the heavens were made.” (Ps 33) And by His Word He will bear fruit in your daily life. “It shall do what I sent it to do, declares the LORD.” (Is 55) It really will be “in your mouth and in your heart that you will do it.” (Dt 28)

The failure of Christians to live out the Word isn’t due to a lack of motivation or even desire! (Christians who don’t even care to live like God wants or aren’t bothered by their lack of good works or their sins aren’t actually Christians…) It is true: “The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mt 26) The lack of motivation or the lack of action is directly related to a lack of the Word. It is a symptom or result of not being in the Word.

See the great power of the Word: recent poll shows that 57% of Millennial men (54% of Gen Z men) read their Bible weekly. (It’s 43% and 46% for women.) Would that it was every day! Men in the Word will not only know how to be Christian men, husbands, fathers to lead their households. The Word will in fact make them so. As it will no matter “your place in life according to the Ten Commandment,” as a “father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, or worker.” (SC-V)

The Word will make you “devout and faithful” (SC-III) no matter your calling. For THE PREACHED WORD CREATES ACTION IN THE LIFE OF A BELIEVER, and the LORD first preaches His Word through the Prophets and the Apostles.

(Conclusion.)

THE PREACHED WORD CREATES ACTION IN THE LIFE OF A BELIEVER. The angel preached “Arise and go,” and the result of that preaching was “Joseph arose and went.” Joseph is a living example of the LORD’s Word “doing the thing for which He gave it.” (Is 55) Joseph is the icon of “the WORD shall be in your mouth and in your heart to do it.”

So also for you and me. The Word of God will shape and mold and enliven us to do what He says, for His power and Spirit dwell in the Word. To absent yourself from the Word will result in inaction. A Christian without the Word is or will soon be no Christian at all! But by faith alone we receive the blessing of the Word, that what it says happens. So also Christ Himself promises the same for His Supper—the Visible Word!—for He says, “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me, and I in him” (Jn 6), and “whoever remains in My and I in him, he it is that will bear much fruit for apart from Me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15) Or to put it another way: THE PREACHED WORD CREATES ACTION IN THE LIFE OF A BELIEVER.

᛭ INI ᛭