Matthew
Beautiful (Your bride will come together and we'll sing, You're beautiful)
Furious (His love is deep His love is wide and it covers us)
Amazing Love (In all I do I honor You)
Your Presence Lord (I've tasted and seen of the sweetest of loves)

Katie
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Advent reading
Matthew
He decided to call off their engagement quietly…and Joseph called Him Jesus

Jon

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ took place. When Mary his mother was engaged to Joseph, before they were married, she became pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Joseph her husband was a righteous man. Because he didn’t want to humiliate her, he decided to call off their engagement quietly. As he was thinking about this, an angel from the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because the child she carries was conceived by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you will call him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” Now all of this took place so that what the Lord had spoken through the prophet would be fulfilled: Look! A virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, And they will call him, Emmanuel. ( Emmanuel means “God with us.”) When Joseph woke up, he did just as an angel from God commanded and took Mary as his wife. But he didn’t have sexual relations with her until she gave birth to a son. Joseph called him Jesus.
Matthew 1:18-25 CEB

Righteous man was someone who honored the Torah
Betrothment was like being engaged today, but required divorce to break it
Quietly – Nazareth is a small town, the kind where rumors spread quickly
God wants to open us up to the possibility that we don’t have it all figured out
How do we respond to when God contradicts Himself
What is a righteous man? Uncompromising obedience to the Torah

However, if the claim is true and proof of the young woman’s virginity can’t be produced, then the city’s elders will bring the young woman to the door of her father’s house. The citizens of that city must stone her until she dies because she acted so sinfully in Israel by having extramarital sex while still in her father’s house. Remove such evil from your community!
Deuteronomy 22:20, 21 CEB

This is super clear from the Torah
But Joseph’s feelings don’t jive with the Torah
God is teaching us something here
In the old ways, sinners have to be exposed and punished
But instead, Joseph concocts a plan, a scheme that leads to Mary living and him keeping his righteousness
Have you ever struggled with anxiety so much that you’re crippled by it?
Why didn’t God just re-assure Joseph with angels that this is what is going to happen?
Maybe anxiety removal/prevention isn’t God’s number one priority for Joseph or for us
Maybe sitting in that anxiety so that we reach out to Him to find out what He’s teaching us
The road to righteousness is not smooth, but bumpy
There’s a lot we’re going to have to lose
Is following this Jesus going to hurt?
In Mark 6:3, and we’ll unpack this later, but we see the lasting consequences to Joseph

Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t he Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” They were repulsed by him and fell into sin.
Mark 6:3 CEB

Most people were referenced by their father, but here Jesus’ father isn’t mentioned by name; only His mother

So many people have given up their status and their lives for Jesus
God brought Jesus into this world amidst pain and conflict and tension

Matthew
Love Came Down (If my heart is overwhelmed;Love came down and rescued me, I am forever Yours)