Hi everybody. My name is Josh Meyers, the lead pastor here. Special welcome if you're new or newer.

I want to invite you again hang out with us at 10-minute tour. It's a great way to kind of get to know us as a church and and a kind of a non intimidating way to meet some of the staff and the leaders around here. And so want to make sure that you have that opportunity to to come visit us afterwards. But looking around the room, is everybody warm enough. >> Are we warm enough.

Okay, cuz I'm like I go through like spells of like kind of like chilly and man, you made it to church in that weather. You guys are the real deal. So, thank you for coming this morning.

I I don't know how you feel about the cold. I'm personally not really prepared for it until January, but I do actually like winter. So, , I like snowboarding and so it I I'm I'm full of joy with it right now, but you know, you do have those moments where the wind hits and you're like, why do I live here, right.

>> And I try to remind myself in those moments that we're in East Bethl and that if we just drove up 3565 for a couple of hours, it'd be much colder, right. Like if we're up at the Northshore, if I told you guys, I'm going to go visit the Northshore in July, you'd be like, "Oh, that sounds like a great summer trip. " But if I said, "I'm going to go out there in January," you'd be like, "Are you insane.

, and so let's have just a little bit of chatter this morning. Can we do that. We would I've never done the talk back at me, but if I were to go up right now or let's say in the summertime, if I were to go up to the Northshore in the summertime, what's a place that I might visit while I'm out there.

Shout some out. >> Grand Marray. >> Grand Marray. >> Grand Marray.

>> Split Rock. We got gooseberry. Penny's pie.

Somebody said it. Somebody said it. When I think Northshore, I think Split Rock Lighthouse.

>> this is just kind of that moment where you you're feeling it, right. And this this picture came across my Facebook feed a couple of weeks ago showing like that first snowfall over Split Rock and like just thinking of how cold it is there. But I kind of went on just a little bit of an ADHD bunny trail here and I clicked into the website and I started reading about this lighthouse and I found out that around this time of year way way back about 120 years ago the reason why this lighthouse came to be maybe you want to just learn a little history with me this morning. , this lighthouse came to be because 120 years ago at this time of year, , 29 ships were destroyed in a winter storm. And they were lost due to like the weather and the dense fog.

They couldn't see anything at all, anything surrounding them. And so what did Minnesota do. They said, "Let's build a lighthouse and let's put it in this place where the rocks kind of split," hence the name, and and bring it out.

And this lighthouse, as all lighouses do, served as this beacon of hope for ships that were stuck in a storm. And if they were just to have faith in in following this light through the storm, it didn't change the circumstances of the storm, but it gave them something to sail towards. Okay, you see where I'm going with this. This is what Jesus is in our lives.

>> That Jesus is that guiding light to bring us safe to shore. And so, we've been in this series called Light in the Darkness. And really what we're doing is we're looking at the characters within the Christmas story and learning from them all of these wonderful amazing things about how their lives could have been much different if they didn't see those lights of Jesus.

And today we're going to be learning from a guy by the name of Joseph. And so last week we looked at Mary. I want to encourage you go back and look at look at that message.

But today we're going to look at the other side of the marriage and and get his side of everything that's going on. And within that, what we're going to learn is we're going to learn how Joseph had this strong faith kind of like a ship following a lighthouse safe to shore. And so what we're going to look at today is very simple is how to deepen your faith.

And to do that, we're going to do what we do every week and we are going to pull out our Bibles. And so pull out your Bibles and and open them up to Matthew 1. It's on page. Again, as Joshua said, if you don't have a Bible, please take that one home with you. It's our gift to you.

, also, if you are new, we have these first time gift visitor bags with sermon notebooks that you can take and and take notes. Not because what I have to say is so great, but God is going to speak to you today. And I really believe that.

And so, , we find ourselves in Matthew and let's just get the context. If you follow the numbers down to where it says 18, , this is kind of the story of Joseph and where it begins. It says this, this is how the birth of Jesus, the Messiah, came about.

His mother Mary, who again we learned about last week, was pledged to be married to Joseph. But before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph was her husband and was faithful to the law and yet didn't want to dispose her to public disgrace, he had a mind to divorce her quietly. All right, let's get the context here.

We'll take this a little chunk at a time. And what we know from last week, just a quick recap, is Mary is a teenager. She's about 12 to 17 years old. She's in Nazareth, which is a small town about three or 500 people, aka everybody knows everybody's business, okay.

Everybody knows what's going on. And engagement back then was a legally binding agreement. Meaning that if Mary broke this or she got pregnant outside of this wedlock or this agreement of engagement, then Joseph and this entire town had this right by old Jewish law to stone Mary to death. And it was basically kind of signing up to be humiliated and shamed. And so what Joseph could have done in this situation is he could have been so offended that Mary was pregnant and that this would happen and how dare this happen.

But he doesn't do that. He instead wants to divorce her quietly. I need you to see that this is outside of the cultural norm that's going on. And that's the first thing that we need to do in order in order for us to deepen our faith is we need to put our faith above the culture. Now listen, this is a a difficult thing to do because sometimes culture wants us to to be a certain way, to act a certain way, to do a certain thing.

And when we go against the tide of the culture, it feels really unnatural, like trying to walk upstream through a river. And there's tons of stories throughout human history of of people that have gone up against culture. Can I tell you a couple of them. This is my favorite one.

I I feel like I'm doing like more history this morning than I've ever done from the stage. Let me tell you my favorite. One of my favorite movies of all time is this movie called Hacksaw Ridge. Okay, if you like gore movies and you can stand a little bit of gore, it's a great movie. Okay, and this movie centers around this real charact or this real life story of somebody named Desmond Doss.

Okay, maybe you've heard this name before. Desmond Doss was the first in World War II conscientious objector, which means he didn't have a problem with firearms. He didn't have a problem with other people carrying firearms, but for himself and because of what we learn about Desmond, some of his trauma as a as a as a kid, because of all of those things, Desmond says, "I I can't carry a gun. " but he wants to serve in the military as a medic and he is willing to do whatever it takes to be in the military as a conscientious objector and as a medic.

Well, the push back for this is this goes against cultural norms. And so what happens to Desmond is he gets beat up and ridiculed and all of these people within the service are are trying to get him to quit and give up. And he's just trying to go on record with saying, "I I want to serve.

I want to I want to be there with the the soldiers and helping them. " And so they send Desmond to probably one of the most deadly places in World War II called Hacksaw Ridge. And Hacksaw Ridge is this large ridge and they have to get to the top of it.

Kind of like King of the Mountain, right. They have to get to the top of it and they have to defeat Japanese forces and take enough of the ridge so they can withstand up up on the top of it. Now, Desmond gets stuck on the ridge. Spoiler alert.

He gets stuck on the ridge for a full night and within that full night he does not die but he saves 75 people without a gun as a medic. >> And they asked him how did you do it Desmond. And he just said I kept praying Lord help me get one more.

And I love that story because he went against cultural norms and then you saw how God honored that and how he used that to to save people. And if you think that this is just happening in in the culture, this is also happening all throughout scripture. You can pull open a book like Daniel and you can see this Bible character and and learn about his life.

And I wish we had time to just really dive into it, but in short, Daniel was tempted to worship a certain way, pray a certain way, eat certain things, and and do things certain ways by orders of the government and the king and all the the authorities around him. But Daniel while being respectful of those people rose above those things and rose above those fears and cultural norms to say no this is I I serve God first. And this is these stories are where faith in Jesus become bigger than the faith in the culture.

>> And the question for us to answer is do you have that kind of faith. Or are you putting your faith in just things of this world. And and if we're being honest, or maybe if I'm being honest, we fear this because really we don't want to live our faith above the culture because we think that we're going to end up like Desmond or like Daniel where we are ridiculed for our faith where we are just trying to to defend our whole lives based off of what we believe in our faith in Jesus.

It's but to deepen your faith means to make those that faith bigger than the fears of what people may be thinking around you. Most of us who have been walking with Jesus, I'm just talking to you who have been walking with Jesus for a while, are fine walking with Jesus without sharing our faith or making any of our faith known. And we'll use these kind of almost excuses where we'll say, "Well, I'll just I'll wait until the right time. I'll wait for the right opportunity to share my faith. And what happens if that opportunity doesn't come.

Here's my advice. Don't wait for an opportunity to show and share your faith. Create opportunities to show and share your faith because too many people wait far too long and care far too much about the culture around them and fitting in and going with the tide than the unsaved souls that don't know Jesus.

So live your faith in such a way that is courageously over culture because this is what happens when you do. Let's let's continue on verse 20. Let's look what how Joseph starts to respond.

But after Joseph had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, ready for this line again. Do not be afraid. " If you missed that, that was one from last week. Go back and watch last week. 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 of this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet that the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel which means God with us. So, here's the second display of faith that we see through Joseph is that Joseph has this special moment where he's about to walk away from the very thing that God has called him to.

He's already shown a little bit of faith in not, you know, putting Mary out there to get stoned to death. He's shown faith to say, "I want to divorce her quietly. " and and God is coming now through this angel to confirm what Mary has already said.

And this is a special moment because it teaches us how to deepen our faith even further that we need to exercise faith within our calling. Now, spoiler alert for the next couple of verses, Joseph does this, okay. He he does what the angel tells him, okay.

In case you didn't know the Christmas story, okay. But if we're being honest, this is kind of where most of us lose faith. Maybe I'll just speak for myself here.

, but I I've seen and experienced through my life that it could be really easy just to live within your your salvation and the belief that you have in Jesus and live it very privately. But faith is not meant to be a private thing. Faith is personal, but it's not private. And so, being in a space where we're living our faith out loud, where we're working out our salvation, where we're speaking the truth and love, where we're sharing our beliefs through our calling. But you might say, "Well, Josh, I don't know what my calling is.

" Okay, welcome to my TED talk. All right, I'm going to tell you something here this morning. , I think that the church in the early like 2000s talked about calling a lot and sometimes I felt as though I was sitting in church and I felt like it was this scavenger hunt that God was sending me on to find what it is my calling was in life. So, let me just let me just break this down for you and make it really simple. Okay, calling isn't career.

A lot of people put the two into the same box, but I'm going to tell you, one is for ministry and one is for money. And yes, they will overlap because if God has given you a teaching gift, that doesn't necessarily mean that you are a teacher. That just means that you might be on your construction site and you may be teaching some of the others that you work with, right.

God is going to use your gifts within your vocation that you have. So, it's not the same thing necessarily. Second of all, second of all, your calling is not a game of hide and seek. God is not hiding your call from you.

He's never hiding a call through scripture. Look at he's making it really plain to Joseph. Some of you need to pray this prayer that I pray almost daily. God, make it obvious cuz I'm oblivious.

Show me the way. Show me that it's very obvious. So, here's I'm going to make it really simple.

All of our callings are the exact same thing. >> They're found in scripture in two things that Jesus says. It's the great commission and the great commandment.

And those two things say that that Jesus says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. And then he says as he ascends into heaven, go therefore and make disciples. Teach them to obey and baptize and I will be with you. So in other words, I'll sum it up if you missed all those verses. Love God, love people, make disciples, and prove it.

That is our purpose. But how you achieve that purpose is now what you need to find. That God has uniquely gifted you or called you in a way to exercise that calling in faith. And what is Joseph being called to do.

He's called to be a stepparent. Steparents in the room. I don't know all of you, but thank you.

And I've I've personally watched my wife be a stepparent, and I know it's challenging, right. And so, Joseph has this really difficult call. And a lot of us are going to wrestle with our call.

And a lot of us are going to think, man, this is so hard and I can't do it alone. And that is exactly where God wants you to be. Look at what awtoer says. He says, "God is looking for people for through whom he can do the impossible.

What a pity we plan only the things we can do ourselves. " Some of us are trying to take on our faith and our calling by our own strength. But faith is made to be done with God, not apart from God.

And it's our leap towards God, knowing that he's going to fall into that gap. And why we feel like this is so difficult. Here's just some of the things that I've given as excuses is I've said, "God, I just feel underqualified.

I feel underqualified to do the things that you've called me to. " Well, good. It's good that we feel underqualified because God doesn't call qualified people.

He qualifies the called. And so, he wants you to feel underqualified so you'll rely on him. Some of us will say, "God, I just don't know how to do it.

I don't know how to do all of the things that I don't know how to love people. I don't really even like people. You know, you just you'll come up with those things. And this is good, too, because it's allowing you to learn more and lean more on God more than your own abilities. Some of us will even give this excuse that, man, I just I'm too whatever it is, I'm too busy.

I don't know enough. I I I've got more than I can handle right now. And I think that's something that I hear in in the church in Christian circles a lot is that this God won't give you more than you can handle.

And I want to tread lightly because I I know a lot of you have been told this or maybe said this before, but in Corinthians where people are referring to that verse, the actual verse says that God will not tempt you beyond your ability. It says nothing about calling and working within your calling. You see, sometimes there will be dark moments. Sometimes there will be times where it is difficult to do your calling and sometimes it may feel like it's more than you can handle. But those are beautiful places to be in because it teaches you that God wants you to walk with him in those moments that when you have so much that you are trying to handle, he's saying please don't handle this alone.

Bring me, take me. I I'm going to I'm going to help you. I'm going to bring you peace.

And so, don't put a cap on where God wants to overflow in your life because some of us, we we just don't handle that well. And but what we need to do is to be able to to trust God that in those moments, he's giving us opportunities to strengthen and grow our faith. And our question that we got to answer is what are we going to take them.

And what does Joseph do to do. He He takes them. Look at verse 24.

When Joseph woke up, he did. Everybody say, "He did. " >> All right, that was okay. When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord commanded him and took Mary home to be his wife. But he didn't consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son and they gave him the name Jesus.

So, really quick, just want to point this out even though it's not part of the the point here, but it's very important to catch that Joseph didn't consummate the marriage until Jesus was born because what happened is this fulfilled an Old Testament pro prophecy about Jesus that was given years and years ago. And so we see the proof of it in the book of Matthew. But I what I want you to catch in here is that Joseph did exactly what the angel said.

And this is the third and final way to deepen our faith is to put our faith in action. Okay, let me just say this. Joseph doesn't say a single word in the Christmas story. Think about that. He hasn't said a single word, but his actions preach a whole sermon because he wakes up and he obeys what God tells him to do.

He pulls a Nike, a Shilabuff, and he just does it. >> It's a joke for me. That was like an old viral video. And anyways, he puts his faith in action, though.

He He really just lives this thing out. And he gives us a picture of what it really means to to put faith in a situation that doesn't really look too promising. And where does he get that. What is the language that we need to apply to this.

What is this faith that Joseph is living by. Well, luckily for us, the Bible gives us another definition of what faith is. It's in Hebrews 11. And here's your homework for this week.

History lesson homework. Anyways, here's your homework for this week. Go home and read Hebrews 11 because in this chapter, it's kind of known as the Hall of Faith. You've heard Hall of Fame.

This is Hall of Faith. This is all the faith heroes from all throughout scripture that showed crazy amounts of faith in God and put it into action. And the writer of Hebrews starts out by defining what faith is before we even read the rest of the chapter.

He says, "Now faith is the confidence in what we hope for and the assurance about what we do not see. " >> In other words, whatever situation you have, whatever darkness you have, whatever calling God has placed on your life, you may not see it. You may not understand it. You may not at times even believe that it was God that was calling you in the first place.

But faith says that I'm going to walk in it in assurance that I don't understand it, but I know God. I don't really know how to do it, but God will equip me. I don't really know how I'm going to get through this, but God does. God sees this other side. That's what faith does.

And then look at what it says later on in Hebrews 11 in verse 6. It says, "And without faith, it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and he rewards those who earnestly seek him. " >> Now, I want you to hear the heart on this verse.

Don't read this verse like a disapproving father. It can be very easy to take this verse and say without faith that it's impossible to please God. Well, I guess I'm never going to please God.

Then it can be really easy to say like, "Oh man, like I I don't know if I have enough faith for for the my father in heaven. " Don't hear that. That he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Your job is not to go and try to please God necessarily, but to earnestly seek him.

To earnestly seek him in faith. And so don't misinterpret what this faith looks like. Now, let me just kind of end here and tell you that whatever God is calling you to in your next step, maybe it's trusting him in some dark things, , some times that you're going through this Christmas season that's really difficult, or maybe you're trying to work out your call in your faith, and you're like, man, I want to I want to share.

I want to live it out loud, but I just really don't know how I don't feel. And you you give all those excuses that I listed earlier. I'm going to be vulnerable as I am every day on stage and tell you that every step that I've taken to plant this church, to start this church, is this message. It is an act of faith. And some days, I'll be honest with you, I feel I feel like I can't do it.

Some days I feel kind of underqualified and some days I I wrestle and some days I question and some days I'm really really good and I'm really celebrating and some days I've just sat with with person after person who's just going through something and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is so heavy and and and kind of like carrying that, right. " And it's because I'm human. It's because I'm human. And it doesn't say necessarily that Joseph had any of these struggles, but Joseph was human, too. >> You had to believe that to some point, Joseph was like, "Man, this is going to be really tough to explain to my family, my calling.

This is going to be really tough to to live out. This is going to be really tough to be a stepfather to the son of God, right. " Like, this is a really difficult call on the on his life. And I want you to know that no matter what you're walking in this morning, that's exactly where God wants you to be.

To see that you can't do it without him. >> That he needs to be in your life and working in your call in working in those dark moments to show that he can. And so I just I scribbled this down. Just little side note here.

I scribbled this down in a journal a long time ago. Maybe you've seen this this picture before. I have it up here. , and and this is kind of what I think about every single time in this journal that when I was originally writing my call to church plant, it was like kind of sketched out on the first page. And I just kind of think of this.

Every excuse, everything that we say that we can't do, through Jesus and through faith in Jesus, we can do those things. And so here's the big question for you today is how will you deepen your faith. I believe all of us have a next step of deepening our faith today. And for some of us, it's putting our faith in God for the first time.

For some of us, we've walked through these dark periods and we've tried to figure these things out. We've given the excuses. We've given God all of these different things of of why he's not showing up in the way that we want him to or expect him to.

But what God is saying this morning is put your faith and trust in me. Trust in my ways that I know that even though in the temporary just like Joseph even in the temporary this might look a little confusing but remember what faith is it's that you don't see it you don't understand it but you continue to walk in it so for some of you it's saying for the first time I want to put my faith in Jesus and for the rest of you you're not off the hook either okay let me tell you this that all of us need to continue to strengthen and use our faith for God in everyday life. That means that coworker that you know needs Jesus and you are the coworker that knows Jesus.

>> Y >> it's your time and this is your time to exercise that faith out loud. This is your time to invite that unsaved neighbor, that person in your life that is furthest from Jesus but closest to you. God has put you in a place to exercise your call and your love and your faith and trust in him to bring somebody to know Jesus.

And let me tell you, it is the coolest feeling when you bring somebody to church and you see them put their faith in Jesus and you were that invite. Okay, you don't get to like claim responsibility, but you get to be like, "Hey, that's pretty awesome, right. " And so all of us have this step to take to either deepen our faith or put our faith in Jesus for the first time. So I want to just give you a private moment with God. So, would you just bow your head and close your eyes.

This is just meant to be your time with Jesus this morning. I'm going to have the worship team come back up and we're going to respond in worship and we're going to respond in faithful worship. But before we do, I just want to to pray for you and I want to give you an opportunity. If you're in here today and you've been just walking through some of this darkness and you you hear that opening story and you just need kind of a lighthouse in your light life, this beacon of hope that just brings you to peace that brings you real joy that brings you real full life. If you need that light in your life and you've just been kind of on the fence about, man, I don't know if I can do this.

I don't know if I if I can figure this out. I don't know if I'm good enough for God. I just want to encourage you again.

Faith is the starting point. Faith is the starting point. It means that we may not see it. We may not understand it, but we're saying this morning, God, I want to walk towards you.

And so with every eye closed, every head bowed, if that's you in this room and you need to put your faith in Jesus this morning, would you just raise your hand so I know who I'm praying for. And now for the rest of us, it's a call to live boldly in faith. And that's difficult. That's difficult in the trials, that's difficult in the waiting, that's difficult in the wandering, that's difficult in the calling.

And so, I just want to pray a blessing over you. And I want to pray for for our new believers. And so, would you just join me.

God, I thank you so much for those who who have raised their hand and said yes to you this morning. I pray that you would be with them, that in their hearts they would pray that you are their father, that you that they would follow you. And God, I pray for the rest of us, that we would continue to work out our faith, that we would continue to exercise our faith even when it seems like the world is against us, even when it seems like times are hard and callings are difficult.

God, I pray that you would increase our faith. Make us a faithful church in Jesus name.