Matt. 1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. 19 And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. 20 But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.
Of course, the result of this conversation between Joseph and the angel was that Joseph changed his mind about putting away Mary, and changed his mind about believing her story, and in the middle of the night went to her to assure her that he believes her story and took her as his wife. This story has always impressed me concerning Joseph, because it was such a wild thing to happen to this man who’d already taken the first step of matrimony for a Jewish couple. Mary was officially his wife already, even though the marriage is not yet been consummated, and she comes to him with the most cockamamie story anybody’s ever been told. Even though he had probably known her all of his life, because it was a contract marriage between parents and Mary and Joseph when they were still young children, I’m sure it was impossible for him to believe the story about her being pregnant by the Holy Spirit. As I’m sure you know the typical consequence for someone like Mary to become pregnant from another man, was that she was to be stoned to death according to the law, but Joseph being compassionate, and being a righteous man chose to simply have her put away. It’s interesting to me that when people think of righteousness, or somebody being righteous they think of somebody who’s harsh, stern, and judgmental, when the truth is that the righteousness that comes from God has always had its foundation in compassion and grace. I also believe that because Joseph was a righteous man the Lord particularly chose him to be able to steward this very awkward and difficult situations. We don’t know the conversation that Mary and Joseph had when she first explained to him that she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit, but obviously he did not believe the story. Who would? But after having made the decision to protect her by putting her away the angel appears to him in a dream and tells him that is true that his wife was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Because he was a righteous man he believed this amazing story because it’s what God said through the angel, and as I mentioned earlier he then rushes to Mary to let her know that he now believed her because God spoke it. Let me give you a working definition of righteousness, because it was righteousness that was the culture of Joseph heart, that allowed him to move from believing something to be ridiculous to embracing it as truth and risking his whole life and reputation on that which what seemed ridiculous, simply because God now affirmed that it was true. Righteousness is simply believing God is right and by faith aligning yourself no matter what it takes with what he says and how he sees about a thing. If that’s where your heart is, then God can risk telling you anything, or asking you to do anything, because things become very clear in your heart. There’s no gray to work with, because God is right, and will He be faithful in all those things he’s right about, no matter how impossible it seems. Listen to this verse from Luke 1:17, concerning a person or people who have repented and turned towards Jesus. “And it is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, (this is the course the ministry of John the Baptist) to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous; so as to make ready a whole people prepared for the Lord.” Righteousness is an attitude of the heart that has determined that God is always right about a thing, and therefore by faith responds in obedience, and extravagant sacrifice, and confidence.