"…an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, 'Get up! Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.' So Joseph got up and took the child and his mother while it was still night, and left for Egypt." - Matthew 2:13-14
I love to read stories in the Bible that involve radical and irrational behavior because I know that the participants in those stories have genuine faith in the Gospel and communicate it through their obedience.
I mean, who really gets up in the middle of the night and begins a journey across the desert because they were told do so in a dream? Maybe I'm the only one who hasn't had that sort of dream, but I have had a different sort of one, and God most certainly used it to send me a message in a radical way. "I can help you with that." That's what God, who was disguised as my Grandpa Klinger, told me one night, and it may have even been what God told Joseph that night regarding King Herod. And what was Joseph's response? It was the same response that Abraham had when God asked him to sacrifice Isaac; it was the same response the Israelites had when they left Egypt; it was the same response that Levi had when Jesus called him as a disciple; and it was the same response Christ had when his Father called him to the cross. It was obedience.
Now, sometimes obedience looks like a radical move across the globe to China, like two of my dear friends from college did one year ago, or to Tanzania, like the parents of one of my son James' classmates are preparing to do this summer (and with a toddler, no less!). But sometimes radical obedience is simply renewing your trust in the God who is sovereign over all things going on in your little ole life. That was what it was for me after my dream. A radically renewed trust in God's sovereignty, an experience that I can't explain except to say that I literally "felt" the Holy Spirit's presence. Weeping, gasping for breath, and broken, I sat in front of my husband who witnessed all this just like Mary witnessed Joseph. What did they witness? They witnessed the Gospel at work – alive, moving, changing the people who cling to it – and they were both encouraged.
Listen for God today and obey Him. In doing so, you'll be communicating the Gospel to those around you.
Praise God!
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
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