The World Needs Dads

Jesus did too. Matthew 1:18-25

E.M. Welcher

Dec 22, 2025

Welcome In The Name Of The Father, The Son, And The Holy Ghost.

The Ground Beneath Your Feet Is Holy Ground.

Therefore, Let Us Worship Him Through His Own Words.

“The Holy Work Of Being Misunderstood”

Matthew 1:18-25 NASB

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. 21 She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” 22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.” 24 And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, 25 but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.

I was looking at this anonymously drawn picture the other day and some sawdust must have gotten in my eye as wet eye phenomenon occurred. Something about Joseph the maker holding the maker of all things in his very arms. How Joseph made a family for Jesus Christ because he had the courage to take the angel at his word and not fear to take Mary as his wife even though nobody was going to believe this story. Biology doesn’t work that way, Joseph.

But Joseph believed God, and reaped joy for his faith. So it is for all of us.

Joseph put Jesus up on his shoulders in the wood shop, long before Jesus felt the rough wood of the cross pressing against His shoulders, long before He felt the weight of the world’s sins press down on Him. That would come later, but here, for now, in this picture is just jokes, hide ‘n seek, and Dad. We know Jesus has a Father in Heaven, but He also needed a Dad on earth, for Jesus to become the man He became and preach good news to the captives, and heal the sick, and proclaim the favor of the Lord and the nearing of the Kingdom of Heaven, He first had to be a baby, and then a boy. He needed to be raised, protected, provided for, and loved. So God the Father gave Jesus and Mary: Joseph the carpenter.

Joseph did the holy work of being misunderstood.

Christians have become so used to the most sacred story that we grow forgetful to how scandalous every aspect of the gospel really is.

This is how the Father chooses to save His people (v.21)? Yes.

God is misunderstood. Mary is misunderstood. Joseph, misunderstood. And all His holy life Jesus Christ the Lord is misunderstood.

Are you willing to be misunderstood for the cause of Love?

One of the most profound explanations for coming to Christ I’ve heard, or even the changing of theological convictions, was when a friend explained to me,

“It bothered me until it didn’t.”

You may well say, Welcher, that’s weak. Hit me with something more concrete.

Isn’t that what most people want? To be knocked over the head with apologetics so strong they can no longer deny Christ? Something so irrefutable they have to believe.

But Jesus.

But Jesus so often does not work the way we want Him to.

He is in and of Himself simply irresistible.

Jesus is the draw.

As the old hymn says,

“Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,
Calling for you and for me,
See, on the portals He’s waiting and watching,
Watching for you and for me.”
~ Will L. Thompson, 1880

We want to be hit over the head with irrefutable forensic evidence. DNA from a resurrected body archeologist can’t dig up and slice up in a lab. Instead He gives us 2,000 year old eyewitness testimony, eyewitnesses whose existence we mythologize so as to dismiss all the easier. Instead he gives us a virgin birth. Not easy to accept. Not for us. Not for Mary, and in Matthew 1, not for Joseph.

More often than not we get what Elijah got. We’re yearning for God to be spectacularly undeniable in the flash and the thunder, the flame and the fire, the shaking and the horror of it all. But He shows up gentle in the breeze, blowing here and there, the way the Holy Ghost does in John 3.

I want to be a saint.

Eugene Peterson said it on the regular.

And I do too.

I want to be a saint.

Theologically it’s positionally true because of Christ’s finished work upon the cross. that’s powerful → that from love as His motivation Christ gives the believer the righteous standing we could never ever earn on our own.

But I want to be a saint aspirationally!

See, like my friend said so long ago, faith is something that bothers you until it doesn’t.

Until you want it more than anything else. As if it’s the only thing that’ll make this worn out old world livable, because it is.

In the 1700’s there was a miner in England, converted under the Wesleyan revivals sweeping the English speaking world at the time.

The miner converted to Christ. Christ haunted him and Christ found him and now he found Christ to be undeniable.

His friends mocked him saying, “Do you really think Christ turned water into wine?”

“I don’t know” replied the miner. “but He turned beer into furniture in my house!”

And so it goes. Mysterious encounter with Jesus turns mysterious doctrine into the bedrock of your life.

I want to be a saint.

Not just positionally, though I’ll take it. But aspirationally, and experientially.

When God tells me the truth and I am afraid of being misunderstood if I follow Him, I want to be like Mary and Joseph and Jesus and say, “Yes Lord!”

Because Jesus needed a Dad. And the joy of fatherhood would have been denied to Joseph had he feared being misunderstood and mocked moreso than obedience to God.

I think that’s why Angels are so often recorded in Holy Scripture as being fearsome and terrifying. If God is telling me to do and believe the impossible, I want to make sure the message really is from God.

That’s why I think the modern Church’s focus on making everyone comfortable is wrong headed and dangerous, and ultimately detrimental to forming Christian disciples who fear God over man.

The message of so many Churches, whether they mean to or not, mirrors the consumeristic culture we are already immersed in. The last place that message needs to be reenforced is the House of God.

Come as you are. Get cozy, We’re going to have fun today, so get your coffee, settle in, the show is about to begin.

And please, please, like me, and whatever you do don’t hurt me, and just like me.

Then, eventually, they’ll get around to the whole don’t be afraid to choose Jesus over the culture message.

But, subconsciously, people feel cognitive dissonance: they know it can’t be both messages. It can’t be both. It has to be one or the other.

People know it can’t be the message their popular likes and shares obsessed Church is telling them: to be comfy, cozy, laughy, photogenically holy, popular, and accepted.

While Jesus says if the world hated me they’ll sure hate you.

He did. John 15:18

“If the world hates you, you know it has hated me before it hated you.”

And let’s not forget Proverbs 9:10

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

The modern Church beats all the awe, all the mystery, all the power out of this verse by explaining away all the fear of the Lord merely as healthy respect, a healthy appreciation, if you will. As if we’re dealing with uncle fluffy when we approach the divine.

The messenger lacks reverence.

Meanwhile the Lord Jesus says…

Matthew 10:27-28

“What I tell you in the darkness speak in the light, and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Merry Christmas.

Why did I just deflect with humor there? Why is our culture allergic to hearing the truth, unvarnished, without a sugar coating?

Do you know what truth Joseph received from God?

Jesus will save His people from their own sins. He is God with us.

And everyone will misunderstand you, Joseph. Because she’s already pregnant by the Holy Spirit.

But nobody is going to believe that part of the story…

Until they do.

Until they do…

So will you be counted a fool for Christ until they do?

That’s the question before us all.

Amen.

The Liturgy For December 21st, 2025

The Congregation Singing

The Call To Worship

Advent Candle: Hebrews 2:5-9

Call & Response Blue Hymnal #679

The Baptist Catechism

The Apostle’s Creed

The Lord’s Prayer

The Offertory

The Congregation Singing

The Proclamation

Matthew 1:18-25

“The Holy Work Of Being Misunderstood”

The Supplication

The Communion

1^st Corinthians 11:23-32

The Benediction

The Doxology

The Baptist Catechism

Q. 45. What is the duty which God requires of man?
A. The duty which God requires of man, is obedience to His revealed will. (Micah 6:8; Eccles. 12:13; Ps. 119:4; Luke 10:26-28)

Rhyme It.

What does God require of man?

God wants us every day

To believe and then obey.

The Benediction

May you go forth from the House of God

Bolstered, strengthened, emboldened

Now more than ever

To be misunderstood for Christ.

May your life belong to God alone. Amen.

~ E.M. Welcher

The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith 2.2

God, having all life,¹⁷ glory,¹⁸ goodness,¹⁹ blessedness, in and of Himself, is alone in and unto Himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creature which He hath made, nor deriving any glory from them,²⁰ but only manifesting His own glory in, by, unto, and upon them; He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things,²¹ and He hath most sovereign dominion over all creatures, to do by them, for them, or upon them, whatsoever Himself pleases;²² in His sight all things are open and manifest,²³ His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature, so as nothing is to Him contingent or uncertain;²⁴ He is most holy in all His counsels, in all His works,²⁵ and in all His commands; to Him is due from angels and men, whatsoever worship,²⁶ service, or obedience, as creatures they owe unto the Creator, and whatever He is further pleased to require of them.