Faith in God needs to be our go to, that we hear Him, that we listen for Him, and that we seek Him. And that’s exactly what Joseph obviously had been doing for quite some time. Joseph was a just man, and it’s very clear that he feared God. He was absolutely a man of radical faith, radical obedience, and radical submission.
No one before Joseph and no one since him has ever been asked to do what he was asked to do. Can you think about that for a moment? At the end of the day, who really had to have more faith here? Mary or Joseph? Think about it. As Mary was carrying the child, and every woman knows that has had a child, you are very aware. You’re not denying that there’s something going on. Your body is changing, and you are very aware. Mary had something tangible she could hold on to. She knew she was a virgin, and she knew what the angel had said. In addition, she knew she was carrying a child.
On the other hand, Joseph didn’t have any of that. He had the word of the angel in a dream.
And Joseph took that word, and he ran with it. He didn’t deny it, and he didn’t fight with it, and he didn’t argue with God about it. He went with it. I think, taking the whole picture into view, Joseph had to have more faith than Mary. I believe he was more radically obedient. They both were.
I want us to see that this man was really, really used of God and that we also need to be as radically submitted to God as Joseph.