Surviving Your Current Chaos with Confidence

[00:00:00] One of the beautiful things about the Bible is something called typology. So there's a type or pre figurement in the Old Testament that's fulfilled in the New. Sometimes there's this image or story in the Old Testament that's not fulfilled and completed till thousands of years later in the New Testament. And that was the case with Joseph. [00:00:16] St. Joseph had a pre figurement or a type in the Old Testament and his name was also Joseph. And there's tons of cool overlaps between those two stories. Check this out. The Joseph in the Old Testament and the New Testament obviously share the same name. Number two, they're both described as being righteous and just men. So they have the same kind of personality. So all these things in the Bible are little clues that hey guys, this is fulfilling, that they both receive God's guidance in dreams. So God speaks to the Joseph in the Old Testament through dreams and without question, he just obeys New Testament Joseph. Same thing. In a dream, Joseph was told, take Mary as your as your wife despite the fact that she's pregnant and you're not married yet. Don't worry, I got this. This child's conceived by the Holy Spirit. He's also directed in a dream to take the holy family that had been entrusted to him into Egypt so they wouldn't be killed when Herod the psycho king came and killed the infants out of jealousy. Speaking of which, there's another overlap that both of them suffered persecution because of envy. I had a great conversation one time with Peter Kreeft. He said envy is the stupidest sin because it's the only sin where there's like no delay between the sin and your misery. Usually there's at least a moment of pleasure and then you feel guilty or then you experience the aftermath of your dumb decision. With that one you're instantly miserable. But with the story of these Josephs, the enemy didn't just turn. Joseph's brothers in the Old Testament who were jealous of their father's special love for Joseph, they didn't just turn him into someone envious, but murderous. [00:01:48] And the same thing with Herod. He wasn't just miserable because of his envy, he was murderous. He will not share his throne with someone else. So both persecuted out of envy, they're both in that persecution end up going into Egypt. So you have the flight into Egypt where Joseph in the New Testament goes into Egypt to protect the holy family. The Joseph in the Old Testament is sold as a slave and ends up being in high places in Egypt. Both of them are entrusted with the household. What's that mean? So in the Old Testament he rose up and he was in the high courts of the king and he's entrusted with overseeing all the grain in Egypt during a time of famine. The Joseph of the New Testament, what's it mean to be entrusted with the household of God? Well, Jesus himself is the church. He carries in his body everything that the church is. The church is called the body of Christ. That's why we call St. Joseph the protector of the church. [00:02:39] Man, I love. There's so many overlaps, it's kind of crazy. Oh, check this out. So Joseph in the Old Testament during the famine, distributes bread to the people. In the New Testament you have this other pre figurement where Jesus is the bread of life that Joseph is entrusted with. [00:02:53] And this is really cool. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which in Hebrew is Bethlehem, which means house of bread. Dude, there's no way the guy thousands of years ago who named the town Bethlehem could have possibly known the significance. [00:03:08] But all these things are fulfilled. I could go on. But guys, the message of the typology is this. [00:03:17] While there's 73 books in the Bible and biblia just means it's like books. It means it's basically a library written over the course of thousands of years, there's one author. [00:03:28] And while each part of the book taken in isolation might look like this Persian is in total chaos, it's a reminder that the story you're reading is written by a God who's got it all in his hands. [00:03:41] He loves and cares for each person. [00:03:44] And while it looks like pure chaos on that page, it's part of a story where everything is unfolding exactly as planned. [00:03:54] And friends, here's the thing and here's the difference that faith makes. [00:04:01] When you study the Bible and you read these stories, you realize pretty quickly that the person who is living out the type, the pre figurement in the Old Testament and the person in the New Testament, they don't get to see that big story when they're just experiencing the chaos of the page that they're on. [00:04:19] I mean, St. Joseph, dude, think about the stress this guy lived through. [00:04:23] God's instructing him in a dream to marry the woman he is engaged to, betrothed to who had become pregnant. Just trust me, okay? [00:04:34] That's a marriage under some serious stress. [00:04:38] Then Joseph experiences knowing that this child is conceived by the Holy Spirit. Now this is a big deal and he's entrusted with the burden of caring for all this. And he can't find a bed for her to give birth in has to happen in a manger where animals feed. He doesn't know that in that moment, Jesus is the bread of life. He doesn't know in that moment that it's so important for the King of Kings to be born in such humble circumstances so that everyone, even the poorest of the poor, thinks, that's my guy. [00:05:08] He didn't know how much that would mean to me 2,000 years later. [00:05:13] He didn't know that as he went into Egypt and came back out of Egypt, he was fulfilling thousands of years of biblical imagery and prophecy. He didn't know that. You know what he knew in that moment? He knew the chaos of the page he was on. But the difference faith makes is this, that even though all he saw was the chaos of that page, Joseph. And here's the difference of all the saints, it's not that they don't experience the chaos of the page, guys. [00:05:42] They all knew they're part of a bigger story. [00:05:46] And St. Joseph lived the chaos of the page with the calm and confidence of knowing that fact. [00:05:53] Guys, I don't know what page you're on right now. [00:05:56] Maybe you're experiencing illness, maybe you're experiencing cancer, maybe your house is blowing up, something's going wrong with your kids. Maybe your marriage is in a really difficult time. [00:06:06] That cancer is not your story. [00:06:08] That divorce is not your story. [00:06:11] Those are all pages in a bigger story. [00:06:14] That abuse is not your story. That success is not even your story. Those are all pages in a bigger story. [00:06:21] And that story is written by the hand of love, by the hand of a God who has got you guys. Remembering that doesn't take away the chaos of the page you're on, but enables you to go through life with the peace and confidence of knowing that you're in a story and the story is good. [00:06:43] That's the peace and confidence that Joseph went to Egypt with as a psycho king was at his tail and came back home and raised the holy family with. [00:06:54] May that same peace and confidence animate the chaos of our family lives. [00:07:01] Happy solemnity to the holy family. God bless you.