Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:12 Five's car.
Speaker 1 00:00:14 Welcome to the Village Kids and the podcast 22, the Adventure of Christmas.
Speaker 0 00:00:35 Welcome
Speaker 3 00:00:35 To Village Kid's Advent podcast. Today we are gonna be talking about a special man, but before we get into that, I have a special guest with me here today and I want him to introduce himself. Um, what is your first name? Special
Speaker 2 00:00:47 Guest. Nika.
Speaker 3 00:00:48 And what grade are you in?
Speaker 2 00:00:51 Second.
Speaker 3 00:00:52 And Nika, what is your favorite thing about second grade?
Speaker 2 00:00:55 Um, on Friday we, we get popcorn.
Speaker 3 00:00:59 Yeah, popcorn Friday. That is a genius idea, don't you think? And so how do you earn Popcorn Friday? Or how does this work?
Speaker 2 00:01:08 We give it, so we have this movie to watch and it's about, and it's about the Super book. Yes. And it's about Jesus and we and then the teacher, she decides which one, and then we watch it when we have popcorn.
Speaker 3 00:01:28 I mean, is there any better way to spend a Friday? Pretty much, no. Right. If you get to wrap up your Bible lesson for the week, watching a super book episode, eating popcorn with your friends, I feel like I'd like to come and join you guys sometimes because that sounds like a very fun time. So we're gonna be talking about something that's pretty fun today, also has a fantastic super book episode about it. We're gonna be talking about Joseph, right? And what do you think is special about Joseph before we jump into this, just off the cuff, what do you think, what do you think was special about him? He
Speaker 2 00:01:59 Wasn't really the father of Jesus, but he, but God was mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but he was, he was not really supposed to be the father,
Speaker 3 00:02:10 But he kinda like stepped into that role though. Right. Like on earth. He was like protecting him, providing for him. But you're right, God was his father. He wasn't supposed to be the father, but he stepped into the role. And so before we talk more about that, let's talk a little bit about you. What are you looking forward to most about Christmas?
Speaker 2 00:02:28 Having my papa and grandma come over to celebrate Jesus' birthday.
Speaker 3 00:02:33 And that's a pretty fun time when they get to join you guys. Yeah. What do you like to do with them? Like on Christmas, anything you guys always do or eat or what do you do?
Speaker 2 00:02:41 We have something on Christmas Eve. We, so they come over and they watch us and then on Christmas they come over and get us gifts and carbs.
Speaker 3 00:02:55 Oh, that is a fun time, right? Being able to celebrate with them. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So we're talking about adventures a lot this Christmas cuz our advent is called The Adventure of Christmas. I would love to hear from you, what is one of your favorite adventures that you've been on?
Speaker 2 00:03:08 When we went looking for wild horses on the beach, in the outer banks.
Speaker 3 00:03:14 Did you find any? Yeah. Oh, you did? You found wild horses there? Oh my goodness. Like a lot or a few? Tell me about that. A few. A few? Yeah. Were they beautiful? Were they like all one color? Different colors?
Speaker 2 00:03:27 They, they were all like kind of brown.
Speaker 3 00:03:30 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Were they running, were they just like eating and grazing or?
Speaker 2 00:03:35 We saw most of 'em like staying where they were. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 3 00:03:41 I've probably seen wild horses one time and it was in North Dakota at uh, Teddy Roosevelt National Park. And it was something special about seeing horses that were wild. Right. And so they're just different. They're kind of beautiful really fast too. And so when you go in adventures like that, what is one thing that you just really enjoy about adventures?
Speaker 2 00:04:01 They can be fun and surprising and anything can happen.
Speaker 3 00:04:05 Do you like that feeling that anything can happen? Or do you like to kind of know what's gonna happen more?
Speaker 2 00:04:09 I like that feeling.
Speaker 3 00:04:10 You like that feeling when you go on adventures? What's something that you do not enjoy about adventures where you're like, this is not my part?
Speaker 2 00:04:17 They can be scary.
Speaker 3 00:04:20 Yeah. What's scary? What's like the scary part?
Speaker 2 00:04:23 It's scary if you see something in your helmet saw before
Speaker 3 00:04:27 And you're like, I don't know what, what that's about Right. Yeah. So sometimes that like fear of unknown. Right? I can really get us. Do you think that Joseph, any time when he was like kind of on this adventure of Christmas, do you think at any point he was like, oh, I do not know what's going on here. You think it kind of felt a little scary to him? Yeah. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. I agree. I think it probably did too. All right, so let's dig in talking about Joseph. Where are we going today? What are we talking about?
Speaker 2 00:04:49 Joseph was about to marry Mary, but he found out she was pregnant so he decided to quietly break it off.
Speaker 3 00:04:58 That's totally true. Right? Don't you also think that Mary, Mary is kind of a funny sentence? Yeah. Yeah, me too. And so Joseph here, right? He's like, oh, okay, well I had the best of intentions. This was my plan. This is not going to how I was gonna plan. And I bet he did feel scared and I be he felt a little awkward and he felt confused, right? Yeah. Okay. So quick question for you. Can you think of a time when something surprising happened to you or your family, which meant that you had to like change your plans?
Speaker 2 00:05:27 Being a foster brother, um, times surprising things happen and our family needs to help each other to make things easier for everyone,
Speaker 3 00:05:37 Right? So you have um, a couple of foster brothers, right? Yeah. And so sometimes you're like, okay, that is not going the way that it planned. We have to do something different and everyone has to like kind of chip in to help take care of like the kids that are younger than you, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's true. I've seen it in action. Right? How often would you say that happens where you're like, oh, I thought we were doing this and now it's different A
Speaker 2 00:05:59 Bunch of
Speaker 3 00:05:59 Times. Yeah. A bunch of times, right? It's constantly kind of changing what's going on. And so, um, I think that's pretty much how Joseph felt. Don't you think? He was like, oh, I thought we were doing this and now we're doing something different. So one of the things we learned about him, he's like, it's okay. I'm not gonna make a big deal out of it. I'm just gonna quietly go over here and break it off. As we look at today's story we've been seeing in loose gospel and we've been hearing about Mary, now we get to learn about Joseph. So we're gonna jump back into the Matthews gospel to hear about Joseph. And Matthew is a different gospel writer, right? And so what else can you tell me? What else can you tell me about Matthew?
Speaker 2 00:06:39 He's interested in different people, but telling us the same story of Jesus' birth.
Speaker 3 00:06:46 Right? And so that's kinda like the cool thing about getting different perspectives about the same story is different personalities kind of are like, Ooh, I'm gonna tell you more about this person cuz I find them a little bit more interesting. And another person's like, Ooh, I'm gonna focus more on this person. And so yeah, we're going to the book of Matthew because he is excited to tell us more about Joseph. And so we find ourselves here in Matthew one 18 and 19. And what are we looking out for as we read this passage?
Speaker 2 00:07:12 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way when his mother Mary had been betrayed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit and her husband Joseph, being adjustment and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.
Speaker 3 00:07:38 Right? And so we see the whole time that Joseph had to change a lot of his plans, right? How do you think it felt to be him at this point?
Speaker 2 00:07:45 Felt nervous.
Speaker 3 00:07:47 Yeah. What else? Anything else? You think he felt
Speaker 2 00:07:50 Scared? Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 00:07:52 <affirmative>? Yeah. He's like, oh, all these plans that I had, they are not going the way that I thought they would. I thought he felt a little sad too, right? Like, what if he really liked Mary? And he was like, oh man, now I'm gonna have to like, kind of just divorce her secretly, like do this quietly, which was really kind also. So what was Mary's big news? Mary was gonna have a baby, right? And therefore Joseph had a big problem because he and Mary had been planning to do what? Why were they planning to do
Speaker 2 00:08:21 They were planning to
Speaker 3 00:08:23 Get married.
Speaker 2 00:08:25 Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:08:25 Yeah. Right? That was their plan the whole time. And so this has to be like, pretty disappointing. So Nico, tell me a little bit, what does this mean? What does it tell us about our lives? Go ahead and tell me what your thoughts are.
Speaker 2 00:08:36 Messy lives don't always mean that we have something wrong. Mm. Joseph hasn't done anything wrong. He was a good man trying to make good decisions. We know that God's hand was in it. We know how this must turn into something beautiful. This is the normal story of trusting God. Our messy lies, our love for others, and our godly choices are being used by God to make something beautiful. What is messy in your life at the moment?
Speaker 3 00:09:15 What do you think? What do you feel like? It sometimes feels like it's messy in your life.
Speaker 2 00:09:20 There's a bully at my school.
Speaker 3 00:09:23 Yeah. That can definitely feel messy, right? Cause how does that bully make you feel? Sometimes?
Speaker 2 00:09:29 He likes bes rude to me and he makes me sad. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and mad.
Speaker 3 00:09:38 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. Like a combination, right? You're both like, um, I'm a little scared. I'm mostly sad and now you're making me a little mad too. That is a messy situation. And we see here like what did Joseph do with his messy situation? Did he try to like clean it up himself or try to hide it?
Speaker 2 00:09:54 He to hide it
Speaker 3 00:09:56 Because was that what was helpful for the situation in this situation? He was actually trying not to like make Mary feel terrible, right? Yeah. He was trying to be like a man who would like take care of her. He would still kind of protect her even by like trying to keep it quiet. But he also was dealing with it. He wasn't hiding it in the sense that he was like, oh, maybe if we don't pay attention to this, it'll go away. And so I want you to be thinking about that messy situation in your life and seeing how God's hand is in it. Are there any ways that you've seen God's hand in that bully situation for yourself?
Speaker 2 00:10:28 Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:10:28 What, what are you seeing? What do you see? What do you think God could be up to in that?
Speaker 2 00:10:32 He can help me. So he doesn't do anything wrong to me and he can help me so he doesn't make me sad or mad.
Speaker 3 00:10:43 Yep. So he can protect you. That's what I'm hearing you say. Right? You know what, another thing I think that he's doing too is that he's teaching you how important your voice is to be able to speak up against injustice, to be able to speak up and tell your teachers or other people, right? Yeah. When people are not treating people the way they're supposed to be. And so even through kind of that messy situation, he's doing something beautiful in your life to help you to learn how to speak up against things that are not right. Right? Yeah. And so let's think through this. We see Joseph, what is something that you learn about Joseph's character from today? What do you see something about him? Like what do you what? What do you learn about Joseph? Why is he a good guy? Is he a good guy?
Speaker 2 00:11:23 He's a good guy. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And he protected Mary really much.
Speaker 3 00:11:29 That's right. He protected her. And so we see from his character that he's kind of willing to sacrifice himself. He wants to kind of honor her. He wants to make her look good still. Um, and he's trying to make the right choices in the right way. And that is pretty like cool, right? Yeah. That's like a guy that we can look up to. And so I'm hoping Nico, that you continue to see God work in your story, right? That even with like this situation with this person who is being kind of rude to you and makes you feel like sad and a little mad sometimes, that you would continue to be like, okay, how do I respond? I can't control what the other person is doing, right? But I can control my response and I can also try to make this into a beautiful situation and what something that God can work in that in his time. And so do we know that God likes to make messy things beautiful?
Speaker 2 00:12:20 Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:12:20 Yeah. He does. He does. I think you've seen that even as like a foster brother. Sometimes people have messy lives and God likes to use us to be able to make different people's lives beautiful in different way. But ultimately he is doing the work. And so I hope today as our listeners are listening to the story of a boy named Joseph looking at his life and what he has to do of the adventure of Christmas, I hope that your hearts are encouraged to be able to see that our messy lives, our love for others, our godly choices, all of the things are being used by God to make something beautiful and anything that is even best messy. As you're listening to this podcast today, anything that you find in your life today that's messy, it is not beyond God's control. He can use it to make something beautiful in our stories. Would you agree? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Nico, would you close this in prayer today?
Speaker 2 00:13:05 Yeah. Dear Father, thank you that the first Christmas was a story of you. Mm-hmm. Using ordinary people and helping them trust you. Help us trust you too. Amen.
Speaker 3 00:13:21 Amen. All right, Nico, can you close our podcast today by just pushing everyone? Merry Christmas. Who's listening?
Speaker 2 00:13:26 Merry Christmas.
Speaker 3 00:13:28 Fantastic. We hope you guys have a great day.
