Kenneth Copeland - Meet Joseph, the Earthly Father to Jesus
— Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. This is my daughter, Kellie. And Merry Christmas. Praise God. And this is going to be the best Christmas, because the adventure continues. And two places we want to look at. Matthew 14:35, no 55, you know what we said 13:55.
— You said 13:55.
— Yes. "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brethren, James and Joses and Simon and Judas" Now Luke chapter four. And you shall know the truth. And the truth will make you free. In Luke four... "And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up:" The village of Nazareth. Ah ha. The Scripture tells us that when the Angel Gabriel came to Mary... Luke, how does he have so much more information? Because he interviewed Mary in Ephesus, where she lived with John the Apostle in Timothy's Church.
Now you have the rest of the story. I tell you, glory to God and you know, and I can see this teaching, this epic adventure to young children. I tell you, it just knocked, you know, the big fat guy... Just knocks him in the head. Glory to God, because this is the truth. Nazareth is named in the New Testament. Very little is known about it from ancient sources. It was such a small agricultural village that archeological research includes that in Jesus' time, no more than 120 to 150 people lived there. This is just a little country town. He was raised there. Of course, everybody in town... No wonder they said... The whole family... We know them all. We know them all. Isn't this the Carpenter's son? Oh, now just a moment. I have that one mark too. Let's see. I wish Rick was here, but he's back in Moscow. Here it is. And I'm reading from Luke 2:4 states that Joseph was of the house and lineage of David. Although he was not involved in Mary becoming pregnant with Jesus, Joseph descended from the House of David, as was Mary. They moved to Nazareth in or about 100 B.C. and the name Nazareth was derived from a Hebrew word that means shoot or a branch. It seems Nazareth also because it was a village where the branch of David lineage lived. Scholars say it was likely that many members of David's lineage lived in Nazareth. I mean, these are home folks. Hallelujah.
Now, here we go. Matthew 13:55, they said, is this not the carpenter's son? We think, you know, maybe a woodworker... Carpenter used in Matthew 13:55 is translated from the Greek word Tekton. While it can indeed describe a woodworking carpenter, this is not the principal meaning of the word. It is highly unlikely that Tekton or I don't know where Tekton... you can tell I'm not Rick Renner. I just read... But it could have meant a woodworking carpenter in regard to Joseph, because the very little wood in that particular part of Galilee houses and buildings were not made of wood, but of stone. Wood was sparsely used because there was so little of it. So let's see what other skills a quote carpenter translated from the Greek word Tekton possessed in addition to working with wood if most people imagined a carpenter would do. First, that word is where we derived technology. Ah ha... Don't you love it?
And the word was used by famous Greek writers to depict the most technologically advanced craftsmen in the ancient world at that time. Their use of the word Tekton in Matthew 13:55 already tells us that Joseph did not simply possess rudimentary skills. He was a man with highly advanced technological skills. That word comes from a verb that means to bring forth and it pictures one who has the expertise to envision and create with his hands a well wrought final product. The word Tekton is so connected to the idea of creativity that it's used by some ancient writers to depict literary giants and poets who produced masterful literature and poetry. Importantly, it was also to depict one who could create wonders out of matter, or one who could manipulate materials in a marvelous way that surpassed ordinary technical skills. This is a brilliant man.
— You know, that's so important to pull out... I mean, I was thinking about this morning, carpenters aren't even cheap or poor today. Just a carpenter the way you think of carpenter. And, you know, anything that we take, I think that's a lot of the devil sells us, Jesus was not just a "anything". Who he had living on the inside of us, you can't put anything at the end of that sentence. He is the Son of God. And everything that he is, everything that came when that baby was born, when the baby Jesus was born, was all of God. And all of him is on the inside of us. So if we diminish any part of him, Satan will trick us into that diminishment coming out in the interaction, we expect from Jesus, he was not just anything.
— Think about how the devil used all of this.
— Kept them from hearing, it kept them from hearing
— that they were just poor people and there was no room for them at the inn. Well, without going into all of this, and researching and find out
— It's so good.
— And how rich the heritage is here. And he didn't pick a poor family. And possibly this week we can get into all of that. Both Joseph and Mary, their backgrounds, their parents. Now, there was a city only four miles from Nazareth, Sepphoris... You could see it from Nazareth. That city was being built at the very same time. And it's very reasonable to believe there's pictures of it in this book that Joseph had a great deal to do with the building of that city. It's only four miles away, and he's the sharpest guy in the whole area. I mean, he has ideas that are supernatural ideas of course, glory to God, that all of these things just debunk the devil's stories about poverty in that family.
— In my family.
— Now, let me ask you, is poverty a blessing? It's a curse. So the God of the blessing of Abraham and his most important act on before or since to bring the sacrifice for our sins into this world, into a poverty stricken family, it's ludicrous, absolutely senseless. But it is to people that don't know these facts that have been taught that or just didn't think about it at all. And you see the Nativity Scene and it's correct. But it's displaced in a lot of ways. And we'll get before the week's up now, we're going to get over into the Magi or the "kings" and talk about those gifts. Glory to God, in fact, the Spirit of the Lord just rose up on the inside of me. You're going to know the truth about this, too. And tomorrow we'll get into that.
But I wanted you to see this, most important of all, intricately designed buildings, floors covered with magnificent mosaics, elaborate frescoes painted on walls, sculptures carved from marble, sumptuous pieces of jewelry fabricated from gold or silver, then adorned with precious jewels. The use of ivory, especially in jewelry and furniture, fabulously designed furniture that was embellished with ornate elements made of bronze, silver and gold adorned with precious jewels. And I've heard people say, "Well, you know, the carpenter was also a shoe maker". Well, if he did, I'm telling you, they were the fanciest boots in town. But when you find out the background behind that word, he was technologically advanced. Well, of course he was, glory to God.
— He was a man that listened to the Spirit of the Lord.
— Yes.
— And anybody in those days that listen to the Spirit of the Lord would be... would be advanced or I mean, that was the key to what everything in the blessing was to listen to him and obey him,
— And he was the Father's pick. He picked those two families to bring those two families together and out of that family would come James and Jude, is that familiar? Well, of course it is. No wonder James could write such magnificent things about the wisdom of God. He was raised in the household of Jesus, and so was Jude.
— And Joseph...
- And Joseph. Thank you, Kellie. Yes, he was, a man of great love and technology to raise his family well off, well done.
— You know, when you have a father like that, I just wanna bring this out here. I just want to appreciate the fathers that are real fathers. We need to hear more about how fathers be fathers. And of course, it's in the Word. You're a great dad.
— Oh, thank you Kellie.
— But you learn things. So I was recently with some friends in Florida and somebody wanted to catch fish was actually Dog the Bounty Hunter and he caught some... they had some fish and he wanted me to clean them. And I'm like, I've never cleaned a fish, but I've watched it done. And so and it's probably been 20 years since I've seen you clean a fish, but you know what, I thought, well, I can do it. And then he goes, okay, and he handed me the fish and I took that and I watched like a three minute video on YouTube, but I had it right. I would have done exactly like the video said, but I did it. And I just went, Oh, I can do that, flip the fish. But it's been 20 years since I watch you teach me...
— and you take your electronic knife and you go under right down to the bone and...
— Except I had a real knife and I mean but I did it.
— You do it with a fillet knife and you just go right down the backbone and flip that over there like that and then turn him over. And you have fillet fish.
— But I learned that watching you and you're telling me that 20 years ago. But the thing that I wanted to point out is God would not put Jesus in the household of a man who would not share in the right ways of living. I'm sure he knew how to clean a fish, obviously he cooked fish. But those things you learn from people that care to express what he cared about Abraham, why I picked him was he would teach his children. So I've never thought about the fact that God would pick that kind of man, for his son to be raised on by earthly things.
— I didn't either, not until I got in this book.
— That's inspiring... for fathers.
— That's the reason it's the rest of the story. Glory to God....
- That's so good.
— And my dad taught me things. And as all of you know, my mother couldn't have any more children. So I was the smartest child she ever had and the dumbest one too. And I proved it in a lot of ways, but my dad would teach me things and I was born in Lubbock, Texas, December the sixth, 1936. And then my dad had gone to John's Business College to take bookkeeping courses and penmanship and so forth. And then he was teaching bookkeeping there and two jobs came up, you know, the depression was still on. One was in Lubbock with a guaranteed salary and the other was in Abilene with commission only. And my dad took the commission only. Well, I wanted to know why. Why would you do a thing like that? And he just smiled and said, "Well, if I take the commission, if I take the salary, you know, the school, rightly enough, we're going to keep most of it. I'm just a teacher, but on the commission only. It's up to me to pray, believe God, work hard, and then I keep most of the money because I'm the salesman that brought it in there". Amen.
And Kellie, I remember he would come home with things. He came home one time with a trombone. I wanted that trombone. He said, "No, this is part of that student's tuition and I have to sell his trombone and pay it all". And he came home one time with a little spinet piano, a little Wurlitzer spinet piano. And so he kept the piano, so I would have it. And they came in and rolled it in there. And it was a pre-war Wurlitzer, so it had a steel soundboard instead of wood, which was very important. And that little Wurlitzer spinet is in Kellie's house today.
— Yes.
— And when they rolled it in there, I didn't know how to play anything, you know, just about here. So I just picked out "Lay that pistol down, lay that pistol down, pistol packing, momma, lay that pistol down". That was the first introduction to the music world. But anyway...
— Good dads open opportunity. Doors of opportunity for their sons.
— And my dad taught me things, little things he taught me on honesty and integrity. To tithe everything first. And I had to learn from him how to dry my back. Well, that's important. And I can just see it in my mind now, he and I going swimming at a swimming pool. And so we got out and we went into the pool, shower there, you know, and I was struggling with my back. He said, "Now, boy, come here, give me that towel". And he taught me how to dry my back. That's important.
— You know what I just heard? It is important because I heard this other day, how you do one thing is how you do everything. That's why Joseph and who he is and who he was important. Because how you do one thing, it's how you do... What did he do with this napkin? He folded the linen as he took it off. He thought of everything, how he did one thing is how he did everything.
— And you have to know that last Passover meal, how important it was and the things he did that night. He violated the rules and he did all the things. But he said, "This is my body broken for you. This is my blood of the New Covenant". It is important to note that one scholar has said that that word was so highly skilled that he could create shiny and splendid things of extraordinary beauty that made them appear to come to life. Thus, the principal meaning of take tone was one of highly skilled, versatile craftsman or artisan who had the technical know how to create wonders out of matter and hitherto unseen ways. Isn't that something? And then, Mark, 6:2 says, "Years before his ministry began, Jesus was known as the carpenter, also translated Tekton. When the people of Nazareth heard each word, they were astonished at his abilities to publicly teach the Word".
— Oh, my word. Then Jesus comes, is raised by somebody like that, and then he begins to operate in the supernatural. And what was his first miracle? Turning water. That's what you just read. Some turning this into something spectacular. Turning water into wine. No wonder his mother thought he could do anything...
— Oh, that household.
— Wow, he probably camped there for about a week.
— Oh, my, my, my, my.
— Wow, that's really big.
— And then going to Capernaum, all of that was prophesied beforehand, of course. And he was born to do these things. And this also suggests that Jesus' skills as a carpenter were so well known that there was not a more gifted, not a more gifted technologically living in Nazareth than Jesus, a better translation of that word would be Jesus was an artisan and suggests that no other artisan in the village had skills better than those of Jesus. Don't you know? He created literally some marvelous things and all that 120, 150 people. That's the way they knew him. But all of a sudden he turned preacher, what is this? But he there could do no mighty miracles in his hometown. They're all knew him and he marveled at their unbelief. And he laid his hands on a few. Maybe they looked down on becoming a preacher from where he had...
— His people could see that.
— and they thought, why would you do that? You should be doing this. People like that, like that now...
— Why would you become a rabbi?
— Yeah.
— When you could go ahead and spend your life making millions at this, what is there? Would you become a preacher and give up all that? But the thing that was so big with him, they said, "Is this not the local boy"?
— Yeah.
— Now my family... Everybody's kin to some... We know his kinfolks. Did you realize that every prophet in the Bible had kinfolk and it got a lot of men in trouble? One of my kinfolks said... He said to some of the other part of the family, "Do you think Kenneth is a prophet"? Well, they said that, too. Well, I know who it was but they said, "Well, yeah, yeah. Well, he's our kinfolks". He said the very same thing. Sweet man. Oh, and a brilliant man in what he did. But he was not a Bible student. He loved God and was born-again man of God. But his expertise was completely in another field. And in that field I want you to know he was outstanding, amen. But all of these things come together around this family. And like Rick said, the rest of the story, glory to God. How much time we have, Tim? 30 seconds. Okay. Back to Sepphoris... That's the city that we're talking about just four miles away. So the peak of the hilltop of Nazareth, local people could see in a distance, four miles away, a sumptuous city of Sepphoris which was being lavishly embellished by artisans at the very time of Jesus' birth. Let's talk about that tomorrow. So all of this, oh, isn't this magnificent?