God’s Unfolding Plan
Text: Matthew 2:13-23
Introduction
When the church I was pastoring decided to build, the county required us to file our blueprints, the plan for our project.
Any project of significance requires a plan to ensure all the working parts come together in the right way.
Our God is the God of the Plan: Noah was given specific plans for the ark, pages of plans are given for the construction of the tabernacle and all of its furnishings.
Proposition: Nowhere is God’s attention to detail more evident than in the story of God’s plan of salvation through Jesus Christ.
Even the title Christ is a reminder of God’s plan, Christ is the Greek for Messiah--the anointed one, the one who fulfills God’s promise, Who consummates God’s plan. The man Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Transition: Today we begin a series of sermons from the book of Matthew, who under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, again and again stops to remind us as he tells the story of Jesus, that all of this is happening according to a plan laid out by God at the beginning of time. A plan which was foretold by the prophets. He makes three such prophetic pit stops in the 10 verse passage we read this morning, and those three prophetic references each emphasize a different aspect of God’s plan.
I’d like us to consider those three aspects of God’s plan this morning and as we do I’d like us to consider not only how God’s plan related to Jesus although that clearly is one important thing we need to do, but I’d also like us to consider how God’s planning nature relates to each of us in the here and now.
The first thing we should notice about the God of the Plan is that...
God Has a Plan In History
13-15When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him." 14So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."
This particular prophetic reference is not to a prophecy that we would normally consider predictive. The devout Jews who were watching for a Messiah were not looking for this particular passage of OT prophecy to be fulfilled by the Messiah. Rather in it’s context it is simply a reminder of the history of Israel and as we read this morning it gives way to a rather dire prediction of a new Egyptian exile and enslavement of God’s people.
So why does Matthew tell us that Jesus’ trip to Egypt fulfills this prophecy? We could render the phrase instead that this trip "filled to the fullest" this prophecy. What Matthew is saying here is that Jesus trip into Egypt gives greater meaning to the prophecy, and to the history of God’s people that the prophecy refers to.
By making the trek to Egypt with his family, the life of Christ parallels the work of God in "redemptive history" which is to say Christ’s life becomes a reminder of how God set apart a people and called them out of Egypt and made a covenant with them to be their God and they would be His people. This people of God becomes the lineage through which God will begin to craft a holy people, a nation set apart ultimately, as God promised Abraham, not to bless themselves, but that God would bless all nations through them because they would be the source of God’s ultimate promise--the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
The reference here to God’s calling his people out of Egypt and the fact that Jesus retraced the steps of God’s people is a reminder that God has been working up to this moment down through history.
This isn’t a plan he just came up with, it’s the plan he always had. To use a phrase we like in the military, God’s interaction with man throughout time has not been reactive but proactive. God doesn’t react to the curves that we through at him--he’s already planned for our, mistakes, for our disobedience.
That doesn’t mean that our response to him is unimportant or that we don’t have a responsibility to choose what’s right, its simply to say that we don’t upset God’s plan with our disobedience. God’s plan is proactive He’s already planned because he already knew all the variables.
God Has a plan in History. Secondly I’d like you to notice with me that...
God Has a Plan In Heartache
16-18When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:18"A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."
Is it just me or is that a mighty depressing end to the Christmas story? If you read this passage in context, you’ve just read about the Magi coming to worship the baby Jesus. A very inspiring passage, and now right on it’s heels we’ve got dead babies. If the historians are right, based on the size of Bethlehem, about 30 dead babies.
You never see these verses quoted on Christmas Cards. But it’s part of the Christmas story. A tragic part, a confusing part, a difficult part to understand--one which I confess I simply don’t understand, and probably won’t until I get to be with Jesus in person. And Matthew relates it exactly as it happened. If I were writing the story myself, I think I would’ve skipped this part, it really puts a damper on the Christmas joy. But it’s here and it comes packaged with this curious reference to an OT prophecy about Rachel weeping for her children.
What’s the point of it all? Perhaps simply to remind us that God has a plan in Heartache. Even in the death of precious babies Matthew say this is the fulfillment of prophecy, a part of God’s plan. Even in situations we don’t understand, even when grief brings rivers of tears, God has a plan.
The prophetic reference here is to Jer. 31:15. Here are the next two verses of that prophecy "Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded," declares the LORD. "They will return from the land of the enemy. So there is hope for your future," declares the LORD."
Even in tragedy God has a plan. Though we may not understand, God has a plan in Heartache. And finally in the last prophetic pit stop in our passage this morning we see that...
God Has a Plan In HIM
19-23After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead." 21So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene."
If you’ve given this passage a little study you’ll notice that there’s something funny about this reference... First of all, your standard NIV doesn’t give a reference to this passage directing you to the OT prophecy--and that is because there is no direct quote here. Secondly, It doesn’t say "So was fulfilled what was said through the prophet" it says "Prophets," plural.
So the question is, if no OT prophet says the Messiah will be called a Nazarene, why does Matthew say this fulfills what was said through the Prophets?
What we have here is a little play on words. The name of Nazareth is very similar to the Hebrew word for branch or shoot--Netzer. Someone from Nazareth was often called a Netzer--as Jesus is throughout the Gospels. In the OT prophecy Netzer, or branch, is a specific title for the Messiah like Son of David or Lion of Judah, or Prince of Peace. as seen in...
Jeremiah 33:15 "In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land."
In fact the Branch is one of the most widely used Messianic titles, occurring at least six times in the writings of 3 different prophets.
What’s the point of this prophetic pit-stop? To say Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Messiah. That God Has a Plan in Him. He is the fulfillment, the consummation of the plan that God has been working out through history. He, Jesus, is the Righteous Branch of David’s Line. The one all the promises were about.
God’s plan for salvation for you and for me is fulfilled in none other than this one who was born of a virgin, worshiped by Magi, who went to the cross and took the sins of us all upon him, according to God’s plan.
And according to plan we can experience salvation and experience new life through Him if we put our trust in what he has done on our behalf
