Today I want to look with you at a Christmas story seldom
told. At Christmas time we usually focus on the babe in the manger, Mary and
Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men. But what happened to Jesus after he was
born in Bethlehem?
Listen for God’s word to you from Matthew 2:13-23…
Now after they had left, an angel of
the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and
his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is
about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up,
took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained
there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the
Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”
When Herod saw that he had been tricked
by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the
children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to
the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had
been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
“A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
When Herod died, an angel of the Lord
suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take
the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were
seeking the child’s life are dead.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and
his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that
Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to
go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of
Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what
had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a
Nazorean.”
I believe there are several lessons we can learn from this
story about God’s sovereignty. The first lesson has to do with The Pattern. We learn that the divine pattern is revealed to receptive hearts.
Specifically, God’s
pattern was revealed to Joseph because he had a receptive heart. After the Magi
left Joseph and his family, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream to tell him
to take Jesus to Egypt because Herod was going to come after him to kill him.
It is interesting to
note that every time Joseph received a command from God he obeyed immediately.
As we learned last week, Joseph was a righteous man. He had a right
relationship with God and always sought to obey God. When we are walking in
God’s way, God reveals the next step to us.
There is a
fascinating story in the Hebrew Scriptures about Abraham sending his servant
back to his homeland to find a wife for his son Isaac. The servant was unsure
about being able to find his way to Abraham’s relatives. But Abraham promises
that God will guide his servant. And God does guide the servant. Then, at the
end of his successful journey the servant makes this statement: “I, being in
the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master’s brethren.” (Genesis 24:27
KJV)
Have you ever heard
the statement: “Even God can’t steer a parked car.”? It is true. If you want
God to guide you, if you want him to reveal the next step in his pattern for
your life, then it is helpful to be walking in God’s way. It is helpful to be
receptive to his will. It is helpful to be stepping out in faith. This is the
way that Joseph apparently conducted his whole life. And so, God revealed his
pattern to him.
How does God reveal
his pattern for our lives today? He doesn’t usually speak to us through angels
and dreams. Though he can do that. I believe the way he usually reveals his
pattern for our lives is through the Holy Spirit taking the Scriptures and
applying them to our circumstances.
Bob Mumford, in Take
Another Look at Guidance, compares discovering God’s will with a sea
captain’s docking procedure…
A
certain harbor in Italy can be reached only by sailing up a narrow channel
between dangerous rocks and shoals. Over the years, many ships have been
wrecked, and navigation is hazardous. To guide the ships safely into port,
three lights have been mounted on three huge poles in the harbor. When the
three lights are perfectly lined up and seen as one, the ship can safely
proceed up the narrow channel. If the pilot sees two or three lights, he knows
he’s off course and in danger.
God
has also provided three beacons to guide us. The same rules of navigation
apply—the three lights must be lined up before it is safe for us to proceed.
The three harbor lights of guidance are: the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, and
circumstances. Together they assure us that the directions we’ve received are
from God and will lead us safely along his way.
But we ought not to
expect God to reveal his pattern for our entire lives in one instant. That is
not his usual way. He did not work that way with Joseph. He only told Joseph
the next step: take Jesus to Egypt. And Joseph obeyed.
Helen Roseveare has
written,
As
I came home from church one evening, I was struggling to recognize God’s
guidance for my life. Suddenly, I drove into dense fog and could see nothing.
Poking my head out the window, I noticed a tiny light from the road ahead. As I
inched my car forward, it blinked out and another set of oncoming headlights
took its place some yards ahead. I crawled along, following just the short
distance I could see—one light after another—until the fog cleared. Then I
realized that this is how God guides me. He shows me how far I need to go at
any given moment. And step-by-step, I move from one light to the next.
Confident of God’s guidance, I let go of the need to see his complete plan.
The second lesson
about God’s sovereignty I see in this passage has to do with The Pilot. If God pilots us into exile, he can also pilot us out.
The Father led Jesus
into exile in Egypt, but he also called his son out of Egypt. Here we see God
the Son identifying with us in all the ambiguities, complexities, and
perplexities of human life. Jesus experienced the worst that this world could
hurl at him, and he triumphed through it all.
On March 5, 1994,
Deputy Sheriff Lloyd Prescott was teaching a class for police officers in the
Salt Lake City Library. As he stepped into the hallway, he noticed a gunman
herding eighteen hostages into the next room. Dressed in street clothes,
Prescott joined the group as the nineteenth hostage followed them into the room
and shut the door. When the gunman announced the order in which the hostages
would be executed, Prescott identified himself as a police officer. In the
scuffle that followed, Prescott, in self-defense, fatally shot the armed man.
The hostages were released unharmed.[1]
In a similar
fashion, God dressed in street clothes and entered our world 2000 years ago,
joining those held hostage to sin. He identified with our hostage, exile
experience. But he also brought us out of exile by dying on the cross for us.
Rather than taking a life. He gave his life for us.
Do you feel like an
exile right now? Do you feel lost, alone, perhaps forsaken by God? God sent his
Son into exile that he might release you and me from exile. If God has led us
into the wilderness for a time of testing, he will also bring us out of the
desert in his time.
David says in Psalm
23, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I
will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort
me.” God never dumps us in the valley to leave us there. He always leads us through
the valley. And he is with us as he leads us through.
A third thing I
think we can learn about God from this story has to do with his Purpose.
Herod misunderstood
God’s purpose, and perhaps that is why he sought to kill the Christ child.
Herod thought that Jesus had come to take away his earthly throne. Jesus did
not come to do that. He came to be king of Herod’s life, and your life and
mine. Jesus wants to give us eternal life, not take away our present life. So
often, we are afraid God wants to take things away from us when, in reality, he
wants to give us freedom, peace and joy.
In 1981, a Minnesota
radio station reported a story about a stolen car in California. Police were
staging an intense search for the vehicle and the driver, even to the point of
placing announcements on local radio stations to contact the thief.
On the front seat of
the stolen car sat a box of crackers that, unknown to the thief, were laced
with poison. The car owner had intended to use the crackers as rat bait. Now
the police and the owner of the Volkswagen Beetle were more interested in
apprehending the thief to save his life than they were to recover the car.
So often we run from
God because we are afraid of his punishment. But what we are actually doing is
eluding his rescue.
Jesus said, “The
thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have
life and have it to the full.” (John 10:10)
A fourth thing I
think we can learn here about our sovereign God has to do with The Plan. We learn here that no one can thwart God’s plan. As the prophet Isaiah
asks, “For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him? His hand is
stretched out, and who can turn it back?” (Isaiah 14:27)
Herod tried to
thwart God’s plan. Herod gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its
vicinity who were two years old and under, in order that the Christ child might
die and be unable to usurp Herod’s throne. But Herod failed in his attempt to
kill Jesus because God’s ultimate plan cannot be thwarted.
Now I know we
struggle with passages in the Bible like this. We ask, “Was the murder of these
children a part of God’s plan?” I believe that while God allows evil, he does
not condone it and he certainly does not plan or purpose it.
In regard to blaming
God, Martin Vis tells the following story…
It
was still light out, when the young woman left the campus library to walk to
her car in a well-lit parking lot. She was accosted, brutalized, raped. God is
not to blame for that. Could God have stopped that man from doing what he did
to that girl? Yes, I believe he could have. Then why didn’t he? Because he gave
us the kind of world we want to live in. It is a world where people can touch
us to make us feel good or touch us to cause us great pain. He made us free
spirits in a world of free spirits. God is not to blame when people choose to
abuse that freedom.
Though Herod
exercised his freedom in a sinful way, he still could not thwart God’s ultimate
plan. It was not part of God’s plan for his Son to die at that point and so he
did not die. The Father protected his Son by telling Joseph to take the child
to Egypt.
Are you concerned
about God working out his plan for your life? When we are worried, we need to
turn our cares into prayers and surrender to God, trusting in him to work out
his plan. As Paul says in Philippians 1:6, “… he who began a good work in you
will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
A fifth thing I
think we can learn about our sovereign God in this story is about his Protection. If God protected his Son, then he will also protect us in Christ. God
protected his Son from Herod, and from Herod’s son Archelaus. As Jim Elliot
once said, “Your life is immortal until your job is done.”
The Coney is a rock
badger, a bit larger than the prairie dogs that infect the state of Colorado.
Coneys are gray, the color of the rocks. As long as the Coney is on the rock
sunning itself, it’s almost impossible to see. When a predator comes to attack,
the Coney will run into a crag in the rock. If a vulture or an eagle wants to
sweep down on the Coney, it has to knock down a mountain to get at it.
One thing about
Coneys, they know where their security lies. If a Coney decides to go off on
the prairie, venturing away from the rock, then it’s vulnerable. It doesn’t
matter how courageous the Coney is. It doesn’t matter whether or not it’s been
taking body building lessons at the local gym. The most courageous Coney falls
victim to the smallest wolf or lion. When it wanders away from the rock, a
Coney is dead meat.[2]
If you and I have
the wisdom of the Coney, then we will recognize where our protection is. It is
in Christ, the Rock. We need to cling to him.
A final lesson I
think we can learn about our sovereign God from this passage has to do with The Place God has for us. We learn here that God can make the worst of places serve
the best of his purposes.
God took his Son
down to Egypt, a place of exile, but he made it serve his purpose. Then God led
his Son Jesus to Nazareth, a place that was not greatly respected among the
Jews, but God made it serve his best purpose. Nazareth was along one of the
greatest caravan routes in the ancient world. Jesus was brought up in a town
where the ends of the earth met. From his boyhood days he was confronted with
scenes which must have given him a vision of love for his Father’s world. Yes,
God can bring about the best of his purposes in the strangest of places.
William Chatterton
Dix was born in Somerset, England, in 1837. During a time when few adventurous
folks migrated more than fifty miles from their place of birth, Dix eventually found
himself as manager of a marine insurance company in Glasgow, Scotland, by the
time he was twenty-five. Though in charge of some of his company’s most
important accounts and eventually the head of a growing family, Dix still found
time to write. Many accused him of pursuing poetry as his passion and his job
as a sideline venture. Dix’s writing embraced a wide range of thoughts and
subjects. It lacked much focus, however, until tragedy struck. A near-fatal
illness robbed him of his strength and confined the man to bed for many months.
As he lay near death, he often reflected on his faith. Reading his Bible and
studying the works of theologians, Dix reaffirmed his belief not only in Christ
as Savior but in the power of God to move in his own life. Not long after
regaining his strength, he was inspired to write some of the greatest hymns to
ever come forth from the pen of an English layman. Among these was a song he
titled “The Manger Throne”. It was published in England just as the U.S. Civil
War was ending and soon became popular in America. But its popularity truly
soared when Dix’s words were paired by an unknown Englishman with a famous pub
song from the 1500s known as “Greensleeves” and it was re-titled “What Child Is
This?”[3]
The creation of this
beloved Christmas carol is just one more example of how God can take the worst
of places, a shipyard in Glasgow, and the worst of circumstances, a near-fatal
illness, and he can make it all serve the best of his purposes. If God did that
for William Chatterton Dix, and if he did it for his own Son Jesus, then he
will certainly do it for you and me. As the Apostle Paul says, “We know
that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called
according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
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