Introduction

 

“I love it when a plan comes together!”  Have you ever said that?

 

You might have been working on some big project at work, or a Uni assignment, or doing some major renovation at home, or maybe just some tricky little job that only takes a few minutes.  Whatever the job, you can see where you want to end up but you know it will only happen if you plan it out step by step.

​

So you set out and make a plan.  You work out what materials you need, how much they will cost and how you are going to put them together in the right way.  Then you work out what you have to do first, then what’s next and so on.  You work out which steps depend on earlier ones and which can be done anytime.  You work out how long each step will take and when you need to start to get everything done in time.

 

Then, you set to work.  You buy the materials and then start out with step one.  Then you move to step two and on you go until everything’s finished – on time and within budget as they say in business.  Then you can sit back and say “I love it when a plan comes together!”

 

If only things were so smooth.  If only when you set out a plan, nothing came along to muck it up.  But that’s not how it is, is it?  Our perfect plans often get mucked up.  Something goes wrong, something we didn’t count on, something we didn’t foresee and our perfect plans go out the window.

 

Sometimes the problem is another person.  They don’t like the plan.  They don’t like the outcome you’re working towards.  They might even hate the outcome and so they work and scheme and do everything they can to stop it happening – and sometimes they succeed.

 

God has a plan - to bring salvation to the whole world.  But not everyone appreciates the plan.  It is opposed.

Someone is always trying to wreck it.  Someone is always trying to muck it up and make sure it doesn’t happen.

 

Thankfully, God is bigger than any opposition.  If you remember a while back when we did the series on Isaiah we saw that God says, “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” (Isaiah 46:10)

 

Opponents try to thwart God’s plan but as ancient Job confessed, “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.” (Job 42:2)

 

The opposition to God’s plan started really early.  We heard on Christmas Day how the Magi came to worship the baby Jesus.  They had seen the special star and came to Jerusalem to find the newborn King.  They met Herod the Great, who wasn’t a Jew, but had been appointed ruler of Judea by the Romans.  He directed them to Bethlehem saying, “Go and make a careful search for the child.  As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

 

So they went to Bethlehem and found the baby Jesus and worshipped him and gave him their gifts.  But, if you would turn in your Bibles to Matthew 2:12-23, you will read about what happened.

​

An Old Plan

 

Matthew is keen to show that the coming of Jesus has been predicted and hinted at throughout the Old Testament.  Twelve times in the whole gospel and three times here in this passage he talks about the words of the Old Testament prophets being fulfilled in the events of Jesus’ life.

 

The first quote, in verse 15, “Out of …”, comes from Hosea 11:1.  In that Old Testament context, Hosea is recording God’s feelings about His chosen people Israel.  The whole verse reads, “When Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”  It’s a reminder of the exodus - where God delivered His people from slavery in Egypt.

​

It’s hard to see this as a prophecy in the Old Testament context but Matthew says that Hosea’s words were fulfilled in Jesus’ return from Egypt.

 

This is a bit tricky to understand but part of the answer is that the meaning of the word translated as “fulfilled” is a bit broader than a simple “prediction – outcome” formula.  If can mean something like “fill up”.

 

So when Hosea wrote, “Out of Egypt I called my son”, he probably was not deliberately predicting that the Messiah would be called back from Egypt, but, because these words aren’t just his, but were inspired by God, there was more meaning in them than he probably realised.  When God spoke through Hosea to the people of Israel about their situation at that time - 750 years before Christ, He also knew that Jesus would be taken to Egypt and return when he was a child.  When that finally happened, the meaning of Hosea’s words were “filled up” – their full meaning was realised.  What God had had in mind so long ago had now been done.

 

It’s a similar story with the second fulfillment of prophecy mentioned in verses 17 & 18 – “A voice is heard …”.  These words come from Jeremiah 31:15 and in their original context are about the time of great distress for the Israelites when they were being taken into captivity to Babylon in 586 BC.

 

God knew back then that a terrible slaughter of innocent Israelite children would happen when Jesus was sent into the world and so the words again carried more meaning than Jeremiah probably knew.  Again, the full meaning was filled up when Jesus came and Matthew was enabled to see it.

 

The third fulfilment of the Old Testament in verse 23 – “He will be …” is a bit more of a direct prediction – outcome type although there is a bit of a trick to it as well.  The exact words “He will be called …” aren’t in the Old Testament.  But, in those days, Nazareth was an insignificant, despised sort of place.  In John 1:46, we read about the calling of the first disciples.  It says, “Philip found Nathanael and told him, ‘We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote - Jesus of Nazareth’”.  Nathanael’s reply tells us the story - “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?”

​

The point is that Matthew here is not pointing to any one specific prophecy (which is why he says, “through the prophets”) but to the fact that throughout the Old Testament, it’s prophesied that the Messiah will be despised and rejected.

 

For example:

 

• Psalm 22:6, “But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people”

• Isaiah 49:7, “This is what the LORD says … to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation” and 

• Isaiah 53:3, “He was despised and rejected by men”

 

So we have in our passage these three pointers back to the Old Testament where Matthew sees that the coming of Jesus has been in God’s mind for a long time.  It was God’s plan – it was God’s purpose.

 

It was not an afterthought – in fact the Bible tells us it was a “beforethought” – Revelation 13:8 says that Jesus, the Lamb of God, “was slain from the creation of the world”.

 

It was not an accident.  It was not a mistake.  It all happened according to a design.  Jesus came into the world when God wanted him to and was born where God planned for him to be born and his life followed the pattern God had set out for Him.

 

The Apostle Paul told the Romans that he had been “called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God – the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures”.

 

This is what Matthew wants us to see.  God had a plan of salvation in mind that had been promised in the Old Testament and with the arrival of Jesus; the time for delivering on the promises had come.  God is a promise-keeping God.

​

The Key Person

 

This whole episode also reminds again that Jesus – God’s One and Only Son - is at the centre of God’s plans.

 

Herod ordered the killing of the baby boys in Bethlehem – and there might have been around 20 killed – but he was only after one.  As the angel told Joseph in verse 13, “Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”  He wasn’t interested in the others – they just happened to be caught in the net - it was this one child he wanted dead.  He wasn’t interested in Mary or Joseph, only “the child”.

 

We see the focus on “the child” in the wording of verses 14, 20 and 21.  “… the child and his mother …”, “… the child and his mother …”, “… the child and his mother …”.

 

That’s not the normal way to put things.  Normally someone would say, “take your wife and child”.  A husband would normally put his wife first – his first concern would be for her.  But here, it’s the child who’s to be protected first.  He is the focus.  Even when Mary is mentioned, it’s not because she’s Joseph’s wife – it is because she is the child’s mother.

 

So the story is centred around the baby Jesus.  He is the one who is to be protected.  He is at the centre of God’s plan of salvation and so He must be kept safe.

 

We saw that verse 15 quoted Hosea 11:1, where God said, “When Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”  While the main point of the quote is that Jesus went to Egypt and returned, there were probably other verses Matthew could have picked up on to show that.  He uses this one because it has the word “son” in it and the whole verse is about God’s powerful love for his “son” Israel.  So, apart from the point about Egypt, it points to God’s special relationship with Jesus.

 

He is God’s true Son.  As the Apostle John puts it, He is “God’s One and Only Son”.  In chapter three of this gospel, Matthew records God’s words at Jesus’ baptism, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

​

That God would send His own Son into the world, the One who had been at his side from all eternity, speaks volumes about His love for us and our great need for salvation.  That He had to go so far as to send Him as a helpless baby to be hunted by a jealous tyrant like Herod and then be carried off by His parents to a foreign land shows the precarious position the world was in without Him.

 

What love it shows that God’s plan to save us involved Him eventually being stuck up on a cross and screaming in agony, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 

 

God loves us so much that His great plan involved the pain and suffering and sacrifice of His One and Only Beloved Son.  In spite of how hard it must have been to do it – He followed through on His promises and in sending Jesus, set the plan of salvation in motion.

 

The Plan Opposed

 

But – as we can see – it didn’t come without a fight.  There was opposition to God’s plan.  The whole plan depends on Jesus coming and living and dying on the cross, but right from the word “go”, this plan is attacked.

 

Herod was a ruthless tyrant who had a reputation for killing off any rivals to his throne.  Among others he killed a wife and three of his own sons.

He was not about to let anybody rise up who could challenge his authority and so he goes to great lengths to try to make sure that the baby Jesus doesn’t survive.

 

As verse 16 says, when he saw that the Magi didn’t come back to him, he was furious.  He would stop at nothing to find the baby and kill him.

 

It wasn’t just a flash in the pan outburst either.  The angel warned Joseph in verse 13 that “Herod is going to search …”.  Not just a quick look around and give up if you don’t find him after a few minutes.  No - his jealously and hatred weren’t going to be satisfied until the boy was dead and so he spreads his murderous net pretty wide – looking for any boy up to two years old in Bethlehem and the surrounding districts.

 

Even after Herod died, the baby Jesus was still in danger.

 

Herod’s son Archelaus succeeded him and he was an even more cruel tyrant than his father.  He was actually so bad that the Romans eventually deposed him because of his excessive tyranny and cruelty.

 

This story of the danger that Jesus was in as a young child probably explains part of one of those hard to understand passages in the book of Revelation.  In Rev 12 we read, “A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of ten stars on her head.  She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.  Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads.  His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to earth.  The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.”  Rev 12:9 tells us that the dragon was “that ancient serpent, called the devil, or Satan”.

 

He is the one at the bottom of the opposition to Christ.  He hates Him.  He hates God’s plan of salvation and will do everything he can to stop it.  He opposed Jesus throughout His life and today he opposes Jesus’ followers.

 

The Plan Preserved

 

The good news is that he didn’t succeed then and he won’t succeed now.

 

Herod’s plot failed.  Archelaus never went near Jesus.  God preserved His Son and preserved His plan of salvation.  Jesus and Mary and Joseph were on their way to Egypt when Herod’s troops arrived.  God made sure of it – He warned them when to leave, told them when it was safe to return and where it would be safe to live.

 

I think the way God kept them safe is interesting.  He used supernatural means and ordinary means.  He gave them dreams where angels spoke to Joseph but Joseph still had to obey the angel and get up and travel to Egypt and then skirt around Judea and head up to Nazareth when they returned.  God didn’t just protect them with a “magical” force field around them but He did protect them – He did preserve them.  He will always do that.  Even powerful opposition will never get the better of Him.

 

As Psalm 2 says, “Why do the nations conspire and the people plot in vain?  The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and His Annointed One.  ‘Let us break their chains,’ they say, ‘and throw off their fetters.’  The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the LORD scoffs at them.  Then he rebukes them in his wrath, saying, ‘I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.’”

 

In spite of the bitter opposition of men and behind that, the opposition of Satan, God’s plans for Jesus did not fail and will not fail.  Jesus and Joseph and Mary made it safely back to Egypt and He grew up there.  Then as we will hear next week, He heard about John the Baptist preaching and baptising in the Jordan River and went down to him, was baptised himself and began His ministry.  Satan tried to ruin Him by tempting Him to go about things the wrong way but he failed again and Jesus ministered for about three years.  Finally, Jesus went to the cross and died as a sacrifice for the sins of men - all according to God’s plan.  Then He rose again according to God’s plan and went to heaven according to God’s plan, sent the Holy Spirit according to God’s plan and sent His followers out into the world to preach the gospel.

 

Satan tries to stop this part today but he still doesn’t succeed.  The gospel is spreading over all the earth and people from “every tribe and language and people and nation” are responding to it.  And it will keep going.  As Jesus said in Matthew 24:14, “this gospel will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

 

Conclusion

 

God has a plan to save the world and individuals in it from the mess we’ve made of it due to out sin – our rebellion against Him.  He made the plan even before the sin actually occurred.  He hinted and foreshadowed and announced the plan throughout the Old Testament.  He said, “I’m going to send a Saviour.”

 

At the time He planned, He sent the Saviour – His One and Only Son – to earth as a tiny baby.  He told the baby’s step-father to name Him Jesus, “because he will save his people from their sins.”  The whole plan depended on this baby boy and a desperate devil and a jealous King Herod tried to have the baby killed before He could do His saving work.

 

But God cannot be outmanoeuvred by anybody.  He gets His plans accomplished and so He made sure that Jesus was kept alive and well until His time came.

 

What does this mean for us?  What can we take away for ourselves from this passage in Matthew’s gospel?

​

• God can be trusted.  He keeps His promises.

 

• Are you worried about the future and about providing for your family?  Jesus said, “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ’What shall we wear?’  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

 

• Have you had a pretty rotten year and you don’t see why God has allowed all this trouble to come your way?  Trust Him – nothing that’s happened will be wasted.  He’s promised that “in all things” He “works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

 

• Are you searching for direction in life?  He says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all you ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”

 

• Will God really keep all His promises to us?  Yes – if He gave His own Son for us, He will certainly give us everything else He’s promised.  As Paul says, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”

 

• God has sent the Saviour he promised long ago and He is the centre of the whole plan of salvation.

 

• Is He at the centre of your hope for acceptance with God?  This is God’s only plan – no other one you make up will work.  Being good won’t work.  Giving to the poor won’t work.  Even coming to church and being baptised and taking communion won’t work.  Only resting and trusting entirely in Jesus will work.

​

• Are you hoping that God’s love alone will save you?  It won’t matter whether I believe in Jesus or not – God loves me and will take me to heaven regardless.  If that’s true, why did He send Jesus?  Why did He put Himself through the agony of seeing His Son humiliated and killed?  Your agnostic optimism won’t work.

 

• God’s great plan of salvation faces constant opposition but He always overcomes it and accomplishes His will.

 

• Are you being opposed in your walk with Jesus?  Do you get tempted and distracted and find doubts about Him rising in your heart?  This is nothing unusual.  It is not a sign that there’s something wrong with your faith.  It probably means that you’re on the right path and the enemy is trying desperately to get you off it, so hang in there and keep going.

 

• With all the opposition of the world, the flesh and the devil will I really make it in the end?  Will my faith last?  Jesus said, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.”