King of the True Exodus

Call to Worship: Zechariah 9:9 // Prayer

Adoration: Our God, great lion who roared to call us back from exile; humble King who came to us on a donkey through your Son—You are righteous, you bring salvation, we rejoice!

Confession: Yet, so often, we ignore your calling: you have called us to be holy, to live as your children, but we have lived in pride and sin. With our eyes, our hearts, our hands, our feet, we have sinned against you. Father, forgive us.

Thanksgiving: Father, we hope in you: For with you there is steadfast love, and redemption overflows with you. You have redeemed us from all our iniquities!

Supplication: Give us lowly hearts + joyfully upturned faces, looking to you; give us purity of mind and body + love which reflects yours! Because of your great compassion, we beg you for those who suffer among us, in so many different ways—devastating health struggles, deep losses, wayward children, etc.—please give your comfort, your light; make your presence concrete and glorious in the eyes of our suffering brothers and sisters, and teach us with our faltering hands and hearts to love + walk with them // Lauralwood Baptist: unity and love based in the gospel; you would fulfill in them every resolve for good in seeking to build a culture of discipleship among themselves—that their small groups would serve and not hinder this goal, for Your glory! // Mercy: please open the eyes of those in our community who have been sucked into the false gospel of satisfaction through self-expression… please expose the false foundation of the LGBTQ+ agenda + rescue those caught in its grip… please give our community laws that defend young children from its damaging influence // North Korea: defend + embolden believers there; be glorified in their lives + deaths; equip with truth, faith, spiritual power to spread gospel // to the word

Family Matters

Children’s ministry workers meeting: regular workers, occasional substitutes, interested but not sure, etc. // food, fellowship, talk about the ministry + questions, safety training

Prayers: send us names!

Benediction

From Psalm 126:5–6 “You who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! You who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing your sheaves with you.”

Sermon

Main point: Through this humble/divine/royal child, God is about to lead his people on the true exodus from sin/death/Satan into the true promised land.

Jesus’ identity: Son of God // man of humility (sorrow?)

Purpose: To reveal another level of the glory of God in Christ to increase our faith and worship; also to expose and repel our hearts regarding sin and Satan.

Intro

*** “Out of Egypt”= key idea of this passage ***

But what did we just read? History of Jesus’ young childhood, given in three panels

First panel (13-15): God warned Joseph, ‘Herod’s coming after the child: take the child + mother, flee to Egypt.’ Joseph obeyed, prophecy about God’s Son coming out of Egypt was fulfilled

Second panel (16-18): In fury, Herod send his soldiers to make sure every child who could possibly be the messiah/rival king was slaughtered. This fulfilled a dark prophecy about the slaughter of Rachel’s children. But Jesus escaped

Third panel (19-23): After Herod died, God told Joseph, “take the child and his mother back to Israel,” and Joseph obeyed—but ended up in Nazareth, not Bethlehem, which fulfilled the prophetic pattern that the Messiah ‘would be called a Nazarene.’

So: why is this included in Matthew’s gospel?

It is quite the story!

Narrow escape makes it extremely exciting = a story worth telling

The tragedy of the slaughter of Bethlehem’s children is so horrific, it needed to be told

Might just assume that…

But isn’t ‘Shepherds + Angels’ story worth telling? Matthew left it off… + today’s bit of history/passage is only found in Matthew’s gospel

Again: gospel writers were very selective an intentional about what they included—Matthew in his opening chapters: “I want you to know who Jesus is, and I want you to see it from the OT prophets”

That was Matthew’s reason for including this // so we need to read it looking for Jesus’ OT based identity

A tool we need: bifocal glasses

***explain to kids***

Look through the bottom of the lenses: history of Jesus’ childhood/God protecting Jesus and Mary from Herod through the obedience of Joseph

Look through the top of the lenses: Jesus was rehearsing the redemption he would bring to God’s people. Another way to say this: when Jesus was rescued from Herod (Pharaoh) and came out of Egypt, he was repeating a pattern of rescue already seen in the OT—pointing forward to the ultimate episode of the pattern: redemption of God’s people at the cross.

This is called Typology: Jesus’ rescue from Egypt was a type of the greater antitype: the rescue from sin, death, and hell at the cross.

This is also called Recapitulation—Jesus did everything his people did. He was rescued from ‘Pharaoh’ (Herod) just like them. And as we’ll see in a few weeks, he was tempted by hunger in the wilderness just like them.... was made like his people in every way—he relived the history of their redemption from Egypt as the true and better Israel/Son of God

So: let’s put on Matthew’s bifocal glasses: history/typology—to see who Jesus is in this passage

***Here’s what we’re going to see: Jesus is the King God will use to lead his people on the True Exodus: redemption from Satan, sin, and death, to life with God *** (repeat!)

A. The True Exodus: Saved from Pharaoh

History: first panel—

Herod’s plan: wise men would return to him, tell him the child’s location, he would slaughter just the one child—the rival king

God warned the wise men in a dream, so they quietly slipped out of Herod’s plot… then God warned Joseph: get out now—Herod’s coming, so go take refuge in Egypt

In this way, God preserved his Messiah against Herod’s satanic plot, and ensure that his people would be saved.

Prophecy:

But somehow, Matthew tells us, this also fulfilled a prophecy—Hosea 11:1, “Out of Egypt I called my Son”

In Matthew’s Context: “My son” = God’s Son

Already hinted at by the geneology + birth story: Joseph not the Father, Spirit overshadowed Mary — a mysterious, divine origin

Already hinted at by Jesus’ divine name: Immanuel = ‘God with Us’ = This is the Divine Son

Now God calls him, “my Son” => will soon turn into Jesus’ title, “Son of God”—maybe Jesus’ most important title in the Gospel of Matt.

So here he is: Son of God—that’s what Matt. is telling us about Jesus in this story… but with a specific twist:

(we see this) In Hosea’s Context—the original context of the quote Matthew has used here in it’s “my son” = Israel… problem:

Hosea 11:1–5 ESV

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them. They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me.

***What’s Hosea saying?

Israel was God’s son = that’s how Israel is described in Exod.

God rescued his son, Israel, from Egypt

Though God was a loving father, Israel was an unfaithful Son

Therefore, they will become captives in a new Egypt—Assyria

Problem: in Hos. 11:1, “out of Egypt I called my son” is not talking about the Messiah

not about a random time in Messiah’s life // about original exodus… God’s original rescue of his people from slavery and death

What’s going on here???

Background in Balaam’s oracles (make slide)

Simple answer: a few verses later, Hosea begins to talk about a New Exodus for God’s people // so, he brought up the first exodus in order to describe a future New Exodus—a future rescue of God’s people // here Jesus, the true Israel, symbolizes that future rescue by traveling from Egypt

Inception answer: a dream happening within a dream—Matthew was meditating on Hosea; Hosea was meditating on Balaam’s oracles!

If you get lost in the details here… don’t worry, Jesus = true Israel

[Show Balaam’s Oracles]

What did Balaam prophecy here?

Third oracle: A king! => But Israel didn’t have a king when they came out of Egypt => this is talking about a future, New Exodus

Before Israel even entered the promised land, already a greater exodus, led by a lion-like Messiah King, was promised

Also: notice, both people and king called out of Egypt/both people and king like lions: principle here: as the Messiah, so also his people

And it seems all of this is what Hosea was meditating on when he wrote: “out of Egypt I called my son”

So how could Matthew say that Jesus fulfilled this verse, when in context, was about Israel’s original exodus?

Because in both Balaam’s oracles, and Hosea’s later meditation on them, the point of bringing up the exodus was to point to the coming NEW EXODUS

We just saw that in Balaam’s oracles

Now let’s look back at Hosea: essentially God says, in 11:1-7, “I rescued you from Egypt and led you with love… but you have never ceased to reject me all these long years. So you’re going back into slavery—except this time, in Assyria.”

But then, he says that he will again rescue them—and here’s how he describes the rescue/new exodus:

Hosea 11:10–11 ESV

They shall go after the Lord; he will roar like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west; they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord.

Do you see it?

In Balaam’s oracles, a lion-like king would lead the people out of bondage

In Hosea, 11:10, here is the lion-like King roaring and leading his people out of bondage—except the King IS Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel

In Matthew, the Divine Son now comes out of Egypt, called by the Father—a God-appointed sign that he would soon lead God’s people on the TRUE EXODUS

So here he is, brothers and sisters: Your King—the True Israel, but much more: God veiled in human flesh, God’s true King, the Lion whose roar brings a New Exodus to his people

But what kind of Exodus? What kind of redemption? Best seen in the second panel of our text…

B. The Wickedness of Pharaoh

*** Second panel: vs. 16-18 ***

**Bifocal, looking down

History: the wickedness of Herod (and us)

In fury over the escape of the Wise Men, Herod ordered every child who could possibly be the rival king slaughtered.

=> It’s a dark scene...

=> But God’s word isn’t like the world. It doesn’t hid or dress up human evil

=> So how does the heart of a man get to the point where he will order the slaughter of infants and toddlers he’s never even met?

[Expl. from James]

James 4:1–2a “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.”

=> Put simply: we do what we do, b/c we want what we want

=> Herod wanted to keep his throne—so, in the end, he was willing to slaughter any and every person who stood in the way… even infants

This record is Matthew’s first major explanation of sin…

=> But if we think that we’re supposed to contemplate this from a safe distance… we’re missing the point // (stay w/ me here)

=> In the cold-blooded sin of Herod’s heart, we are to see the cold-blooded sin in our own hearts… we do what we do because we want what we want… and if you’re honest with yourself, it’s ugly

=> It probably doesn’t have the same degree of physical violence attached to it… but it follows the same pattern:

(1) You don’t get what you want, or what you want is threatened

(2) You treat those around you unjustly to make sure that you keep it, or get it back, or just to let others know how wrong it is that YOU have been deprived

(3) Can take so many forms:

One obvious application: Abortion— “This child stands in the way of the life I want… so I’m going to end it’s life.” —probably easy for you to see that one, b/c it is so similar to Herod’s sin

And it’s the same for a dad who deserts a woman after getting her pregnant… essentially, “This child and his mother would get in the way of the life I want… so I’m out.” To despise the life of your own child… approaches the sin of murder

But how about for the “respectable sinners”—those who’ve never murdered or broken up a family? When someone crosses you, or steps in the way of something you want—you know that resentment that boils up inside? You might do a good job of hiding it from others, but God sees. It is the precursor to Herod’s rage.

=> Now look back at Matthew 1:21 “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.””

=> We don’t know the half of how badly we needed Jesus to be born for us!

=> We needed a king who would lead us on a New Exodus from sin itself!

So, here, in Herod’s sin, Matthew is showing us here more than just the sin of one random ancient King => he’s explaining to us just what kind of Exodus King Jesus would lead his people on!

=> to see how Matt. spells this out: need to see just how Herod’s sin fulfilled that prophecy from Jer. in verse 18…

[Prophecy/Typology: Rachel weeping]

Matthew 2:18 ESV

“A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”

Matthew’s context: somehow refers to a lament for the slaughtered children

Context in Jeremiah: refers to a lament for children taken captive into exile

=> what do those two things have to do with each other? And what does Rachel have to do with it?

=> Problem: another case of inception/dream happening inside a dream: Matthew was meditating on Jeremiah; Jeremiah was meditating on the death of Rachel in Genesis—problem is: we don’t have time this morning to mine the rich details of this!!!

=> So, I’m going to give it to you in summary— bifocal glasses: now looking through the top, at typology—how this story foreshadowed ultimate redemption in Christ

First: why Rachal?

=> Pattern in Scripture: sorrows of individual mothers stand for the sorrows of God’s people as a whole

=> Rachel died in childbirth after an extremely painful labor, named her son, “Son of my Sorrow”—meditating on Rachel’s sorrow and death, Jeremiah recognized her as a symbol for whole community, and so described their sorrow as “Rachel weeping” when their children were taken away

=> Matthew saw the same pattern repeated at Bethlehem

=> BTW: this is part of a pattern where the Bible gives a unique dignity to women that it doesn’t give to men—that women seem to have a more concrete or more intuitive grasp of sorrow and joy than men do

Brothers: not saying that you don’t experience deep sorrows and joy… but just that, in a mysterious way, the Bible seems to indicate that our sisters have something unique to contribute to the life of the church in this area…

Can be helpful to recognize this in a day when true femininity is so downplayed and devalued

Second: who is Herod?

A new Pharaoh, slaughtering innocent children to try to stop God’s kingdom just as Pharaoh did in Exodus 1.

And should add: Moses portrayed that Pharaoh as a servant of Satan—so the same is the case here: Herod’s rage is very much like the rage of his spiritual master.

Third: how can a prophecy about exile apply to death?

In the Bible: death and exile are really the same basic thing…

Think: death is exile from the world you were created to live in; exile is separation from God’s presence by being moved out of God’s land. Both will be fully ended when Jesus returns and makes all things new.

BTW: context of “Rachel weeping” in Jeremiah is a promise that her children will return… how? Matthew is saying: that’s about to happen through Jesus!

So then: Herod’s rampage against the innocent is another futile attempt by Satan to stop God’s plan—though Rachel weeps now, her children will be returned to her in the NEW EXODUS by the roar of the King Lion, Jesus, when he himself breaks out of the grave.

[Typological application]

Important to see again: Matthew doesn’t want you standing at a distance from this story.

He wants you to ask: which king do I belong to?

The Lion who leads the joyful exodus from sin and death and the power of Satan?

The king whose fits of rage destroy the innocent?

Choice = binary… no third option! By corrupted nature, you are born into the kingdom of darkness. Question is, will you follow the Lion out of darkness and into light? Meaning: will you surrender to Jesus and trust him for salvation?

It’s a question to ask now, and if you cannot answer that Jesus is your King, it is a question to pursue passionately until you can

But also, it’s a question which is supposed to stay with us: in the unfolding story of Matthew’s Gospel

Haunting little detail in vs. 20: “those who sought the child’s life are dead”—Herod wasn’t alone!

As we go through Matthew, we will meet a variety of people with the same spiritual citizenship as him...

Matthew wants you to see: neutrality on the question of Jesus is a myth. Whose side are you on?

But if you join Jesus—if he is your king—what kind of Exodus will he lead you on? For you all, brothers and sisters, what kind of Exodus is Jesus leading you on? An Exodus from all the powers of sin and Satan, redemption from the wrath of God against these, and ultimately, when the King returns, an Exodus from death itself.

A’. The True Exodus: Saved to the Inheritance

History:

Typology:

This is where Jesus actually fulfills the prophecy geographically = leaves Egypt

But emphasis: go to the land of Israel

Not just saved from Egypt (Satan, sin, death) but to “the inheritance”

Ref. Hos. 11:6ish

Application: 2D gospel?

Prophecy:

A Nazarene?

The true Son of God: a Nazarene! (humility of this king vs. Herod; true character of the Son of God; wisdom of God; love of Christ)