Advent Week 2- Peace--Matthew 2

Matthew 2

The Prince of Peace Foretold

Intro: How do you do with the unknown? Are you a planner or someone who just wings it? What about people you follow? How many of you watch Macgyver or at least know what the show is about? Well it's about a guy who is an ex military trained guy who works for a special organization that takes care of problems. They have a loose plan, but Macgyver always seems to find himself in some kind of trouble that requires him to use whatever he has in the room or building they are locked in.

So he picks up an air tank, duck tape, a hair pin, a straw and some ball bearings and turns it into some kind of cannon that takes out the bad guys so Macgyver and his friends can escape in the last few minutes of the show. It is exciting and it shows a lot of ingenuity.

But imagine trying to live a peaceful life just living with whatever you had on hand. There was little to no planning possible. Imagine trying to go on vacation where it's “hey we will just stay where we can get in, and do whatever is around and whatever comes up.and we only have 75 dollars to do all of this.” You may work a job where you don’t know what things were going to be like from day to day. I have had some of those jobs and it is stressful sometimes.

Imagine how much more peaceful or at least maybe easier when some of the bigger events like checking not a specific hotel, having your Disney tickets in hand when you get there, are planned out and you leave room for flexibility if you can’t do something on your vacation.

Likewise, God has a plan for salvation of his greatest creation and fulfillment of the covenant. And he has revealed that plan throughout the centuries in the Old Testament or the scriptures as they are referred to by the New Testament Writers.

So let’s see what Mathew has to say as he recorded How Jesus came into the world and why.

Read Verses: Matthew 2:5-6, 23; 2;17-18; 3:1-3

Main Point: God foretold the Arrival of the Messiah in the Old Testament to give us peace and reassurance that the Savior was coming

God Foretold the Messiah’s Birthplace

Where you are from is still important even today. It shapes you. How you talk, like whether you call a carbonated drink a pop, a soda, soda pop, a coke or something else. Where you are from shapes your sports teams if you have one, it defines your dialect or what we usually call an accent. Because if you hear People talk you can tell where they are from or at least they are not from around you.

We see this in the Gospels a few times when the people make fun of Peter for having a funny way of talking.sort of like they had a country accent that made them stand out.

But for the 1st century Jew, being born in a certain place also indicated your lineage, and possibly your wealth or lack of wealth. So this is The second of Matthew’s five fulfillment quotations in 2:6. The first quotation is in 1:23 when Matthew quotes Isaiah. But in 2:6,The quote comes primarily from Mic 5:2 and focuses on the role of Bethlehem in prophecy.

The lineage is important here because Matthew is laying out the case in chapter one that Jesus is deceased from the line of David who was the king of Israel. So Jesus is the rightful heir to the throne .

King Herod who was half Jewish and half Idumea was essentially a puppet king set up by the Romans. Herod had a very loose clam on the throne, and the Romans found him mostly useful so they allowed him to keep some authority in the region, but he worked for Rome under the watchful eye of people like Pontious Pilate. He was essentially a bad steward of the Kingdom of Israel.

So we see this conflict when the Magi show up, Non-jews,who show up looking for the rightful King of the Jews. How did they Know? Lets go to Micah 5:2

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,

who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,

from you shall come forth for me

one who is to be ruler in Israel,

whose coming forth is from of old,

from ancient days.

Matthew quotes the majority of that verse, but what the writers did was usually combine verses from different books and also they would start with one part of a verse because they knew the readers would finish the rest of the verse or maybe the passage in their mind.

It's Like if I started off by saying London Bridge is falling down, almost everyone would fish for the song in their minds and may be singing it all day. We can also start by saying For God so loved the world... And if you are a Christian, and maybe if you are not, you can probably finish the verse and know exactly what is being explained.

But see God gave us the biggest clue in the last half of Micah. Not only does he say that he will be king But he who is coming forth is from Old, from ancient days. So we have the clue or revelation that Jesus is eternal, which aligns with the orthodox view of who God the Son is. He is co-eternal with the father. He has always been. He is not created. All things were made through him and by him for him and all things will fall under his rule. As a side note this is why the creeds are important, because they take all of this important information and put it in an easy to remember and recite format.

This is also referenced in psalms that David would call the messiah Lord, even though He was a descendant or great great great grandson of David.

All of this is important for Jesus because one of the roles he fulfills is that of King He will rule his millennial kingdom, whether you believe that is a literal 1000 years or if that is some other length of time, the bottom line is that Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

We see the magi recognizing who he was and how Herod obviously feared this rightful heir. Verse three uses the word troubled but distressed would be a more accurate or evocative word choice for the Greek word used. So much so that he ordered the death of all male children under two to try and eliminate the competition.

The quote in Verse 18 is “The fourth fulfillment quotation harks back to Jer 31:15. In its original context, the passage depicted the lament of mothers in Israel bewailing their sons led off into exile. Already a sense of the recapitulation of history appeared in Jeremiah’s time in that the mothers of Israel were personified as “Rachel,” the mother in the days of the patriarchs whose sons Joseph and Benjamin had also been threatened with being “no more” (i.e., carried away into Egypt; cf. Gen 42:36). Now Matthew applies the passage to the mothers in first-century Israel in anguish over the babies Herod massacred. Ramah originally was located approximately five miles north of Jerusalem and would have been one of the first cities the exiles passed by as they headed north on their way out of Israel. First Samuel 10:2–3 associates Rachel’s tomb with the same general area on the border of Judah and Benjamin.”

The number of Children that may have died may have been on the idea of 20 or so since it may be that the order was only in Bethlehem.but any willful killing of innocent life is horrible. But as good as the birth of Jesus is, we see how the world reacted to the news of the infant being born.

And this mass murder causes Joseph to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt.

God Foretold the Messiah’s Exodus

In verse 13, an angel appears to Joseph and tells him to flee to Egypt to save Jesus’ life. Matthew records the angel’s words, “take the child and his mother. The child has primacy in the story Jesus is first. Kind of like when Obi Won Kenobi takes Luke and Leia and hides them from Darth Vader so the Jedi prophecies can be fulfilled.

More importantly Matthew picks up that this was all done to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, Out of Egypt I have called my son.” Which comes from Hosea 11:1

The context of Hosea 11 is telling Israel that they shall be given over to the Kingdom of Assyria instead of being conquered by Egypt, but 11:1 states When Israel was a child I loved him and out of Egypt I called my son.

The exodus is the one of the most influential events in Israel’s history. In this prophecy, Jesus is representing the entire nation of. Israel, “Just as God brought the nation of Israel out of Egypt to inaugurate his original covenant with them, so again God is bringing the Messiah, who fulfills the hopes of Israel, out of Egypt as he is about to inaugurate his new covenant. This is the first of several instances in Matthew in which Jesus recapitulates the role of Israel as a whole. The language of Jesus’ sonship foreshadows Jesus’ role as Son of God (or Immanuel) and recalls Old Testament texts that link Messiah with “the Son” (e.g., Pss 2:7; 89:26–27; 2 Sam 7:14; cf. Num 24:7–8, LXX, in which God himself brings the Messiah out of Egypt).

Not only does Jesus Represent Israel, but he Matthew may be hinting at Jesus fulfilling the role of prophet. Moses was the greatest Prophet But Deuteronomy 18:15-18 promises that someday God would raise up a prophet like Moses. The role of the prophet was to reveal the will of God to the people. And we see Moses doing this in the Exodus narratives. The Torah is literally the teaching. It is also rebuking, correcting, exhorting or encouraging people and they were also the interpreters of the law. That is what we see the Pharisees and other leaders bringing questions to Jesus to try and trick him or get his ruling. And it was said that he was one who taught with authority.

Moses was a type of Christ. He mediated God’s word between God and His people. Moses saved his people through the wilderness and guided them to gates of the promised land.

But Jesus shares authority with The father unlike Moses who was just doing what he was told and repeating it. Jesus speaks of himself as the prophet in Luke 13:33 says Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’ 34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35 Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

Jesus comes to take his people all the way into the promised land. Into heaven.

But Jesus came for a specific purpose.

God Foretold the Messiah’s Purpose (1:22, 3:1-3)

For the least one, we can go back to Chapter 1 verse 22 when The angel tells Joseph that Mary is pregnant and that Jesus or Yeshua or translated Joshua as well, will save his people from their sins. His Hebrew name means to deliver or rescue.

Jesus does this by becoming the sacrifice for our sins. He is at the priest that cleanses us from our sins.In the Old Testament the blood of animals was used to. Cover certain sins at certain times of the year; lambs, birds, bulls, rams are all used.

John the Baptist, who fulfills another prophecy of the by being Elijah, announces that to Repent. the kingdom of God is at hand.

Part of repenting is admitting you have sinned and you would take your sacrificial animal to the priest and he would kill it and cleanse you and pronounce you clean.

But here we have the final sacrifice, the new Covenant that is coming after jesus grows up and it is the right time

Where the prophet is God’s representative with the people, the priest is man’s representative with God.

The priest could go into the holiest of Holies to approach God and speak with God and act on their behalf. Such as they Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, When the people gathered and had their sins removed form their presence. But par to their action was to repent of their sins.

Jesus was the only one that could go to the Cross and make the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Jesus is the Goat set aside for God. the Son is is the only one that could bear the Father’s wrath and live.

Application

This application comes in the form of three Questions:

Who is the king of your life? Is it you and or the world, or Jesus?

Who is teaching you what God’s word says, You, the world, or Jesus?

Who paid for your sins that you have between you and God? Who speaks to God on your behalf? I want to be clear here that we do not need a saint or priest to talk to God for us, but we do need Jesus to pay for our sins. Are you trying to do it yourself or have you let Jesus Do this for you?

We cannot enjoy peace in this world unless we are ready to yield to the will of God in respect of death. Our times are in His hand, at His sovereign disposal. We must accept that as best.

- John Owen

A born-again person ought to possess unspeakable peace in the spirit.

- Watchman Nee

If you have answered Jesus and you mean it with all of your heart, your mind and your souls, then you are well on your way.

But if you have never done this, do it today. We do not have to wait for the Messiah because we get to celebrate his birth, death and resurrection. We just wait for his second coming. And We know that when that happens it will be too late.

If you have done it already or are doing it right now or maybe tonight or next week, you will find that you will be at peace with God. And then everything else falls into place, it will not matter how crazy the world gets. We will endure hardship, and persecution and scorn from the world, but we also have peace because we can trust the rest of the prophecies in the Bible as well.

But Do not wait. Do as John says and Repent!

“There can be no peace between you and Christ while there is peace between you and sin." (C.H. Spurgeon)

Conclusion

The little book of Micah mentions the little town of Bethlehem will be the birthplace of the savior and God incarnate. And that he would grow up in Nazareth. The birthplace of the King and even his final kingship is still in the future.

He fulfills prophecies of being God's son, and he represents Israel and also the office of the Prophet held by Moses that led his people out of Egypt.

And The Savior or Messiah or priest is here and that he foretells the kingdom is at hand.

Be at peace this year because God’s plan is fully in action and it is moving forward.

Be at peace knowing You are God’s child. Sleep well because you are forgiven.