Sermon: Matthew 2:13-23

I have a question for you: 
 

What can an x-ray of Teddy Roosevelt's lungs, a legal dispute with the Beach Boys, and jokes teach us about the Bible? 

Sounds like the setup for a bad joke, doesn't it?

But it's not. It's the setup for (what I hope) is a good sermon.  

Matthew chapter 2 is all about revelation: How God reveals Himself to us. 

And all three of those things from the question above:

• X-rays
• Music
• Jokes

Listen to hear how:

you can be seated and kids before hang on before you go to your class and hang on right there. Actually, I'm gonna need your help. So before you go, I'm gonna need your help on something. Because, as some of you know, at the Bailey house, we've been working a lot the last several months on our repertoire of jokes.

So we're thinking about taking this show on the road. Cynthia can sing and the me and Maddie and Annabelle hotel jokes. So I got a couple I want we're gonna tell you, and then you tell me if this is road worthy.

Okay? So our first joke, Why should you never give a balloon to Elsa? Yes, she'll let it go. Good. So is that a winner? Right? That's a winner. We'll take that one on the right. Why Waas Cinderella. Bad a sucker? She always ran away from the ball.

Huh? Okay, okay. Okay. Here's next one. Why did Beethoven get rid of all his chickens? Because they kept always talking about Bak. Bak. Bak? Er, yeah. You get it. You know, there's Bacchus, another composer, and he was jealous.

Okay. All right. I think they're three signs of old aging. The first is that you forget things. And the second is you get it, Gibbs. Maybe, maybe. Okay, how about this one? What type of shoes despise Where? Sneakers.

Yes, they were stickers. Okay, so, um, we're telling jokes, and the reason why is you think about it. There's actually a lot of things you have to know if you're gonna get the joke. So if you're gonna get, like, the joke about Elsa, if that's gonna be funny, then you have to know things about the story in the background and then her song If you're going to get it And one of the things we want for you is we want for you to get the gospel for you to know it and feel it.

And when you hear it for it to make your heart sing and you're sold a laugh. But in order for you to get the gospel, there's actually a lot of things that you have to know. So one of the reasons each week we're talking about people like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Jose and you think, Why do we need to know about these people? Because all of That's part of the background story.

You need to know if you're gonna get the gospel. So, kids, you're gonna go into your class. So through fifth grade, we'll be having their class middle school kids. You'll be in here, but everybody up to fifth grade.

We'll be going to your class. And as they head out for those of us staying in, we're gonna be in Matthew, Chapter two. So we're going through The Gospel of Matthew and Matthew's Gospel is a training manual for us.

It's a discipleship training manual. It's a theological training manual. It's given us a training manual on how to live well had follow Jesus well, and one of the brilliant things that Matthew is doing with this training manual is he's teaching.

Every chapter is meant to teach us something, but he doesn't such a beautiful way. He'll tell stories in direct this course who have direct discourse where he tells us things. Clearly. Chapter one is teaching us about who got ISS tell us about the Trinity on in Chapter two is all about revelation.

How we can know him and what we saw last week is that there's two main types of revelation, natural revelation and special revelation. Natural revelation. We learn about him from the world. Special revelation.

We learn about him from his word, and then that theme is going to continue in Chapter two. And what I want to give you this morning are three metaphors to understand how the Bible works, and then we're going to apply those metaphors and look, and we'll look at three messages in the second half of of Matthew.

So the three metaphors that want you to think about is, how does the Bible work our music, X rays and jokes. So the Bible's like music, the Bible site X rays, the Bible's like jokes. So we'll see. We'll see if we can get there.

So those are three metaphors and actually one of the key lines. You'll hear this as we read the passage in a few minutes. One of the key lines in Chapter two is this repeated refrain that will see in verse 15 for 17 and Verse 23 where it says this was to fulfill what had been spoken.

So this was to fulfill what had been spoken. Matthew is gonna tell us 10 times in his gospel. He tells you this happened to fulfill what had been spoken. And so we're gonna look. How does that work? How does the Old Testament New Testament, how they fit together? How does what is happening and Jesus life? Fulfill what has been spoken in the Old Testament in the past? So let's kind of work on those three metaphors to kind of put him in place.

And then we'll unpack them, right. It's our first metaphor is that Scripture is like music, and you have to learn to hear it. It's like music. And so, with every Scripture passage there, you're going to be hearing a variation on a tune that's been played before, so it's actually very similar.

So we have a couple of clips just kind of illustrate what I'm talking about. So hang on in 1963. So this song burst on the American rock and roll scene and became an instant national hit. So Eli, kick our first clip and you can sing along if you know what everybody like California.

All right, so you know, if you recognize it 1963. That song was a hit, and everybody was thrilled about this song except Chuck Berry. Do you know what Chuck Berry wasn't as thrilled about the song because he had released a song in 1958? That sound that sounded awfully similar.

So see if you can hear the similarities really Rocket and and Pittsburgh and now they sound awfully similar, don't they? And so there was not excited. There was one of the first copyright infringement legal cases that shook the rock and roll world.

It was kind of interesting, the dynamic, because Brian Wilson, who wrote the The Beach Boys song, said that he actually intended his song to be a tribute toe honor. Chuck Berry and Chuck's People said, Well, if you want to honor him, then pay him for it.

Actually, Brian Well, he said, He said, Well, I don't understand cause like he's an all rock n roll Music is his variations on the same three chords, so we're all of it is copying. And so that was one of the first.

And then this is actually has been played out, uh, kind of all throughout musical history. Here's another example that was a little more obvious. So to play this next clip and see if you can guess what song This is way.

Anybody want to guess? What song? That iss. Yes, David Bowie. 1981 under pressure. And then this song came out in 1989. Wait, wait. A legal case for that vanilla Isis defense for himself that he was actually not copying that melody because they added a bass drop in it.

So it was completely different. And he did not win the court case, by the way. But if this is so, the way the innocents away rock and roll kind of works is when you hear those songs, you instantly think whom I've heard that song before.

I've heard that tune before. And that's actually how Scripture is without all the copyright violations. See, the way Scripture works is it starts playing these melodies that then our that run through the whole book and your city.

Here's what you have to learn is how to hear the melody, Hear the tune. So wait a second. We've heard a tune like that before. Then how is it similar? And then how is it different? So Scripture In one sense, maybe a different musical analogy is the scriptures like this incredible 2000 years symphony that starts these musical notes, these tunes, these melodies and then all throughout history, there running.

And then there's different variations on the different tunes. But one of the things you have to keep a key in on if you're gonna learn to read it well, is to learn what tunes being played, in essence in the background, to change the man with just a little bit.

Every passage has certain background music, and you have to learn to key in on it. One of the amazing things that Matthew is doing is he's putting in each section of his gospel it with the background music of major movements in Israel's history.

So chapters one through seven, the major background music is the exodus or from Genesis to do Deuteronomy, and that's the background music that's gonna be played through the whole part. And then when Jesus comes off the mountain, the Sermon on the Mount starts to go out into Israel.

The background music is Joshua in the conquest leading up to the Theo establishment of the kingdom with King David. And then that's the background music. When he starts to build his disciples and build his church in the background.

Music is Solomon and the United Kingdom building the building, the temple. And then he starts to form this this group of disciples in the background music is the profits. So the whole script has his background music, and you have to learn to tune into it.

So music All right, the next image Next metaphor eyes the metaphor of I think photo negatives or X rays. Right. So bring up grand, bring up this first picture. Do you see that picture up there? I can't see it.

It's a negative. It's a dark. I can't see it. Is that what? Can you see The negative of the photo. Okay, so, for kids, I'm gonna tell you about something from the dark ages. Literally the dark A. So this might be a shock to you, but if you want to have a picture like there was a time when you couldn't hold your phone like instantly snap it, see the image and then adjust in real time.

I mean, now you could just snap a photo and you can get a slow most selfie that you then put a cartoon unicorn on your head. There was a time when people couldn't do such things and what you used to have to do if you wanted t develop a picture.

You have like this thing called film and you take the picture. And then it would get impressed on this type of semi transparent paper actually reading this week about how film was developed. It was incredibly complex and kind of amazing.

It's a shame, I guess you can't do these kind of things anymore. And then what you have to do is you have these negatives and with negatives you can kind of see the contours, and you can get a general shape of the picture.

But it doesn't come in all of its full color clarity, and this actually is a good image of what the Old Testament's like in the Old Testament. You get the general shape and the contours of all these beautiful pictures.

But it's not until we get the exposure, the light of the resurrection, that they then become beautiful Technicolor images where we can see it in all of its clarity and its beauty. And if you're gonna learn to read it, you have to actually learn.

It's almost like learning to read X ray. So pull up this next picture. All right, So does, uh now we can all kind of look and say right. What is that? That's actually a famous X ray. You can actually say.

Does anybody know whose chest that is? An X ray off. Can you see it? Or did you know? So this actually is a famous case study. And so, uh, people, uh, people have been trained to read X rays and the radio graphs.

It's incredibly complicated. So most untrained eyes just look at X rays. And, like, what is that? It just looks like mashed potatoes together. Well, no, actually, it's all of these things. This, actually.

So someone has been trained to read X rays can not only tell you what this is. They could tell you the story. They could tell you exactly where the point in the rib cage where the bullet that was intended to assassinate the president entered where it lodged in all of these things, they can, uh, tell you the whole story just from this image and the way you learn to read X rays.

The only way you really can learn is you have to apprentice yourself to a master who can slowly teach you how to decipher the patterns that you're seeing in the pictures. And that's a good image of how we learn and develop the skills To read the Old Testament, we have to learn to be able to decipher the patterns that were see, and one of things Matthew is.

What he is trying to do is to help you teach you how to learn to read the pictures. So Scriptures like music scriptures also a like an X ray. You have to learn how to read the patterns. And the third thing is, Scripture is like a joke, and I don't mean that any distance of don't hear that disrespectfully but as I was, you know, already used the kids to make this point an illustration.

You know, if you think about the kind of knowledge you need in order to get a joke Pretty complicated, actually. So even if I just start out like and say all right. Ah, a priest, a rabbi and a preacher walk into a bar.

See, all of a sudden, you actually know there's a whole tradition of jokes that start out this way. Or if I kind of say, three guys walk into a bar and the fourth conduct, huh? You already know there's this whole tradition and he's actually playing on the tradition, and we're kind of playing with the words.

There's actually a whole host of things you have to know just so you can get it. But the crazy thing that I see the funny thing about jokes is that you can't really explain it. Like once you start having to explain it, it's it's gone.

Either you get it or you don't do you see it or or you don't. And in many ways the Bible can be like that, like you hear the gospel, and it can either just land on you or it won't. But there's actually all types of things in the background that you need if you're going to be able to make sense of it, and so these three images you know you have, it's like music.

You gotta hear it. It's like an X ray. You have to learn to see it, but then it's like a joke. You just have to get it and those three movements could be really helpful as we think about how to read Scripture and put it together.

So let's quickly look at this passage and think, right, How can we hear it? See it and get it in these three in this passage because what Matthew's gonna do in Chapter two, Verse 13 to 23 he's going to give us three little snapshots that happened in the life of Jesus that are echoes of Old Testament stories.

And then he wants us to Do you hear it? Do you hear the tune? Do you see the picture? And then do you get the power? Here it See it, get it? So it's like the 1st 1 in Verse 13. Now, when they had departed, the wise man Behold an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you, for Hair is about to search for the child to destroy him, and he rose and he took the child and his mother.

But night and he departed to Egypt, and he remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet out of Egypt. I have called my son, so the first kind of thing he wants us to hear, see and get it is to see that God himself.

Jesus himself is on the run. He's a refugee. He has to flee from his home. He has to run for his life, he says. I first you hear it. The quotation comes from Jose, a Chapter 11. That's the quotation. But even what Jose is doing in Chapter 11 is he's doing a variation on a tune that's been going ever since the exodus.

So ever since the Book of Exodus, there's been this tune, and what it's referencing is he's saying that out of Egypt have called my son, and the tune is to remember that the exodus was all about God coming to Pharaoh and demanding to Pharaoh that Israel is my firstborn son, and you have them enslaved and in captivity, and I'm coming as their kinsman redeemer to redeem them out of your hand.

Let them go. You either let them go willfully and joyfully, or I will take them from you. But I'm coming to redeem my son. And so that's part of the music we're supposed to hear. And in one sense, exodus is one of the most important tunes we have to learn to hear because it's in the background or lays the foundation for so many of the songs in the New Testament.

You know, like if you're gonna learn how to play guitar and learn, you want Toby a rocker, you know, I don't know what song you should start with maybe started, like Stairway to Heaven or something. I don't know what the foundational song is to begin with, but that this is one the foundational songs If we're going to learn to hear the music of Scripture And so here what we're supposed to hear is that song of the Exodus.

But then what he wants to see is to not only see the reality of the exodus, the great liberation, the ransom, the deliverance chains being broken, sons being delivered and brought into freedom. Um, one of the things he wants us to see is see his own son as a refugee who has to flee, who's to run for his life.

It's very interesting that God actually commands Joseph to run, run away and part of just being wise. They're certain seasons where it's right to stand and fight, and they're certain seasons and situations where it's right to run.

And wisdom is being able to tell the difference. And Joseph Eyes called too flee. But how do we know? What does it mean to actually get it? How we start to get that is when we begin to recognize and see all the different ways that either we and the people around us live as refugees.

They live on the run, they live in a place that's not their home. And so you can be a literal refugee where you're having to flee. That's exactly how Jesus and his family was here. And it's worth thinking about, like, who? Who gave them shelter when they fled to Egypt, who brought them in, who gave them cold water and fresh food, who brought them in, Um, and then think about just all the different ways in your own life.

Think about all the different ways that you can feel like an outsider. You could feel that I don't belong here. People would feel that way when they have their midlife crisis, because I feel like I feel like an outsider to my own life.

How did I wind up here? You can feel that way when you feel you're forced into things that you wouldn't have chosen for yourself. You can feel there's, ah, deep sense of feeling out of place, and we all can see it in Children.

We know one of the things that can cause every mama bear in the house. Her blood toe boils when you see other kids like picking on even other kids or your kids, making them feel ashamed, feel worthless, feel like they're outsiders and it can generate such energy.

Why? Because you want to protect people from feeling that way. And so how do you know you're really getting the gospel? It's when you begin to develop eyes and start to ask who is feeling like an outsider around here.

How can I help them? One of the ways you could know, or you can find hope and comfort in the fact that one of the things that Matthew is trying to do is show you that Jesus has walked through every stage in every situation of not just the life of Israel, but what we all can experience.

So if you feel like an outsider, do you feel like there's you have no home? You can have one that you can connect to, that you could know. He knows what it's like. And so you're aware of these things.

That's how we know we're beginning to get it, not just see it not just hear it, but begin to get it. Look at the second naked second section of 16 to 18 and this is the second message. First week he got on the run, but then we see God is attacked.

Lincoln, 16 inherit when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious and he sent in killed all the male Children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old and under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men.

And then this might be one of the more staggering lines in the whole Bible, Then was fulfilled, who was spoken by the Prophet Jeremiah? A voice was heard in Rama weeping and allowed lamentation Rachel weeping for her Children she refused to be comforted because there were no Maur.

And so the first thing he wants you to hear, he wants you to hear the prophecy from Jeremiah Jeremiah, Chapter 31. And so we hear that scriptural word. And it's a reference to Herod. And one thing about Herod, er, you know, his beastly character is notorious, and it's fascinating because from one angle he was one of Israel's greatest political leaders from a standpoint of economic prosperity, from a standpoint of building a kind of a worldly kingdom.

But there's no doubt he was also one of the most tyrannical, beastly humans that they ever I had to deal with. He killed his wife. He killed two of the sons. Um, his kind of list of atrocities is pretty staggering and then, but in the context, what he wants to hear is he wants to hear.

The quotation is from Jeremiah, 31 it's Rachel weeping for her Children and then the voices heard in Rama. Where is that? Rama was the location for the first deportation to Babylon in the first exile.

Rama was a location where they would the Babylonian army would stage all of the Israel lights were then going to be deported and taken away from their home. It was very similar to like in Nazi Germany.

You would have certain train stations that Jewish families know If they got a summons to those train station, they would never see there family again. That's the kind of location at this place of deep lamentation crying out.

But then notice. Whose voice is it? It's Rachel's. Why? Rachel? Rachel's the matriarch, Jacob's wife. She's the mother of Israel of the Israel Lights. Remember Rachel? She had two Children. She had Joseph and Benjamin.

And what happened when Rachel gave birth to Benjamin? She died. She died in Child Berry. So Rachel is actually a model of what it means to say my life for yours. I will give my life so you can have yours.

And inherit is doing the exact opposite hair. It is a model of the dynamic of I will sacrifice you for me. I demand that you give your life for mine at one of things he wants us to hear. And then c is Do you see how that dynamic is? The fund of fundamental operating system of the world I demand you sacrificed for me and its exact opposite of the gospel it wants its from hair.

This is just survival of the fittest in its rawest form of political power. I demand you sacrificed for May, and then you think through all the different in an age of dictators and despot's, they could sacrifice the whole nation on the altar of their own ambition.

Reminded of the during the Napoleonic Wars when, ah, different diplomatic negotiations with Napoleon and he had that famous kind of line, he says, You can't stop. May I can. I can spend 30,000 men a month because there's no way you can stop.

My ambition is such I will sacrifice 30,000 men on the altar of my ambition every month. And that's the fundamental dynamic operating just in the world you sacrifice for me. But here you see the exact opposite in Rachel and what that actually is the exact opposite of the dynamic of the gospel, one of the underlying kind of themes of this chapter's Who's the real King? You can see that in the very beginning to repeats in Chapter two, where they came to Herod the king.

And then the wise man comes that we've seen the star of the King of the Jews. Where is he who has been born king? And so the real question is, what does it mean to be the true king and hair? It's kingship is driven by the dynamic that you sacrificed for me.

And then in the Gospel, Matthew's gonna paint us a kn image of another king who's the dynamic of his reign as I will sacrifice for you, not you. Give your life for me. But I will give my life for you.

And then we begin to see that we begin to get that it changes. It changes everything. So what it means to get these things. You know, there's probably there's all kinds of historical illustrations we could stop to use to illustrate that worldly dynamic of you sacrifice for me.

I think I'd probably just be worth just taking a few moments to think how deeply that's worked itself. It just into my own heart. Like How am I tempted? Two. Sacrifice others on the altar of my own comfort, my own convenience, my own career, my own consumerism, my own ambition, my own opinions.

How tempted am I to cause others to sacrifice for May? And it is sad how so often in that dynamic, it's the Children who are the victims, just like it is here in this chapter, you know, find it so interesting as we move into a non stop hyper political time.

How two of the great political issues of our age are refugees and abortion, and both of them are dealt with right here. And you think, Well, what does it mean for the basic operating system of my heart to no longer be you for me? But now it's me for you.

How do you get that? How do you get to that place? Probably one of my favorite stories did illustrate this, So we've heard this before, But several years ago, a church was kind of going through it, kind of collecting different stories the way the gospel it's transformed them.

And I was thinking back on that campaign, and there's actually three stories that came to my mind to illustrate all three of these These things well, just to one. But one of stories is that there was a ah woman who shared her heard story, her testimony and she was working at one of the Big Three networks in New York.

Is it ABC, NBC, CBS. He was working on one of those Big Three networks, and she said that she was utterly committed to charging up the corporate ladder and did not care who she had to step on to get there.

And she was in a certain situation. There was some type of situation where she was going to take some significant ethical corners and do something. She knew it was wrong. It was a calculated risk. If if this pays off, I can get elevated.

If it doesn't, I'll get fired and just just start over. And it didn't work out well. And she could have braced herself for the incredible fall. And she went into her boss's office expecting to be fired, and he started to really kind of let her have it.

And then he started shifting into how they were going to what they were going to do together to kind of innocence, clean up the mess and she stopped him. And so what? I'm not you're not firing me, he said.

Well, no, but here's what? You're gonna have to talk about it. And I'm not being fired. No, you're not being fired. Well, why do you want to be fired? We'll know why. Why am I not being fired? And she just said she couldn't let it go on.

Uh, you have to tell me what? Why do I still have a job? He said, Well, because I've been at this company a long time, you know? In essence, Got a lot of I can absorb this kind of thing. You can't. I took the fall, but here's what we're gonna do tow kind of make it right.

And then you start saying she stopped him against his. I can't hear that. I have had many bosses who have taken credit for the things I have done. I've never had a boss who took the blame that I deserved.

Why would you do that? Why? And he said he wanted just Well, why do you want? I just I just did, and she wouldn't like that. Why would you do such a thing? And finally said, Look, the reason why? Because I'm a Christian and I don't know what in your mind you think that means and kind of get some funny stereotypes.

I don't know what you think that means, but what it means to be a Christian is that I have my life because someone took the blame that I deserved. And then he gave me the credit that he deserved. And so what he's done for me on this giant scale I thought I could do for you on a small scale and you know what, she said.

I said, Where do you go to church? And so what? He said that someone who gets it, that's getting at a deep level that you almost can't rationally explain, but they just get it. And what would you like to get the gospel at that deep level in your own heart and soul and don't you? I mean, wouldn't you like to have more people in your life who live that way? And you think? And as you think about it, what what it means to live out to really get the gospel is is maybe it's not even to do that on such a grand scale.

But maybe the real heroic nature of the Christian life is to do that in a small scale 100 times a day. You think about what would be like. It was just this stage and season of parenting, I think. What does it mean when another kids are starting to really get it, get the gospel? Or even what does it mean in the States for me to really get it? Maybe it's getting to a place where you don't say things like, Why would I clean up that mess? I didn't make it.

Why should I be the one to clean up that mess? I didn't make it well, because that's what Jesus did for you do. You just came into your life to clean up the mess he didn't make. So get in the bathroom.

And so this is what it means to get to have it worked deep down into your own soul. Or maybe you think, won the most heroic things you can do. In essence, the the worldly dynamic is you sacrificed for me the gospel dot name, because I will sacrifice for you.

And then maybe in your life you think, Yeah, that would be amazing, but that's what I feel like. That's all I've been doing for the last 30 years. My life for yours constantly, my life for yours, constantly giving it out.

I'm just tired. I'm tired of giving it out that way. Maybe you need to hear that. Jesus not only knows, he sees he celebrates his look. That's my child walking in my ways, doing following me. That's a That's a heroic thing.

Maybe that's even more heroic than kind of the grand gesture that might get headlines or make Ah, you get celebrated on social media that 10,000 small ways you you sacrifice for others that they never even recognize or C.

Or maybe right now you're recognizing that man. I had somebody in my life who really did. They were not driven by the hair and dynamic. They were driven by a dynamic of I'll suffer so you don't have to.

I will give my life and pour myself out in these multiple jobs so you can have opportunities and resource is I'd never could have imagined I will serve behind the scenes and hundreds away so that you can experience life.

And maybe this morning news you're thinking about that. There's somebody who has done that for you and you need to just thank them. Tell them looking back as I've gotten older, I can see and I thank you for it.

So that's the second thing in the third. Just quickly. Is that God's laid, low looking verse 19? But when Herod, dad, behold an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel for those who sought the child's life for dead and he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.

But when he heard that Ark Alias was reigning over Judah in place of his father hair and he was afraid to go there and being warned in a dream, he withdrew to the District of Galilee, and he went and lived in a city called Nazareth so that what was spoken by the prophet might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.

Now this actually is a little tricky one, because there's not a specific text in the Old Testament that Matthew's referencing. What I think he's doing is he's actually Q and you in onto one of the major melodies that's running through the whole thing.

And part of the that melody is that, um, it's a promise that God dwells and enters into the wilderness. It's in the darkness. It's in the wilderness. It's in the out of the way places that God often will encounter us and he'll come to us.

And part of it is the melody of his deep humility that he's going to go, uh, enter into the places that seem. Remember what Nathan Nathaniel said when he heard that Jesus was from Nazareth? Nazareth. Anything good come from Nazareth? Podunk Hit Bill Town over there.

Yeah, actually, those are the type of places that Jesus loves to enter and dwell in. And that's one of the things his humility entering into those places. But then, all throughout this, there's there's this tune that you're going to be keying in on.

Like whom I've heard I've heard this song before of of Joseph, who's driven by the murderous rage of his his innocence. His brothers out to Egypt have heard a song of a Joseph being led by by dreams. I've heard a story about the tyrannical ruler in Egypt who's trying to kill the Children and his plans are thwarted.

You hear it? But then you see it. Jesus is going here to Galilee, and in Chapter four he'll talk more. Matthew, tell us more about why that's matters. But last. Just think. How do you get it? Why does it matter? What does he want us to get? I think one of the things that he wants us to really to get is that times of obscurity are not punishment.

When you feel like you're being ignored by the world, that's not punishment. The ordinary times are not times we're being punished. One of things. Jesus is going to go to a normal out of the way place and then spend the next 30 years just being raised.

Just goingto work each day, doing his job, loving his family, loving his community, just doing the ordinary things that make life worth living. At this stage, there's no public promotion, there's no self assertion is just ordinary life.

And oftentimes we can struggle with this, especially a transition stages. So some of you have felt like the called I'm gonna be a missionary and I'm gonna go to this place and I'm gonna spread the gospel and then you get there and it's just filled with so much ordinary nous and you feel discouraged.

Like, Is this what I signed up for it? Yes, that's called Life. And then you can feel it in other ways, like you get. You weren't go through school for all these years to train and to become this thing.

And then you get in this thing and it's filled with paperwork all day. Is this what I took out 100 $30,000 a student loans for? Well, yeah, That's kind of the ordinary preparation, something you can feel this new mothers can feel it, we think is all my life just now going to be wiping noses and changing diapers? Well, yes.

Caring for the weak and the helpless is a beautiful thing. What would you rather be doing with your life than laying down so another can live? And that's just the ordinary nous of life. So how do we hear the gospel? We gotta hear it.

We got to see it, and then we got to get it. And once we begin to get it, it can make our soul really sing in our hearts really laugh. So let's pray that will experience all of those things. So, Lord, we praise you for the gospel.

We ask that you would help us to here it, to see it, to get it, that it would land on our souls and our hearts with all of its beautiful force. And so I thank you for these three images that we've seen of your son that he was a refugee.

He came to his own, but his own did not receive him and he had to run. And so I pray for anyone in this room where they feel that they feel it tangibly where they feel that this is just not my home. I prayed that you would come for them with the thought that you know you've experienced you've walked that path before.

That's great for all of us that you would give us eyes to see and give us a sensitivity and awareness. And what I praise you for the image of what it means to be the true king. But the true king will not sacrifice others for their own good.

But the true king will give his life so others so others can find theirs. So we praise you for what your son did. You did that for us. And so now ask you to help us. Give us the strength. Give us the courage.

Give us the power to do that in 100 small ways in our life. And I thank you. I thank you for all the people in our lives who in so many ways they've done that for us, and so often we didn't even know.

I just wonder, even from a just from a human perspective, the the two year old Jesus had no idea of the sacrifice and what Joseph was protecting them from. And I thank you for all of the people who have protected us from things we had no idea.

And then, Lord, we thank you for the the beauty in the ordinary. So I pray that you help If any of us are tempted to, um, become discouraged at just the ordinary nous of life. Help us to be able to see into taste the glory in those moments.

No, This we ask in Christ Holy name, man