The Fulfillment of Our King

[0:00] it was the year 1977 I was a lad a wee little lad was I and my dad brought us to see Star Wars and my life was changed I loved it Luke Skywalker was awesome I loved his hair but way back in 1977 I had no idea that this would be one of seven films no idea none and so 38 years later 2015 I brought my family to see the latest kind of installment in the Star Wars area last Monday and looking back through what's what's the what's the movie called what's the latest one the Force Awakens so looking back through the Force Awakens all the way back to 1977 to that first Star Wars I realized I had no idea I had no idea that Luke Skywalker was going to point to Ray I didn't know that spoiler alert sorry no no idea 1977 there was there was a foreshadowing George Lucas knew this there was there was a foreshadowing going on of someone who would come and fulfill it later in this episode 7 in 2015 it really only makes sense when you look back through it and so this morning we're gonna look at a passage in Matthew chapter 2 verses 13 through 23 in which we're gonna look back Matthew's gonna help us look back at some Old Testament passages and we're gonna see how they point to Jesus they're gonna show us how they foreshadowed this Jesus the Christ our King and what you're gonna see is Jesus is the great fulfiller he's the great fulfiller of so many Old

[2:17] Testament passages and where we're gonna land this plane is not only is Jesus the great fulfiller of the Old Testament but he's the great fulfiller of your deepest longing he came for you if you look at Matthew chapter 2 verses 13 what I want to point you to right out of the gate is the word fulfill it's used three times in this passage if you notice in verse 15 and they remain there until the death of Herod this was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet out of Egypt I called my son so note that the word fulfill there and then in verse 17 then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah and then if you look at verse 23 and then and he went and lived in a city called Nazareth that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled he shall be called a Nazarene and so in this passage we have three fulfillments pointing to Jesus I want to show you how now this isn't the first time the word fulfilled was used in Matthew Matthew's already used it a couple times if you look back in Matthew chapter 1 we see it in verse 22 where

[3:38] Matthew is talking about the the miraculous conception and in Mary and the birth of this son whose name is Emmanuel and he's saying that fulfilled Isaiah 7 14 and then we look down at chapter 2 verse 6 verse 5 actually they told him in Bethlehem of Judea for so it is written fulfilled by the prophet and he points to Micah 5 2 the Messiah is going to come from Bethlehem fulfillment in these two fulfillments it's very clear that they're talking about the Messiah and so what we see early on in Matthew is this kind of God spoke a prophecy about the Messiah and it very specifically came true in Isaiah 7 14 and Micah 5 2 when we turn to chapter 2 verses 13 through 23 it's not that clear of a fulfillment it's a different kind of fulfillment that's happening of the Old Testament instead of saying God saying something specific and specifically pointing to the Messiah in these three little fulfillments Matthew is saying that Jesus fulfilled Old Testament scripture in a different kind of way a more general way it's like the Old Testament sets kind of a trajectory it's a foreshadowing that only looking back through

[5:08] Christ do we see the fulfillment of it this is classically known as typology we're not going to quizzy on that don't worry about it but typology is a legitimate way of understanding fulfillment of the Old Testament in the New Testament and so just a little bit more on that when we see New Testament writers using scripture this way what they do is they're showing how Jesus fulfills kind of general themes general ideas in the Old Testament a classic example would be this remember the sacrificial system in the Old Testament the ongoing killing of animals in order to cover over sin well that is a type of sacrifice and it's a foreshadowing of something that will be fulfilled in Christ's one time sacrifice for all that's the point of Hebrews 10 and so we see this kind of fulfillment being used by New Testament writers and it's fulfillment of particular people institutions themes and so when we get to Matthew chapter 2 I want to help you to understand there's a different kind of fulfillment of Old Testament going on here typically not what we usually think of fulfillment of prophecy it's a little broader than that and so I just thought we could just jump right in this morning and we'll look at these three fulfilleds you ready let's go fulfilled number one we see this in verse 13 through 15 now when they the magi had departed behold an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said rise take the child Jesus and his mother Mary and flee to

[7:00] Egypt and remain there until I tell you for Herod remember he is a Simonizing politically savvy killer for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him and Joseph rose it was immediate he is quite the man he arose and took child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod this was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet out of Egypt I called my son now what's being quoted there is Hosea chapter 11 verse 1 out of Egypt I called my son in what the Hosea is talking about out of Egypt he's referencing the Exodus remember Pharaoh let my people go Moses Exodus Exodus and so what it is is a deliverance from the captivity in Egypt that's what's the backdrop there that's what's being talked about what I want you to dial in on is those words my son out of Egypt

[8:09] I called my son and there's two points I want to make here first one is this this is the first time in Matthew that this phrase my son is being used by God to speak about Jesus and so this is the first time we Matthew uses a prophet to communicate that that God is saying this is my boy this is my son conceived of the Holy Spirit and so Jesus this boy fully God fully man in one person here's the second thing I want you to see out of Egypt I called my son it's a reference to the people of God my son the Israelites it's a reference to a body of people and so my son is being used in Hosea 11 1 as a reference to God's people that he's delivering out of captivity from Egypt and the question becomes well how does

[9:15] Jesus fulfill that well he is the new my son he is the embodiment of God's new people God's new people the church all who bow the knee to Jesus become Christians they are located in the son my son my son he's the embodiment of a people delivered not from the captivity of Egypt but from the captivity of sin remember Matthew 1 21 it's in the name Jesus she shall she will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins Jesus Jesus was sent to Egypt not only to get away from the slaughter of Herod the evil king but to come out of Egypt as the my son the embodiment of a new people and that's how he fulfills

[10:22] Hosea 11 chapter chapter 11 verse 1 it's it's this foreshadowing fulfilled in Jesus the second fulfillment I want you to see is chapter or chapter 2 verses 16 through 18 this is a really interesting passage and I I'm telling you I had a lean heart this past week on people far wiser than me and helping understand this it says then Herod when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men the magi became furious remember he was paranoid and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem in all that region who were two years old and under according to the time that he had ascertained from all the wise men and that was based upon when the star raised from we talked about that last week and then verse 17 he says then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah a voice was heard in Ramah weeping in loud lamentation Rachel weeping for her children she refused to be comforted because they are no more verse 18 what's being quoted from Jeremiah is Jeremiah chapter 31 that may ring a bell we'll come back to it chapter

[11:38] Jeremiah 31 verse 15 now could you imagine being a mother in Bethlehem of one of these babies that was slaughtered by Herod could you imagine the pain could you imagine that it would have been horrendous it would have been horrific deep sorrow it was a horrible wrong what I want you to see here is Matthew is very careful to make a distinction for us and so what's going on here is fulfillment of God's plan right but look who he blames verse 16 then Herod when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men became furious and he Herod sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem Matthew is very clear to be putting the blame on Herod not God for the slaughter of these baby boys

[12:44] I just want to make sure you see that distinction but what Matthew is saying is that this this weeping this deep sorrow going on this is fulfillment of something this is God God brought this in a way in a sovereignty and human responsibility that we don't get but God is sovereign over this their weeping points to something Jeremiah 31 15 pictures Rachel sister of Leah who apparently some believe died in Ramah they Jeremiah 31 pictures her as kind of the matriarch of the children of Israel and she's weeping for them why is she weeping for them she's weeping for them because God's people are being exiled

[13:46] Jeremiah 31 is speaking of the exile of God's people from the land Jerusalem's been sacked and God's people are now being deported and Ramah was a staging point for the deportation of God's people to the nations to Babylon and so what we see going on here in Jeremiah in this section is not the exodus being called out of Egypt it's the exile and so why Rachel as a representative is weeping so much is because it looks like her people are seemingly no more and more significantly and more significantly perhaps is that it looks like the kingly line of David has now come to an end has ceased and so if you flip over to Matthew back to the genealogy

[14:47] Matthew's already hinted at this in chapter 1 verses 11 and 12 and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon that's what we're talking about right here and after the deportation of Babylon Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel and the point that we're seeing here is that there is great weeping going on in Ramah because God's people are being sent out and there's no more good king David on the throne in fact there's an evil king on the throne Nebuchadnezzar back in Jeremiah and here the evil king of course is Herod so the parallels between what's going on in Jeremiah and what's going on in Matthew 2 are we've got moms weeping for the children suffering under the reign of a foreign king because a good King David is no longer on the throne it's a fulfillment of pain and longing it's pointing to something deep it's not avoiding pain it's addressing pain and pointing to hope

[16:08] D.A. Carson help me out he's prof down at Trinity and to summarize what he said is the weeping that started with Rachel in this exile climaxed in the weeping of these Bethlehemite mothers it was the fulfillment of hardship of life under a foreign king it anticipates Messiah's reign coming to an end of life under exile the coming of a Davidic king out of Egypt so what I want you to be thinking about here is there's real pain here and pain is part of God's plan but pain is not the final word Jesus is the final word on pain stepping back from Jeremiah 31 15 I want to remind you of Jeremiah 31 Jeremiah 31 is a chapter of hope again and again

[17:09] God is saying to his people going into exile you're my kids you're my family you're my peeps I'm going to bring you back I'm going to regather you someday there's a future hope for you it's all around it verse 9 17 20 there's a future hope for God's people even with them going into exile and do you know where he ends up pointing to and this is where Jeremiah 31 might have rung a bell in your head Jeremiah 31 is home of the new covenant promise and so Jeremiah 31 talks about 33 talks about God establishing a new covenant one day with his people in which he will write his law on their hearts it's a new way of God relating to his people he's going to bring them back and he's going to relate with them in a new way now this is where I want to aim you at Jesus the night before Jesus was crucified he was in an opera room having a meal with his disciples do you remember what he did?

[18:20] he broke bread he poured out wine he said of the bread this is my body given for you take and eat do you remember that? and then he said of the wine this is my blood of the covenant the new covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins Jesus is the fulfillment of the new covenant he's the hope even in the face of great pain he's the hope new way in which God relates with a new people Matthew is saying that the weeping of these mothers in Bethlehem is the fulfillment of the misery of God's people living in exile under the reign of a non-David king and ultimately the longing we see in these moms the longing we see in Rachel is our longing longing to come under the life-giving reign of Jesus to know him and trust him and experience the goodness of his ways and so what we see happening in this little section it's like this dark backdrop on a stage it's very dark but in comes the spotlight on Jesus the fulfillment of this experience anticipates

[19:52] King Jesus one last fulfilled the return to Nazareth chapter 2 verses 9 through 23 but when Herod died behold an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt saying rise take the children and his mother and go to the land of Israel for those who sought the child's life are dead now so the holy family is in Egypt now an angel of the Lord appears to them in a dream says okay it's time to go back go back to Israel Herod's dead now and so Joseph again immediately obeys he rose took the child Jesus and his mother Mary and they went back to the land of Israel presumably seeking to get back to Bethlehem but when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea Archelaus was one of Herod the Great's jerky sons he was awful terrible and he was in this position of authority for like two years and then he got canned he was so bad but when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in the place of his father

[21:06] Herod Joseph was afraid to go there and being warned in a dream God intervenes he withdrew to the district of Galilee so they're going to go back to Bethlehem in southern Israel but God intervenes and they go up to Galilee which is in northern Israel and in the district of Galilee is this little town called Nazareth and he went and lived in a city called Nazareth more like a town that what that what was spoken by the prophets plural might be fulfilled he shall be called a Nazarene so I want you to see that it's prophets plural so there's more than one prophet that is apparently spoken of Jesus being from Nazareth and whatever the fulfillment is it's got something to do with Nazareth the challenge is that if you search through your Old Testament there is no specific quote he shall be called a Nazarene stated like that in your Old Testament it poses quite a challenge and so we got to ask the question well what's being said here and what I want to help you to see is that there is a trajectory a foreshadowing in the Old Testament that points to

[22:27] Nazareth and Jesus being a Nazarene fulfillment of it there are two really good explanations for this and they don't have to be one or the other so let me give you the explanation for this he shall be called a Nazarene if it's not explicitly stated in the Old Testament that word Nazareth sounds like a Hebrew word Nazer which means branch and if you flip back in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 11 verse 1 Isaiah uses this unique word Nazer to describe the Messiah there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse talking about the David's line and a branch a Nazer from his roots shall bear fruit and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of counsel and might the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord and he in his delight shall be the fear of the Lord

[23:38] I just love that speaking of the Messiah and so what Matthew appears to be doing and he can because he's an inspired writer of scripture he's saying that there's a word play going on here and Nazareth should make you think branch which makes you think Messiah which helps you to see that Jesus he's the Messiah and his ending up in Nazareth was part of God's plan there's another passage another passage in Jeremiah another prophet that speaks of doesn't use Nazareth language but uses the word branch to speak of the Messiah it's Jeremiah 23 5-8 Samir pointed this out to me this past week I'm so grateful for him but what it points to is the Davidic Messiah will come back and he will set up shop let me just read it behold the days are coming declares the

[24:43] Lord when I will raise up for David a righteous branch and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land in his days Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely in this is the name by which he will be called the Lord is our righteousness he's going to deliver God's people out of captivity to sin and so one way of understanding this Nazareth quote is that it's actually pointing to branch language the other way to explain it is by understanding what Nazareth represents Nazareth was a despised place and despised places produce despised people generally speaking and so what Matthew according to this understanding explanation is what

[25:45] Matthew is doing is talking about the reputation of the Messiah that he would be despised do you remember back in John 1 Philip he runs to his brother Nathaniel and he says Nathaniel we found the one that the law of Moses was speaking of Jesus of Nazareth and then in 146 do you remember what Nathaniel said does anything good come out of Nazareth it was a backwater town didn't have a good reputation at all and so the idea here is that Matthew by saying that Jesus is a Nazarene actually is a fulfillment of the passages in the Old Testament that talk about the Messiah as being despised Psalm 22 Psalm 69 and of course the great one Isaiah 53 2-3 for he grew up before him like a young plant like a root out of dry ground he had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him he was despised and rejected by men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we

[27:06] I love this explanation I like the Nazar explanation too they both are very helpful but the fulfillment would be this Nazareth represents the reputation of Jesus he's a Nazarene and I just want to remind you this Isaiah 53 it's messianic it's it's a prophecy of the coming suffering servant he would be despised he would suffer he would be shamed by people but in verse 5 and 6 of Isaiah 53 but he was wounded for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities upon him this despised one was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his stripes we're healed all we like sheep have gone astray we have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all this despised one is our savior substitute who died in our place these are two options of explaining this he will be called a

[28:23] Nazarene he brought about by the shedding of his blood.

[28:56] And so the point of all this, and I thank you so much for hanging in there. I know this was kind of heavy lifting mentally. The point of it all is that what was written long ago in a country far, far away, what Matthew is saying about Jesus is that he fulfilled God's eternal plan for the salvation of sinners like you and me.

[29:24] Jesus is the great fulfiller. He is the focal point of God's plan of salvation. He's the great king from David's line whose kingship brings eternal life and joy to those who know pain and suffering and heartache and the consequences of sins.

[29:46] He fulfills our greatest longing. And so this morning I want to walk away with three things on your mind. In light of Matthew 2, 13 through 23, we can walk out of here knowing that God is sovereign.

[30:00] Sovereign over it all. Fulfill, fulfill, fulfill. He reigns over it. It's his plan being carried out. But what I want to just put in your head in there is pain is part of his plan. But it's not the final word.

[30:14] It's not the final word. Jesus is the final word. We sang it already. Revelation 21. When Jesus comes back, he's going to take his finger and wipe away every tear from our face.

[30:28] He's the final word on pain. He knows pain. God is sovereign. God is loving. This plan that we see being fulfilled here in Matthew 2, this plan is a loving plan of fulfillment.

[30:46] It's aimed. It's a glorious plan for our greatest good to rescue sinners from their sins. That's what it's all about. And God's doing it out of love for us.

[30:58] So God is sovereign. God is loving. And Jesus is worth it all. He's the fulfillment of God's plan for the ages and the fulfillment of your deepest longing.

[31:12] It's all about Jesus. He's the great fulfiller of Scripture. And He's the great fulfiller of sinners' hearts. Let's turn to Him in prayer.

[31:26] Lord Jesus, we are so grateful we feel the limits of our brains when we read passages like this, God. But we're so glad that You're sovereign, that You're loving, and we see that Jesus is worth it all.

[31:41] God, we're so grateful that You sent Jesus for us. We're so grateful that You don't bypass our pain. We know that You can use it for good. Lord Jesus, we recognize You as the great fulfiller, and we are looking forward to seeing how You fulfill the law and the prophets that all would be accomplished in Matthew 5.

[32:05] Thank You, Jesus, for this time. Amen.