Destination-Driven Dreams, Part 3

God's will is a mysterious thing trying to figure out his plan for our lives can feel like assembling and possible jigsaw puzzle. We hold the tiny pieces in the palm of our hand waiting for clarity to come so we can punch them together and see the complete picture will today on Insight for living. Chuck Swindoll brings clarity, this mysterious topic is teaching from Matthew chapter 2 in this passage, he observed Joseph in the middle of a sensational visit from an angel, Chuck titled today's message destination driven dream of the wise men are going to the angel of the Lord appears in the dream fleet get away from Bethlehem be on your way.

So he's Jesus it's in the middle night. That's when you get dreams and just cannot Joseph flee to Egypt with the child and his mother.

The angel said stay there until I tell you to return because Herod is going to search for the child to kill middle of the night. Joseph is awakened and he hears something he never soars that you never dreamed he would hear before he never imagined. And now he's told job just how that night you haven't respected Joseph maybe until now, but look at this.

Here's a man who's married a woman who is pregnant and he can never fully explained it to anyone else. How God did that to this day, we can explain some miracle that baby in her womb is going to marry her while she's three months pregnant and then they go to all the way to term and only after six months she has the baby and all the neighbors are talking. We've all talked about that we would imagine that is willing to go through that and now they are finally in a place for the child is beginning to grow in the Lord says get up go to Egypt.

I take it that he's never been to Egypt before the Lord often leads us to places we've never been before, says go to Egypt take the child and his mother by the way, Matthew's very careful it's never your child with your wife. It's her with her son, and you see is nothing to do with child biologically assist take the child and his mother and stay there until I tell you to return here is the reason why look at this. That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary's mother's met his wife had had the dream he had the dream. Mary Mary cannot get the baby down here. What cannot she gets up she prepares the baby for travel. I take it they left some things in a hurry and they're on their way. While you may be impressed with Mary for getting up right away and trusting your husband going unimpressed with Joseph he got it. There's not a resistance is not an argument.

There's not a wrestling. Let's go God says this, let's go they didn't go to Egypt licking their wounds, they went to Egypt trusting God, even though it was a sudden quick decision and a big one. So that night they left they stayed. In fact, it fulfilled what Hosea is written in chapter 11 verse one you see the words I called my son out of Egypt. Matthew lifts that verse out of Hosea 11 one and says that fulfilled that prediction, but is not true. So the real Egypt, we don't how long do what they did. Probably they use the gold from the Wiseman gift to finance the trip.

They would need money for food maybe was able to to buy another beach to ride on the travel on four legs instead of their own and they made their way to reach. I should add that Herod threw a fit. Verse 16, he was furious when he realized Wiseman and outwitted him and he sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the Wiseman's report of the stars first appearance member. My last message but I spent time on verse seven he wanted to know specifically when the star first appeared because Herod is doing the math he's figuring how old the child is now so that's why kills them two years old and younger.

He had figured the baby Jesus the Savior. The King of the Jews must be that age, so he kills all the boys that age and younger know there's another dream that appears to them in Egypt at this verse. Oh I forgot the fulfillment of the prophecy. Look at Jeremiah's prophecy. Verse 18. He mentions that that come from Jeremiah 3115.

Check it for yourself. Matthew applies what happened when Herod slaughtered the children with that verse of Scripture. Now the next verse 19 when Herod died. You think God doesn't know what's going on on earth. He doesn't need the evening news. He knows exactly what's happening. He has a timetable and a plan unfolding and his will is being done cutting through all of the garbanzos of our time is carrying out his plan and so we Joseph and Mary have no way of knowing Herod died there involved in the lifestyle of the of Alexandria or wherever they landed in Egypt so the angel appears in a dream look at it says to Joseph, get up, he's heard those words before his Jetta take the child and his mother back to the land of Israel because those who were trying to kill the child or did what you love it. Joseph got up and returned me. I had a thought here.

So did Mary. It's easy to forget, isn't it especially if you're not married or maybe have never been married. It's easy to forget what a oneness. There is between husband and wife you live together you think together you prayed together you plan together. You cooperate with God's will, together, very important that you remember that and if you choose not to do that don't get married stay single. But if you married there is a there is a union. The very first wedding ceremony, God says, for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and listen to this and shall be joined to his wife is the word for gluing bonding shall be bonded to his wife and the two of them or 1/I love to read at the wedding ceremonies were.

I am officiating. The words of the late Peter Marshall who said marriage is not a federation of two sovereign states. It is a union domestic, social, spiritual, physical, it is a fusion of two hearts the union of two lives the coming together of two tributaries which after being joined in marriage will flow in the same channel in the same direction carrying the same burdens of responsibility and obligation. Paul recounts not ready for that and I'm ready for marriage. Marriage means you do that with one another, so there's no battle with Mary. He married her. Not knowing all the details and she marries him, trusting him to guide the family and he does that. So she believes them. He says we gotta leave.

We gotta go back so the goal of the land of Israel. And here's where things get loose quarterly, verse 21. Joseph got up. Mary is with the get the baby ready to leave Egypt.

They make it long trek back to Israel number would you go if you return to Israel you go to where you were before. Right which is Judea, but there's a problem because with the death of Herod. One of his three sons.

Archelaus was provided the larger portion is in his of his inheritance which means Samaria and intermedia and Judea. The problem with Archelaus as it is cut out of the same piece of soiled cloth is characterized as father. He is as wicked as his dad not uncommon like father like son. He's never broken his dad never discipline Hammer taught them to do what is right is dad's too busy doing wrong so suddenly when Joseph gets close enough for the scuttlebutt come down the caravan trail and he gets word regarding life in Israel, especially around Jerusalem and Bethlehem, he hears you know Archelaus is now the new ruler all wait a minute. Archelaus look at what he says he got up and returned to the land of Israel with Jesus's mother, but when you learn the new ruler of Judea was Herod's son Archelaus. He was afraid to go there so what does he do he waits on God rather just plunging into it and putting his child at risk or his wife because Archelaus is anti-Semitic to the core.

He waits and we read then after being warned there it is again in the dream, so they spend the night on the way in the middle of them. I guess another dream you left for the region of Galilee because he was warned in a dream to go where they had been so the family went and lived in the town called Nazareth and we are is the grade of the story ties together.

I love it when it's all wool within the and the tapestry pulls together in this beautiful fabric of meaning and significance. That's how they come back to Nazareth they could have been left in Egypt for a long time know they couldn't because the prophets and said look at the last line he will be called a Nazarene.

I feel like giving you an assignment but you would be frustrated if I did you find where that's found in the Old Testament.

It isn't there. So I'll save you the look I know I've been looking in my search found that not only from the Scriptures, but also from books that I checked there's never a mention of the Old Testament of he shall be called a Nazarene. But Matthew says the prophets said he would be called prophets plural. So the Bible contradicts itself must go on know that's what gets what. A cynic there's a reason for this. Not everything spoken by the prophets is written in the New Testament. Okay, for example, just as our Lord taught us we read in acts chapter 20 it's here it's more blessed to give than to receive. Wanting to find that verse is somewhere in the book of acts. That's your challenge to find it, but you heard it. It's more blessed to give than receive. Like our Lord taught us, but the problem is nowhere in the Gospels is Lord, teach that. So how could he say the Lord taught if it's not there because many things the Lord said, are not recorded in the Gospels, but he still said it a number of things. The prophets wrote do not find their way into the Old Testament, but they said they were passed down through godly parents. I found the verse. Acts 20 verse 35 I would've been able to sleep tonight if I'd not been able to find that person that had another wild dream about something else. 23.

So where does that leave us witnesses have to say to us, but you wonder when you get through passage like this about the will of God in and us. This is my favorite part of the message.

Unfortunately, some people leave before the get it. I let's go to the there are three points I want to make here versus 13 to 18. Remember, Joseph is told. Get up and go get out of town because Herod is going to kill the children. Here's the first principle sometimes God's will is sudden quick. I would call this learning the discipline of trusting. I've been led to do some things quickly, but many but sometime the Lord makes it clear do this now. Don't wait but say I should talk to one of our children about something that's going to be dangerous for them is no time to wait there leaving. I may not see them. Prolonged: now say it now and I will quickly move into the act. Trust the Lord to use yet the words even though there decided quickly. Whatever may be your situation room or the Lord tells Joseph to pull up stakes and go now and he got up that night and left sometime God's will is sudden quick, the discipline of trusting in the next time verses 19 to 22 member. The Lord tells Joseph to pull up stakes in Egypt and go back where they were so was on his way to Israel and he realizes another.

There's another beast, ruling the throne there named Archelaus and he surprised and confused. So let's go with that second.

Sometimes God's will is surprising and confusing.

Admit that it's called the discipline of waiting you get to where the Lord lead you and you get confused because things are very very different was as you thought they would work out.

Maybe it's very difficult not just different, and your surprised or confused. So, like Joseph, you wait. Lord I know you led me here. I'm not going to doubt in the dark, which you gave me in the light. I'm going to trust you to guide God answers prayer. One of three ways. Yes no wait, it's easy to confuse a note with weight or weight, for no so this case am suggesting that the Lord told Joseph to wait. He was where he should have been, but the details are not yet worked out guide you through that.

Here's the third and maybe the most important because it applies to most of us. Verses 22 and 23 member the Lord led the little family to Nazareth. You know what you will read anything Lord Jesus in Matthew's gospel till is a 30-year-old man being baptized by John. The baptizer between his very very very small childhood and age 30 silent years probably was a carpenter like Joseph, but they were near Street obscurity away from the activity of life away from any role of leadership probably trained in the synagogue. Schools are at his mother's knee. We do know from Luke to that at age 12. They went to the temple and he showed himself to be beyond his years. Came back and in all that sealed a little glimmer. So let me give you the third principal.

Occasionally, God's will is mysteriously mundane, mysteriously mundane.

I call this the discipline of accepting I'll spell it out through you may have been very significant in a role you once filled but now the Lord is clearly led you to this place where you are in life where no one is asking for your presence, your message, your leadership, your decision laughs, gotten mundane, you may very well be right in the center of his will. Jesus was for 2829 years lived in Nazareth no record here or in any other part of the Scriptures tell us of anything significant that happened fact later when he came from Nazareth. One of the Cyprus that can anything good come out of as it's a backwater town is a garrison there.

Roman soldiers and some said that the baby Mary had came from a Roman soldier. Another lie.

But there… Putting up with neighbors who saw them as an illegitimate son, dealing with people who saw them as nothing more than the kid who played with their kid or the young teenager who grew up in the carpenter shop or the one who built the cabinet for their kitchen. Pretty simple life. If you're there except Hudson Taylor knew the testing that tempers the steel of the soul. He settled with his little family in the east end of London outside interests lessened, friends began to forget them in five long hidden years were spent in the dreary street of a poor part of London for the Taylor's were shot up to prayer and patience that within those hidden years, with all their growth and testing how could the vision and enthusiasm of youth have been matured for the leadership that was to be faith, faithfulness, devotion, self-sacrifice, unremitting labor patient persevering prayer came their portion but more there is the deep, prolonged exercise of the soul following hard after God. The gradual strengthening here of a man called to walk by faith not by sight. The unutterable confidence of a heart cleaning to God and God alone which pleases him as nothing else can listen to this as the years of obscurity progressed. Prayer was the only way by which the burdened heart could obtain any relief. And when the discipline was complete. Did you hear the word the discipline of accepting was complete, there emerged the China inland Mission at first only a tiny root but destined of God to fill the land of China with gospel that is where Hudson Taylor learn the discipline of accepting God's will prepared them for the loss of more than one wife in the cold barren wastelands of China.

The first to go into China with the message of the gospel was prepared in the mundane condition of the poor section of London.

One man writes in every life there is a pause that is better than onward.

Brush better than hewing and mightiest doing this the standing still at sovereign will.

There's a harsh that's better than ardent speech better than signing or wilderness crying is the being still at software will the pause in the harsh sing, a double song. In unison low web for all time long over human soul. God's working plan goes on underneath the aid of man standstill and see. Be still and know please melt with me wherever you find yourself. May the discipline necessary for that time become yours. Think about your situation, you may be in a discipline of trusting God, since you brought you here unexpectedly or where you are in life and maybe a discipline of waiting on God because it's confusing and surprising may be a discipline of accepting God's plan is the mundane days stacking two weeks and months and year. Be still and know that he's God. Thank you father for all you teach us in the disciplines of life, including the discipline of delay, you put us on a shelf set aside and you have us wait and wait and learn and grow to be prepared for what it is you have for us. In her later years guidance father clearly in your will and maybe see that your glory and of Christ, whose name we pray. Everyone said amen knowing God's will is an essential part of the Christian life. But following our trust in God's will is equally important. Sometimes even more difficult. You're listening to Insight for living in the Bible teaching a pastor and author Chuck Swindoll to learn more about this ministry.

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Perhaps today's message is motivated you to take your next steps in your spiritual walk you're ready to trust God to work out his purposes in your life. What Chuck is written a helpful book on this topic is called perfect trust in this preclassic is written chapters on trusting one were troubled and trusting God for the impossible to purchase Chuck's book called perfect trust go to Insight.org/store. In addition, Chuck is written a brand-new commentary that complements our year-long study in Matthew intact because of its scope becomes into hardbound volumes. It's called Swindoll is living insights commentary on Matthew.

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