Sermon Title: FROM EGYPT TO NAZARETH
Sermon Text: MATTHEW 2:19-23
Sermon Series: THE UNEXPECTED ROAD: JOURNEYS IN THE CHRISTMAS STORY
By: BRO ARNOLD ALO
Matthew 2:19-23 NIV
After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.” So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.
SERMON NOTES
God doesn’t just redirect and protect us in our journeys, he eventually restores us.
Restoration in God’s hands looks very different from what we expect.
Three things about God’s restorations:
I. God Brings Us Back, But Often Not to the Same Place We Expected
– God is faithful to restore, but his restorations often come in forms we don’t expect, along paths we wouldn’t have chosen.
– Why does God bring us to our “Nazareth”?
First, because God has changed us.
Second, because God’s purposes are bigger than our plans.
II. God Forms Greatness in Hidden Places
– God forms character in hidden places.
– God is far more interested in who you’re becoming than in who knows about it.
III. Restoration Is Often Quieter Than the Journey That Preceded It
– The most significant work of God in our lives happens in the undramatic rhythms of daily faithfulness.
God Writes Stories That Look Different From Ours, and Better- God is writing a story, and his stories are always better than ours because he sees what we can’t see and knows what we don’t know.