The King from the Small Town: A Review of ‘The Ruler from Bethlehem’

[00:00:01] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]:
Good morning, beloved.
[00:00:04] Let's open in our Bibles to the book of Micah, chapter 5.
[00:00:09] Micah, chapter 5, 1 to 6.
[00:00:13] You can see that on page 778 in the Pew Bibles.
[00:00:21] Micah, chapter 5, verses 1 to 6.
[00:00:40] Alright, let's read the prophetic word together.
[00:00:44] Now master your troops, O daughter of troops.
[00:00:48] Siege is laid against us with a rod that strikes the judge of Israel on the cheek.
[00:00:56] 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.
[00:01:13] Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth, then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel.
[00:01:25] And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
[00:01:33] And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth.
[00:01:40] And he shall be their peace,
[00:01:42] When the Assyrians comes into our land and treads in our places, then we will raise against him seven shepherds and eight princes of men.
[00:01:54] They shall shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword and the land of Nimrod at its entrances.
[00:02:02] And he shall deliver us from the Assyrian when he comes into our land and treads within our border.
[00:02:10] Let's pray.
[00:02:13] Lord Jesus, we bow before you this day and rejoice that your being born was described by the angel
[00:02:22] Good news of great joy that will be for all people.
[00:02:27] We pray for a joyful stirring in our hearts this morning by the work of your Spirit and the truth of this prophetic announcement about your coming.
[00:02:37] Grant us understanding, open our hearts to embrace this truth and to build our lives on it.
[00:02:46] In Jesus' name, Amen.
[00:02:51] This morning we will begin a short Advent series that ends next week, really.
[00:02:57] But we'll have a first Christmas sermon this morning and a second next week.
[00:03:06] And as we begin this morning, I just want to point out something we don't think very often about.
[00:03:14] And it is this.
[00:03:15] We always need good authority in our lives, but we don't think very much about it until we feel like we actually need it, until something is pressing on us to remind us that we need good authority, even better, godly authority in our lives.
[00:03:35] You know, as one person has said, every kid wants to go over to the home with their good parents.
[00:03:41] And every student wants to study in a class with a good teacher or play on a team with a good coach.
[00:03:49] Everyone wants to work at a workplace with a good boss.
[00:03:53] And every citizen wants to live in a nation that is marked by structure and law and order and accountability and reliable institutions.
[00:04:06] Now what if you happen to live in a country
[00:04:09] Where there is such widespread and deeply rooted corruption in the government that everywhere you turn, you're confronted with it.
[00:04:17] What if that is your reality?
[00:04:19] And for many people around the world, that's the case.
[00:04:23] Well, in circumstances like that, your one main option, if you can make it to happen, is a regime change, a change of administration.
[00:04:32] Get rid of that administration and introduce an administration that will do better.
[00:04:38] But what if every possibility of change promises to be just as bad, maybe even worse than what you already have?
[00:04:47] Well, that's precisely the situation in which Micah the prophet was living.
[00:04:53] He was ministering in a context with deep political and religious corruption among the leaders but at the same time the whole nation as a whole not every single individual but the nation as a whole was just as deeply corrupt as the leadership that was over it.
[00:05:14] The rulers and officials of Israel who were supposed to ensure justice were perpetrators of oppression.
[00:05:22] Micah uses very graphic language to describe what was happening there.
[00:05:27] Just look at chapter 3.
[00:05:27] If you can flip back in your Bible, look at chapter 3 verse 1.
[00:05:31] Micah says this, And I said, Here, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, is it not for you to know justice, you who hate the good and love the evil?
[00:05:46] Then Micah uses graphic image to describe what's going on with the brazenness of the oppression of its leaders.
[00:05:54] He says, Who tear the skin from of my people and their flesh from of their bones?
[00:06:00] Who eat the flesh of my people and flay their skin from of them and break their bones in pieces and chop them up like meat in a pot, like flesh in a cauldron?
[00:06:12] So the oppression of the leaders is of a degree that Micah, the prophet, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, portrays it as eating people's flesh and flaying their skin and breaking their bones and chopping them up like meat in a pot.
[00:06:31] And not surprisingly, of course, that leadership is about to bring great humiliation and suffering and judgment on themselves.
[00:06:39] Now flip back to chapter 5 and look at verse 1.
[00:06:44] It says, Now master your troops, O daughter of troops, siege is laid against us.
[00:06:51] With a rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek.
[00:06:55] So siege obviously means that a foreign army is attacking, is invading Israel.
[00:07:03] And when the prophet says they strike the leader of Israel, the judge of Israel on the cheek, he is saying great humiliation is coming on the leaders of Israel.
[00:07:16] You know, to strike somebody on the cheek in Israeli culture was the greatest kind of humiliation that somebody could experience.
[00:07:23] That's to say, the victim is so defenseless they can do nothing to block their face out.
[00:07:28] It is very instinctive to us biologically.
[00:07:31] When somebody is seeking to attack you on the face, your hands go up to block and defend your face.
[00:07:35] So when Micah says they strike the judge of Israel on the face it's saying they have become so defenseless under the judgment of God because of their oppression they can't even block their face out against an attack that is coming against them and that's coming because they have been feeding on the people instead of feeding the people.
[00:07:58] But as I said, these people suffering under the leadership are not innocent victims.
[00:08:05] They adjust themselves as corrupt as their leadership.
[00:08:09] So God announces judgment not only against the leaders but also against the people.
[00:08:15] Back up with me to chapter 1 of Micah verse 4.
[00:08:20] Micah 1 verse 4.
[00:08:23] The prophet says, And the mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will split open like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place.
[00:08:36] All this is for the transgression of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel.
[00:08:41] What is the transgression of Jacob?
[00:08:43] Is it not Samaria?
[00:08:45] That's a reference to the northern kingdom.
[00:08:46] And what is the high place of Judah?
[00:08:49] Is it not Jerusalem?
[00:08:50] That's a reference to the southern kingdom.
[00:08:52] Kingdom.
[00:08:54] So the corruption of the religious and political leadership of Israel was deep.
[00:08:58] But even worse, it was a reflection of the corruption that marked the whole nation.
[00:09:04] In other words, if you try to replace the regime, if you try to take out that administration and introduce something else, you're gonna end up with something just as bad as what you started with, or maybe worse than what you started with.
[00:09:18] The people themselves are just as corrupt as the leaders.
[00:09:23] And what does this say to you and to me?
[00:09:27] One simple thing.
[00:09:29] You and I need the ideal king.
[00:09:32] You and I need the ultimate king.
[00:09:36] Corrupt governments and corrupt bosses at work and selfish husbands and abusive parents and yes, sin in our own very lives are reminders to us that you and I need the ideal king.
[00:09:54] The ultimate king.
[00:09:56] We may not use those exact words but every one of us feels it in our soul.
[00:10:02] It gnaws at our soul in the inside that something is wrong with our lives.
[00:10:07] Something is wrong with this world.
[00:10:09] We need someone with the competence and the authority to put things back in joint.
[00:10:15] Our lives feel out of joint.
[00:10:18] The world feels out of joint.
[00:10:20] Somebody
[00:10:20] With authority and power to put it back in joint is our greatest need.
[00:10:26] And through prophet Micah, the God of the universe promises the coming of that kind of king.
[00:10:33] He promises the coming of a king with the authority and the wherewithal to put our lives back in joint and to put the world, the broken universe back in joint.
[00:10:45] So that by the time all is said and done, our lives will be renewed, will be new creations existing in a new creation.
[00:10:54] That king is promised in the book of Micah.
[00:10:58] and throughout the Old Testament.
[00:11:00] And Micah gives us three marks of that king.
[00:11:03] What is it that makes this king the one that we should trust?
[00:11:06] That he truly has what it will take to put our broken lives back together and put this broken world back together.
[00:11:14] Micah highlights at least three things.
[00:11:16] This king has what it takes because he fulfills the covenant, he transcends our nature and he shepherds in might.
[00:11:26] He fulfills the covenant.
[00:11:28] He transcends our nature and he shepherds in might.
[00:11:32] So let's consider the first qualification of this king.
[00:11:38] He fulfills the covenant.
[00:11:41] Look again at Micah chapter 5 verse 2.
[00:11:44] It says this, But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
[00:11:49] 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 now notice that God does not only promise the coming of a ruler he specifies the town of his birth where he will be born this king will come from Bethlehem Ephrathah
[00:12:19] But here's the interesting thing.
[00:12:21] That town is not a high-profile city in Israel.
[00:12:26] Bethlehem, Ephratah, is everything but high-profile.
[00:12:32] In fact, it's described in the text before us as too little to be among the clans of Judah, which means if you were to create the map of Judah,
[00:12:41] It will be too small, too insignificant to appear on the map.
[00:12:45] If you're looking for it on a GPS map, it will not be there.
[00:12:49] Because that town, nobody cares really for it.
[00:12:52] You know, it is expected that if somebody is going to run for a major office in this country, maybe for the president or something like this, you should hear that even if they were born in some insignificant town, at least they lived most of their life in a major city like New York or Washington D.C. or
[00:13:07] Chicago or someplace if they if they if their profile indicates that they were born in one tiny out-of-the-way town nobody knows about it they live their whole life there and that's all they know and they're trying to run for president they don't have much going for them
[00:13:23] So why would God decide that the King who will put our broken lives back together and put the broken universe back together be born in a city, in a town that nobody hardly knew anything about it in Israel?
[00:13:38] Why is that the case?
[00:13:40] Well, here's the reason.
[00:13:41] Bethlehem's size is totally and completely irrelevant.
[00:13:47] The most important thing is that Bethlehem is the city of David.
[00:13:52] And it is to David that God made the covenant and gave the promise that the king who will rule the world will sit on his throne forever.
[00:14:02] So it's the covenantal connection of David to the city of Bethlehem that made the whole difference.
[00:14:09] It's quite amazing when you think about it because the first introduction, one of the first introductions of David to us in the Bible goes like this.
[00:14:17] You can see this in 1 Samuel 17, 12.
[00:14:20] The author of 1 Samuel, and this is, if you remember, this is in the context of the battle with Goliath.
[00:14:26] David is introduced like this.
[00:14:28] Now David was the son of an Ephrathite of Bethlehem in Judah named Jesse who had eight sons.
[00:14:38] Very important in the Bible that you understand where this David was born, where his family roots went right back to.
[00:14:45] In fact, his connection to Bethlehem Ephrathah goes even deeper than just Jesse.
[00:14:53] If you read the book of Ruth, you'll be introduced to a man by the name of Elimelech, who was married to Naomi, by whom he had two sons, Mahlon and Chilion.
[00:15:03] They sojourned in Moab, the sons died there, Elimelech died there, and then they returned home to Judah, and then a man by the name of Boaz ends up marrying Ruth.
[00:15:16] The widow of Marlon.
[00:15:18] But by the time you get to the end of the book of Ruth, we are told the family line of David is traced like this.
[00:15:25] Perez fathered Hezron, and Hezron fathered Ram, and Ram fathered Aminadab, Aminadab fathered Nation, Nation fathered Salmon, Salmon fathered Boaz, Boaz fathered Obed, Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David.
[00:15:41] They tie it all the way back to Bethlehem Ephrathah.
[00:15:46] In other words, in the days of Micah, the kings who rose from the prominent city of Jerusalem were a catastrophic failure in leading the nation of God's people.
[00:15:57] But the king who will be incarnate, born in little-known Bethlehem, is going to be the one who will rule and bring justice.
[00:16:07] and God will move heaven and earth to see to it that that prophecy comes to pass.
[00:16:13] When you read Luke's Gospel,
[00:16:15] We are told that in the days when this king was born, a pagan Roman emperor issued a decree that demanded everybody should go back to their place of origin.
[00:16:26] And because of that decree, Joseph went up from Galilee, from Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem.
[00:16:36] And that's because he was of the lineage of David to be registered with Mary, who was at that time engaged to be married to him.
[00:16:44] And while they were there, Mary went into labor and bore this child who will rule the world.
[00:16:52] So God took hold of the heart of this pagan emperor to make sure that Joseph leads his pregnant wife all the way to Bethlehem for the baby to be born there.
[00:17:04] And as our brother read from Matthew's Gospel, when Jesus is born, Herod finds out from the scribes and the priests that this is a fulfillment of the prophecy made about Jesus.
[00:17:19] So by virtue of divine choice, Bethlehem that was the most insignificant town in Israel becomes the birthplace for the most preeminent being in the universe, the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:17:34] So beloved, one of the emphases of the story of Christmas, of the coming of Jesus into the world,
[00:17:41] is that God uses small weak things to accomplish His purposes.
[00:17:48] If you feel small and insignificant and yet you belong to the Lord, you are ultimately not small.
[00:17:55] If you feel small and insignificant and what you do in obedience to the God of the universe feels small and insignificant, it is ultimately not small and insignificant.
[00:18:05] If you look only at Bethlehem on the map and look at the status of Bethlehem as a town in Israel, it will be utterly useless and be worth nothing.
[00:18:14] It will not even count for what to be included in the map of Judah.
[00:18:18] But out of that place came the most preeminent person in the world.
[00:18:23] Part of the story of Christ's birth is that God loves to showcase His glory by using weak, despised things.
[00:18:35] Isn't it a comfort to you and to me that the God of the universe, the God who has come to seek us, does not measure by the standards of the world?
[00:18:44] He does not measure significance and worth and importance as the world does it.
[00:18:50] So you're not to look at yourself and look at the next person and think, I'm worth nothing.
[00:18:56] No, you have to look at Jesus, where he came from, and what he makes of you, and recognize there's coming a day when the spotlight of the universe will be on Jesus and then be reflected through to you as a believer in Jesus Christ.
[00:19:10] There's not been an age in history when the people of God look like the winners.
[00:19:15] They were always small and insignificant.
[00:19:17] They always looked like the losers.
[00:19:19] Today in the world, it is not the church that makes headline news all the time.
[00:19:25] But the wedding supper of the Lamb of God is coming.
[00:19:30] And when it's here, the world's order of values will be utterly turned on its head.
[00:19:36] Because God uses the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
[00:19:43] When the wedding supper of the Lamb is here, we will be those on whom the spotlight comes because we are married to the king born in Bethlehem, born in fulfillment of God's covenantal commitment to David.
[00:19:59] So this king has what it will take to put your life back together, to put the universe back together because he fulfills the covenant.
[00:20:12] This king has what it takes because he transcends our nature.
[00:20:17] That means there is an absolute distinction between the person of this king and us and the rest of the universe.
[00:20:26] We do not belong to the same category with this king who was born in Bethlehem.
[00:20:31] He is not part of the universe.
[00:20:34] The universe is not part of him.
[00:20:35] He sits above the circle of the earth to use Isaiah's language.
[00:20:41] There is an absolute distinction and difference, a category distinction and difference between us and this king.
[00:20:49] And Micah speaks to that right here.
[00:20:53] Look at verse 2 again.
[00:20:55] 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.
[00:21:13] Just want you to notice a striking detail in that text.
[00:21:19] God says, Yahweh the God of Israel says,
[00:21:23] From this little known town of Judah will come forth for me.
[00:21:29] So this king is first and foremost about Yahweh.
[00:21:33] He is for God.
[00:21:34] He is chosen for God.
[00:21:36] That language is very similar to what God spoke about when he commissioned Samuel to go to Bethlehem and anoint David for the first time.
[00:21:44] He said, I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.
[00:21:54] So this king is coming out for God.
[00:21:57] But then there is the striking and very curious phrase at the end of the verse.
[00:22:01] It says, Whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.
[00:22:07] Now on the surface, that looks almost contradictory.
[00:22:11] We are talking here about a ruler who is still to appear on the scene of history of Israel.
[00:22:17] He's not there yet.
[00:22:19] He's not been born yet.
[00:22:20] He's not existed, so to speak, yet, humanly speaking.
[00:22:23] And yet we are told that the coming forth of this king is from of old, from ancient days.
[00:22:30] So how can that be?
[00:22:31] How can a being be one whose origin is from ancient days and yet at the same time he's awaited for the future?
[00:22:39] How does that work together?
[00:22:41] That's Micah's way of telling us this king will be supernatural in origin.
[00:22:47] He will not be part of this creation.
[00:22:50] He will have the same status like Yahweh.
[00:22:54] If you want it clearly stated by a prophet, you could read Isaiah 9 verse 6.
[00:22:59] For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
[00:23:14] A child who is Mighty God, who is Everlasting Father.
[00:23:20] That's who we're talking about.
[00:23:22] He has the same status like Yahweh.
[00:23:24] He shares in the status of Yahweh.
[00:23:27] He has supernatural origins.
[00:23:29] There is an absolute distinction between this king and we who need his kingship, his rulership, his reign over us.
[00:23:40] And of course the Apostle John makes that as crystal clear as could be at the beginning of his gospel.
[00:23:48] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
[00:23:55] He was with God in the beginning.
[00:23:57] All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
[00:24:03] And that eternal Logos, that eternal Word of the one true and living God, we are told, became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
[00:24:18] No one has ever seen God, but God the only who is at the Father's side.
[00:24:23] He has made Him known.
[00:24:25] Or if you like it in Paul's words, in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.
[00:24:32] That's who we are talking about.
[00:24:33] That's who this King is.
[00:24:37] God is spirit, meaning He does not have bodily parts like you and I.
[00:24:42] But this king is one who shares fully and completely in God's nature and essence and equally shares fully and truly in our nature as human beings.
[00:24:54] You have to ask the question, why did the eternal son of God become man?
[00:25:00] And why, having become man, did he have to die?
[00:25:03] And why did he have to die the kind of cursed death that we know him to have died?
[00:25:10] Why is Jesus Christ the unique, exclusive, all-sufficient Savior of the world?
[00:25:16] Why is that true?
[00:25:17] Why can Christianity not make some compromise with Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism or some other religion?
[00:25:23] Why can't we find common ground with them?
[00:25:25] Well, it's because we have a Savior who is like no other Savior in no other religion whatsoever.
[00:25:31] This is a Savior who is truly and fully God and truly and fully man.
[00:25:35] That doesn't exist anywhere else.
[00:25:38] That's why there is such exclusivity to Christ in Scripture and in the history of the church.
[00:25:46] Why did Christ become the kind of Savior He is?
[00:25:50] Because He is the only one who can meet our need, accomplish all of God's sovereign purposes, and save us from our sin.
[00:25:59] We don't need someone who will just bring some moral reformation program to our lives.
[00:26:05] We need someone who makes us new creations.
[00:26:09] And Jesus alone is able to do that.
[00:26:14] In Jesus Christ, we see both the sovereign Lord
[00:26:18] Who comes to save his people and the greater son of the great David who fulfills all the covenant.
[00:26:27] This is the king that you will need 50 years from today more than you need anything else.
[00:26:34] and beyond that this is the king you will need 50 trillion years from today more than you need anything no matter how old you are today in your life this king is the one reality you will need more than anything else forever because of who he is do you know this king is he your lord
[00:26:58] You have to reckon with the prayer that he made.
[00:27:01] This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
[00:27:10] That's a definitive statement.
[00:27:12] You want eternal life?
[00:27:13] There's one way to know it.
[00:27:15] There's one way to have it.
[00:27:16] There's one way to enter into an experience of eternal life.
[00:27:20] To know the one true and living God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.
[00:27:27] Do you know Him through repentance and faith?
[00:27:33] This King transcends our nature therefore he has everything it takes to put our lives back in joint and to put the universe back in joint and we know him through acknowledging that even though created in the image of God we pretended to be God's ourselves and ruptured
[00:27:54] In a devastating and profound way, the relationship between us and our Creator, but that He sent Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, to live the life we could not live, and to die the death we deserve to die, and to rise triumphantly from the grave, so that when we believe in Him, we are not only forgiven our sins, but we have the perfect righteousness of His life credited to our account.
[00:28:18] So that we don't start on zero, we start perfectly clothed in an unchanging righteousness.
[00:28:25] That is eternal life.
[00:28:27] And it cannot come through anyone but through Jesus Christ.
[00:28:32] So this is the king we need because he is the one who fulfills the covenant.
[00:28:38] He is the one who transcends our nature.
[00:28:41] But there's a third thing that Micah shows us in this passage.
[00:28:47] He shepherds in might.
[00:28:50] Look at verse 4.
[00:28:53] And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
[00:29:00] And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth, and he shall be their peace.
[00:29:09] Now this verse tells us two things.
[00:29:12] One, it tells us
[00:29:15] What this ruler will do, and second, what the effect of this ruler's actions will be on God's people.
[00:29:24] The effect of his rule on God's people.
[00:29:27] How he will rule, what he will do, and the effect of his rule on God's people.
[00:29:32] So the verse begins by telling us that he will stand, he shall stand and shepherd his flock.
[00:29:39] The kingly reign of this ruler is described in pastoral terms.
[00:29:44] He will be a shepherd.
[00:29:46] He will care for God's people.
[00:29:48] He will shepherd the flock.
[00:29:50] So what the rulers of Israel failed to be, this king will be.
[00:29:56] this is language similar to what we see in the book of Ezekiel chapter 34 where after he condemns the self-seeking shepherds of Israel God says to them in Ezekiel 34 verse 22 I will rescue my flock they shall no longer be a prey and I will judge between sheep and sheep and I will set up over them one shepherd my servant David and he shall feed them he shall feed them and be their shepherd and
[00:30:25] I the Lord will be their God and my servant David shall be Prince among them I am the Lord I have spoken that's the Shepherd that's the one who rules now notice the source of his success how is it he's going to be so successful well it's because
[00:30:41] He depends on the strength from the Lord.
[00:30:44] He shepherds in the strength of the Lord.
[00:30:46] That's what I mean by he shepherds in might.
[00:30:48] He shepherds in the strength of the Lord.
[00:30:50] He draws on divine resources.
[00:30:53] And that's a contrast between the shepherds of Israel, between the priests and prophets and kings of Israel who depended on themselves, who depended on diplomatic alliances to try to care.
[00:31:04] For God's people.
[00:31:06] This king is going to shepherd in the strength of the Lord in the majesty of his name.
[00:31:12] He's going to work by the power of God.
[00:31:15] There's only one person who has shown up on the stage of history and appropriated this language and applied this language to himself rightly.
[00:31:28] One person lived and died and he said, I am the good shepherd.
[00:31:32] The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
[00:31:37] I am the good shepherd.
[00:31:38] I know my own and my own know me just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.
[00:31:44] And I lay down my life for the sheep.
[00:31:48] One of my most favorite doxologies in the New Testament is in Hebrews 13.
[00:31:53] And in that doxology, Jesus is referred to as the great shepherd of the sheep.
[00:31:59] He knows us so well.
[00:32:00] Peter speaks of us as people who were going astray.
[00:32:04] We were like sheep going astray.
[00:32:06] But we have returned to the shepherd and overseer of our souls.
[00:32:12] And Jesus is referred to as the chief shepherd.
[00:32:14] At the appearing of home, true faithful human pastors will receive the unfading crown of glory.
[00:32:23] Beloved, your eternal security does not depend on how much you read the Bible, ultimately.
[00:32:29] It does not depend on what church you are a member at.
[00:32:32] It does not depend on your theological commitments.
[00:32:35] It depends on the shepherd that you have, the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:32:40] No one can snatch you out of His hand.
[00:32:43] No one can separate you from His love, His strength and skill and wisdom and power guarantee that you will make it safely.
[00:32:53] That's the shepherd that God has appointed to take care of you.
[00:32:59] He will see to it that you make it home.
[00:33:02] If you have any knowledge of sheep at all, you know that at the end of the day when sheep are opened up and let out to feed and go to pasture,
[00:33:12] they do not ultimately return to the sheep pen at the end of the day because of something in them it's because of the skill and power and wisdom and judgment of the shepherd that eventually they come back home whether he makes a sound that draws them all home or he guides them by his staff or however he does it they get back home not because of who they are but because of who the shepherd is sheep are not known to make the wisest judgments and that's why we are called that
[00:33:39] because we are not known to make the wisest judgments but we can anchor our lives and build our lives on this shepherd because he is powerful and mighty to guide us safely home in the end.
[00:33:54] So he shepherds in might.
[00:33:56] Now what's going to be the effect of his kingly, shepherdly rule over his people?
[00:34:02] Look at verse 4.
[00:34:04] And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth.
[00:34:10] He shall be their peace.
[00:34:14] So the majesty of God mediated through the shepherdly care of this king is going to finally overwhelm every threat and destroy every potential danger that God's people could have faced and bring them to eternal and lasting security.
[00:34:34] The prophet here uses language from the past to speak about the future.
[00:34:39] That's exactly the way the prophets speak all the time.
[00:34:42] When he says the Assyrian, when the Assyrian comes into our land and trade in our places, he's using Assyria here because at the time of God speaking to Micah, Assyria was threatening to attack Israel.
[00:34:55] and so he's using Assyria here both as a real and present danger for them but also as a representative danger for God's people of all times and he is saying God will protect through this shepherd from all the dangers that will ever be
[00:35:10] And by the time we get to the book of Revelation, we are told that the gate of the city in which we will live will never need to be shut because every enemy would have been destroyed.
[00:35:20] We will not need an alarm system.
[00:35:21] We will not need a 911 call system because nothing will be there to threaten our security.
[00:35:26] And that's exactly what this text is saying.
[00:35:29] They shall dwell secure because this shepherd would have ensured their security through his mighty work.
[00:35:41] This shepherd is the one who shepherds in strength.
[00:35:45] And Isaiah says this in order to shepherd us and care for us and love on us and help us to know that it is indeed, as Paul says, he who began a good work in our lives who will bring it to completion at the day of Christ.
[00:36:00] He will raise us up with him, he will sit us up with him, and he will give us everything we have ever longed for.
[00:36:08] The role of the Assyrians, all of those who have set themselves up against God's people will be abolished forever.
[00:36:16] But notice a detail here, because it says again in verse 5,
[00:36:24] When the Assyrians come into our land and trade in our places, then he will raise against him seven shepherds and eight princes of men.
[00:36:35] So this is the shepherd raising shepherds.
[00:36:39] This is the shepherd raising shepherds.
[00:36:42] And for you and I living on the side of the cross, living on the side of Micah, we recognize this is a reference to Jesus' care for the church.
[00:36:51] When he dies and rises again, he gives gifted people to the church to equip the church for the works of ministry, to equip the church for the spiritual warfare that is ours, because we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers.
[00:37:05] Our weapons are not carnal but are mighty to the pulling down of strongholds and that comes from being equipped by these shepherds that the true shepherd has raised.
[00:37:16] So that's who we have been brought into the care of.
[00:37:21] The king who fulfills the covenant, the king who transcends our nature, and the king who shepherds in might.
[00:37:28] So as you celebrate Christmas this year, just remember and preach this to yourself and share this with neighbors.
[00:37:35] As the songwriter says, we could say confidently, to this I hold, my shepherd will defend me through the deepest valley.
[00:37:44] He will lead and the night even the night has been won and I shall overcome and yet not I but through Christ in me.
[00:37:55] That's the shepherd we have by our God.
[00:37:59] Let's pray.
[00:38:04] Father, thank you for your mercy and for your grace.
[00:38:08] And thank you for promising and fulfilling the coming of the King who is the Shepherd, who cares for our souls and bears us up and guides us to green grass of your pasture and to fresh streams of your living water.
[00:38:23] We praise you for your mercy shown in Jesus Christ.
[00:38:26] We pray that as we celebrate Christmas that we will know that for us there is something way beyond than just the season, way beyond than the exchange of gifts.
[00:38:36] We have a reminder in this season of the birth of one who fulfills the covenant and who is unlike us but is for us all the time and who will keep us until we see you face to face.
[00:38:49] We praise you.
[00:38:49] We give you glory in Jesus name.
[00:38:51] Amen.