I turned, first of all, this
morning in the book of Micah. The book of Micah, chapter 5. Micah, chapter 5. I'll begin reading in verse 2. It's okay if you have to look
at the index to find out where Micah is in case you haven't
read from that minor prophet lately. Micah chapter 5. Verse 2 says, But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou
be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall
come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel. whose goings forth have been
from old, from everlasting. Therefore will he give them up
until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth,
then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children
of Israel. And he shall stand and feed in
the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the
Lord his God, and they shall abide. For now shall he be great
unto the ends of the earth. Now turn, if you would, to Luke
chapter 1. Luke chapter 1 and verse 30. And the angel said unto her,
Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive
in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name
Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the son of
the highest, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne
of his father David. He shall reign over the house
of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. I thought about it, these verses will be read in many places and
by many people in the coming weeks. And people will talk about how
great Jesus is. Our text in both places says
that. He shall be great. But the reasons for His greatness in most places will not be preached. and why he is great will not
be proclaimed. And few will actually see his
greatness. Sometimes I wish that people
would realize, could realize, that just because they do not
believe something doesn't mean it's not true. And just because they have not
seen something doesn't mean it's not real. There are many, many things that
individuals do not see, that they do not believe, that they
do not experience, but that does not make them not real. And the truth is that only the
Spirit of God can reveal to us the greatness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. and cause us to see that what
men call great is not really great at all. But when God, the all-wise and
all-knowing Spirit moves the prophet Micah and the apostle
Luke to use this word concerning God's Christ, It is not an exaggeration. As a matter of fact, it is quite
the contrary, because even this word falls short to declaring
and defining the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. The glory that the scriptures
say is blinded By the God of this world, by the deceiver Satan,
it's blinded to most people that they do not see the glory and
the greatness of Christ. But if you look back in this
32nd verse, it says, he shall be great. Now we live in the
day of the extravagant use of superlatives, the best, the highest,
the most, fantabulous, over and over and over, and also great
or greatest. But in the Greek, this word that
is translated here as great is actually the Greek word megas
or mega. I'm sure from which we get that
often used superlative in our day, mega. This is the mega church,
the mega this and the mega that. Well, it actually means the greatest
or the highest or the mightiest. And it can only be described
to God himself in the person of Jesus Christ. But in our natural
blindness, our spiritual blindness, We can none see, as the writer
says, the king in his beauty. We cannot behold his glory. And men talk about his name,
but they only see what they do and what they are as great. Most professing Christians in
our day, when you ask them about Christianity, you ask them about
religion or Christ or anything about, you'll soon find that
they ascribe most of the greatness to themselves. You ask them what their hope
is. of heaven, or what their hope is of eternal life, and
it always begins with I. I'm a member of this church.
I give all I have to give. I do, I, I, I, I. The greatness is always ascribed
to I. But the sinner that God saves
is like a blind man whose eyes are opened. His eyes are opened. He's born again by God's Spirit. And with the faith of that new
life, he sees Christ alone as being great. He shall be great. And those that are born of God,
those that the Spirit of God has quickened, they're not so
great in themselves anymore. You remember Isaiah. In the hour
that God was pleased to reveal himself to him and reveal to
him Christ, he said, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw
the Lord high and lifted up. I saw him as great, the mightiest,
the greatest. And as a consequence of that,
he not only says that, but that had an effect. He said, and seeing
him, I said, I cried, woe is me. And woe is everybody else. We're not so great anymore. When you see the highest, you
don't see feeble height as anything. And like Job who said, I have
heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye
seeth thee. There's something about the majestic
greatness and glory of God that when God reveals it to us in
only a small part, Job said, now I abhor myself and I repent
in dust and ashes. And when that happens, this newly
born sinner, this newly, newly, this sinner newly born of God
beholds Christ as he's revealed to him in the gospel and he sees
him great according to the measure of faith that God has given him
at that time. And it only increases. The more faith we receive of
God, the more that we read and study his word, and by that word
he gives to us faith, both cometh by the hearing and hearing by
the word of God, the more we see and know about the Lord Jesus
Christ, the greater he is. How many times have we found
something we thought was really great, only to find that it diminishes
all the time? Some pleasure, some object, some
thing that we thought is the greatest thing that it's ever
been, and yet it diminishes with every hour that passes, not so
with Christ. He only increases in our knowledge
of the glory of Christ. And as God increases our faith,
Christ becomes more and more glorious to us. And this is evidence,
this is the evidence that many who profess to believe are not
really born of God. But cause Christ is not great
to them. He's not great enough to overcome
an ache or a pain. He's not great enough to overcome
an obstacle that's before them. He's not great enough to overcome
the world and the people of this world and all the desires of
the flesh. He's not the greatest. that we've ever known. But those who see Christ as great,
they do not see him as great in some kind of mystical vision. They see him great because of
what the word of truth reveals of him. That's why I know that
so many men and women do not view Christ in their heart as
great is because they don't even know what the Word of God says
about Him. They know something about John
3, 16, that is how to quote it word for word. But they do not
know the greatness that is revealed of him. And it would seem that
Micah and Luke are moved to say that he shall be great and that
the reason of this is because of what he would become and what
he would accomplish without any possibility of failure. In the world's eyes, I might
say of you, you shall be great, but you might
not be. Many who have thought themselves
and who others have thought were great, they find out later they're
not so great. But this is the Word of God,
and it says, He shall be great. Turn over to Philippians chapter
2. Philippians chapter 2 and verse
5 says this. Let this mind be in you which
was also in Christ Jesus." Who? Being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God? but made himself
of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and
was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as
a man. He humbled himself and became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore
God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which
is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things
under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. In other words, all will confess
and bow to the greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some will
do it in judgment. And they will, in judgment, in
loss, in punishment, in suffering, have to confess the greatness
of Jesus Christ, worlds without end. But thank God some will confess
His greatness, His glory. And they will do so by the grace
of God to the saving of their soul, and it will all involve
who He is and what He came to do. Because according to the Scriptures,
He was eternally great. He was eternally great. The scripture says there in Micah
and also here in Luke that He was from everlasting. This is the Eternal Son. He possessed as the Eternal Son
long before the world ever was. He possessed the greatness of
God in the Godhead. But it says, he shall be great. In other words, he shall be great
because of what he would be and do. What he would be and do. You see, before Christ the Eternal
Son came into this world as a man, Though he was surely great, no
sinner would ever have called him great if he hadn't come into
this world. Because no sinner would have
ever been redeemed or regenerated because of that redemption and
therefore would never have loved and believed and called the Lord
Jesus Christ. No sinner would ever, apart from
that redemption and regeneration, call Him great. Why do His people, His believing
people, call the Lord Jesus Christ and view him as great. Well, because of God's great grace. And because that he has given
us not only his spirit, but he's given us the great gospel. Hold your place here in Luke
1 and look over in Acts chapter 4. Look down in verse 33. It says in the midst of this
early New Testament church that we read about in the book of
Acts, it says in verse 33, And with great power gave the apostles
witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace
was upon them all. That is, when in the great power
of God's Spirit, in the preaching of the great
gospel, God showing great grace upon the people, they are enabled
to see the greatness of the Lord Jesus. And when they see something of
that greatness, they see, first of all, what they now find Him
to be and what they know Him to be in His person. I thought about how many times
that the verse will be read in Isaiah that says, for unto us The child is born. And unto us
a son is given. In other words, the humanity
of Christ came about after that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, He was already the Eternal Son. The child is born. But the Son is given. And He is great because He is
one of a kind. One of a kind. He is the God-Man. In the Scriptures it says, Thou
shalt call His name Immanuel. And He didn't leave that for
us to determine what that means. He said, Thou shalt call His
name Immanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. Nobody else is divine. None of the apostles were divine. None of the prophets were divine. And especially Mary, his own
earthly mother, she was not divine. Is not divine. She was a sinner
just like you and me. It says that she rejoiced in
God, her savior. He is God with us, and He displayed
as a man the very attributes of God. He is holy. He knew no sin. He's separate from sinners. He's
undefiled. He's the only person that ever
walked on this earth. and in human flesh lived altogether
pleasing in God's sight. He said, I do always the things
that please my Father, always. We had never done them. He displayed omniscience, that
is, all-knowing. He knew what was in the hearts
of men. He didn't have to ask. God doesn't
have to ask what's in your heart. We often say things like, if
I know my heart, we don't. But he does. He's omniscient. He's omnipotent. He healed people. He did many miraculous things. And he did one thing that surely
distinguished him from all of the phonies. He raised the dead. John said, in the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God, and then he says, and the Word was made of flesh and
dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. The glory is the only
begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. The Word
God was God, and the Word was with God, and the Word was made
flesh and dwelt among us. Timothy said this, Paul or rather
writing to Timothy, he said, and without controversy, great
is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh,
justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the
Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. That's who this is. And just one of these things
would set him apart and distinguish him from every son of Adam, every
one of us. He says in Galatians 4, but when
the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his son
made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were
under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. He's the Son of God. This is
my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. This is my Son, hear
ye Him. And He is great in His sovereign
rule as the absolute King of glory. When He went back into heaven,
the cries were, who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts is
His name. Isaiah says, The government shall
be upon his shoulder, and of the increase of his government
and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David and
upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment
and with justice from henceforth even forever. This is him. Look at verse 32. And he shall be great, and shall
be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God shall give unto
him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over
the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be
no end. Who's this house of Jacob? That's
the elect of God. That's the church of God. That's
the people of God. He says, you sons of Jacob, I
am the Lord. I change not. Therefore, you
sons of Jacob are not consumed. were like Jacob by nature, connivers,
sinners, but he had another name given him by God, which was Israel,
which meant Prince with God. Same man. That's us. And he rules over everything. He might not save you. He might
not give you anything. He might not give you much. He
might not do much for you. But He rules over you with a
sovereign hand. And you'll do what He says. You'll
do what He purposes. You'll be what He purposes. And
regardless of how much you fight against Him or try to make it
not be that way, He will always prevail. He sits on the throne of David. He's David's son, so called in
the scripture, but he's David's Lord. He rules over him. And he's great because of who
they know him to be in all these characteristics and types. He
is unique and mercy, and unique in that very sense, but because
also of his great love and mercy and grace. In Ephesians 2, Paul says, after
describing us as being dead in trespasses and sin and following
the course of this world and by nature the children of wrath
even as others, he names all these things and he says, but
God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved
us. has made us alive in Christ Jesus. Because, you see, His greatness
not only lies in who He is, but His greatness lies especially
in what He did, what He did for His people, what He did for sinners. Now, I say that many will speak
the name of Jesus, and I hear preachers and people talking
about how great their Jesus is. But before they're through talking,
they've reduced Him to a failure, and there's nothing great about
Him. He's simply what Paul calls another
Jesus. If He shall be great, then what
he is, is not only great, but what he does will be great. People speak of Jesus trying. Can you imagine the God-man trying
to do anything? They say He wants to do, but
you won't let Him. They say He will do something
for you if you'll only choose Him or decide for Him or something
like that. That's the problem. Everything we do is sin. There
never is in us anything naturally but enmity against God. Our wills
are bound to our fallen natures so that we in ourselves are hopeless
and described by God as being dead in trespasses and sin. And so they go out like to a
graveyard and say such foolish things. Like if you'll get up
and accept me, I'll be your personal savior. If you'll raise your hand, or
if you'll sign a card, or if you'll go down the aisle, or
if you'll be dipped or sprinkled in water, I'll do something for
you. If you'll give me your life,
give me your life. My life is nothing but sin. My
life is nothing that God would have in His holy perfection. Give me your life. I want Him to give me life. You see, this is nothing but
another Jesus. He's not great at all. So where do those that call him
great learn about how great Christ is? Well, God sends to them the
true gospel, the gospel of his glory, the glory of his grace,
and the Holy Spirit reveals Christ to them in it and in them. They have both an understanding
and an affection. Because the same Spirit that
takes the things of Christ and shows them to us, and they are
glorious things, they are great things, the same Spirit sheds
abroad His love, the love of God, in our hearts, and we in
turn love Him. We see the King in His beauty,
And we love Him. He's great. Because He did what He came to
do. He did what was prophesied that
He would do. And that is, He would save all
His people from their sins. In our text, it says, you call
Him Jesus. This is the greatness of Jesus.
Like we read in the parallel text in Matthew 121, Thou shalt
call His name Jesus. Why? For He shall save. He shall be great because He
shall save. He shall be great because He
shall save His people. He shall be great because He
shall save His people from their sins. You and I don't have any idea
what that means, I don't think, from their sins. God says that
our sins have separated Him from us. Our sins lay heavy upon us
and are under the judgment and wrath of God. Our sins are the
reason we fell in Adam. Our sins are the reason that
we die. Our sins is the reason of all
the crime and things in this world and the things that we
do that are just awful. They're sins. We can't save ourselves from
our sins. We can't improve on them. We
can't even stop sinning. This is where in His greatness
lies. He didn't come to make something
possible or available. He came and He saved His people
from their sins. Paul says to Titus, He hath saved
us and called us. He's done it in great wisdom. Wisdom which man could never
have thought of or accomplished. And that makes him great. It's great in that it allowed
God to be just, and yet the justifier of sinners such as us. How? by Christ becoming a man and
dying before his own holy law and justice in the place of his
people as a substitute and sacrifice for their sins. There's one thing I'm absolutely
sure of, and that is the only way that sin is put away is by a
God-provided, God-accepted sacrifice. When Abraham took Isaac at the
command of God up into the mount, and he told him that he was to
offer him up as a sacrifice unto God, And Abraham, by faith, obeyed
him, and he took Isaac up into the mount, and he laid him on
that altar of wood, and was about, at the command of God, to slay
him. God spoke from heaven and said,
No. Wrong hill. wrong son, wrong
sacrifice, wrong substitute. I'm going to provide that. And
he pictured the coming Christ in a ram's horns, who were caught
in the thicket. And he offered him up instead
of Isaac on that throne, and that's salvation. That's substitution. That's sacrifice. that God provided
the sacrifice for our sins. He provided that sacrifice in
the substitute of His Son and His self, whose sacrifice alone
can put away sin. It's great because it made an end
of their sins. How do you know that? Because
God said He did. It's great because He bore them
away in His own body on the tree. It's great because of this one
who knew no sin was made sin, a sin offering for them. It's
great because God imputes to them the very righteousness of
God in Him. How do we know that? Because
God says it. Don't take my word for it. Don't
ever just take my word for it. Look in the book and see what
God said. We are made the righteousness
of God in him. Great because he did it all. He finished the great work that
the father gave him to do, which was to save his people. He said,
it's finished. That makes it really great. It's great because God accepted
His sacrifice for their sins, and because of that, moves the
mighty arm of His providence to bring them, as He did those
in the New Testament, to the gospel, and the gospel to them. If Christ died for you, He's going to make it known to
you. And He controls the world. He's
the Lord who rules over all in order to accomplish this task. He not only purposed to do it,
He not only sent His Son to do it, but the Son of God reigned,
rose from the dead. He reigns to see to it that those
for whom He died. are saved, every one of them. You think you were born in such
and such a place? Or moved to such and such a place? Or were forced to live in such
a place in order that God, in order that natural circumstances
could control everything? Not so. Joe, he'll bring you to the gospel,
won't he? It may be through your work, it may be through love,
romance, it may be through anything that God chooses in his sovereign
will to use, but he's going to get you to the gospel. He may
put you in the Marine Corps and station you at a base like Camp
Lejeune where somebody is preaching the gospel. He's going to find you. He may
cause you to be born into a family where somebody believes the gospel. Just whatever it takes. It's great because He takes them.
These who, like all sinners, view themselves as great, and
their works as such, and their wisdom, and their ways, and their
wills as great, and he brings them to an end of themselves,
and the light of his truth exposes their darkness, and he raises
them to life, and gives them the eyes of faith, and what do
they see? What do they know? What do they
behold but the greatness? The greatness of Jesus Christ. Christ and Him crucified. The Lord, their only righteousness. The Lord, their God and King. The Lord, their Savior. The Lord
over all. Lord of all, gracious and merciful
and loving to them. They see that in His glorious
person and death, He hath done great things for them, and they
never quit talking about His greatness. So you talk about who you want
to. I'm going to talk about who I
want to. And there's never been one like
the Lord Jesus Christ. You look for peace, you look
for hope, you spend your life wasting away the years while
by, and yet you're going to confess His greatness. You're going to begin to do it
at your death, if not before. But oh, what a blessing it is
if God reveals his greatness to you now. His mercy and his
love and what he's been doing for you for so long. The psalmist said, the voice
of the Lord maketh the hinds to care. God speaks it, and the
cows give birth, and discovereth forests. And in His temple doth everyone
speak of His glory. In His temple. He says we're the temple of God,
individually and corporately, if we be His. How do we know? How do people know? We speak
of His greatness, His glory. The old hymn writer said, to
God be the glory, great things He hath done. So loved he the
world that he gave us his son, who yielded his life and atonement
for sin, and opened the life gate that all may go in." Not
all persons, but all kinds of people. Great things he had taught us. great things he hath done, and
great our rejoicing through Jesus the Son. But purer and higher
and greater will be our wonder, our transport, when Jesus we
see. He shall be great. And he is great. especially great in the hearts
and minds of his believing people. Our Father, we thank you in the
name of your great son. We pray that you would manifest your grace
among us the power of your spirit. Reveal the things of Christ to
us. Show us his greatness because
of who he is and because of what he's done. All the greatness of time and
eternity are bound up in him. And we thank you for it and pray
in his name. Amen.