If you will, turn back to Micah
chapter five, and we'll just reflect upon the promises of
God to us in this holiday season. The title of our message is The
Road to Bethlehem. And you may have wondered what
does the book of Micah have to do with the birth of Christ? Well, if you know your Bible,
what you know is that Micah 5, 2 is fulfilled in the Gospel
of Matthew, chapter 2. It is the ultimate fulfillment,
but thou Bethlehem of Ephrathah, though you be little among the
thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth unto me,
that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been
from of old, even from everlasting. I chose the book of Micah because
of that passage. And I entitled our message, The
Road to Bethlehem, because I wanted to just kind of make, once again,
the birth of Christ gritty enough for you not to fall prey to,
and us not to fall prey to, what happens so frequently in the
holiday season. And that is a false glory that
we seem to be inclined to erect around the birth of Christ, where
we make everything glow. and shine. Now be honest, we
look good up here today. Don't we look good up here today?
But all of these lights and all of these things, this is what
we do. And sometimes we can go so far
overboard in our traditions that we mythologize the most sacred
event of all human history, and that is the incarnation. Now
when you do that, what you and I are doing is now making the
birth of Christ on a par with all other religions and systems
of the world, which are merely nice stories. But the reality
is, the birth of Christ has always been one of the most controversial
teachings in the world, and the context in which Christ was born
was far more like your life and mine without Christ. And that's by design. What do
I mean? The road to Bethlehem from God's
vantage point is a difficult road. The road to Bethlehem from
God's vantage point is designed to be a difficult road. so that
by the time you get to the baby, you know why you got there. Most
people will darken the doors of a church and celebrate his
birth not knowing who he is or why he came and what all the
hoopla is about. But if God has taken you through
some troubles and he has allowed your sin to be real as it is,
and painful and problematic and endangering to your soul, when
you look upon the Lord Jesus Christ, as it were, in the manger,
you understand that God knows all about our troubles. Is that true? God knows all about
our troubles. And the book of Micah is one
of those small prophetic books out of the 12 minor prophets
that serve to let us know that when we go to celebrate the birth
of Christ, we're celebrating our deliverance from hell and
from sin and from the trouble that our world daily experiences. Right now, you and I are dealing
with a tension, a paradox, A dichotomy outside of these doors is trouble. I mean, we brought it in too,
but we got it contained right now. You're cute right now. But
outside of these doors is a lot of trouble. Is that true? And
I mean, all around the world, things are getting what we call
worse. For God, they're normal. He told
our first parents in the day, you mess with that tree, you're
going to mess it all up. And we've been messing it up
ever since. Now, the God of the Bible, the God of our Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ, has chosen a place wherein he would begin
to solve our problem. And that place is called Bethlehem. So when you read your Bible carefully,
those of us who are Bible-believing and Bible-reading Christians,
we can follow the road of God's providence and God's purpose
all the way to Bethlehem from the beginning of time. We can
follow God from Genesis chapter 3 verse 15 where God said, your
seed is going to crush his head. His seed is going to bruise your
heel. And we can follow that seed all the way to Genesis chapter
9 where God says, your three boys, that is Noah, your three
boys are going to make up the totality of the human race. Shem,
Ham, and Japheth. And guess what? My son, who will
be born in Bethlehem, will come through Shem. Shem will be the
people group that will largely encompass the Middle East, out
of which will come Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the 12 tribes, King
David, and then the Lord Jesus Christ. And we are told in Genesis
chapter 49, when Jacob is laying his head upon his pillow, he
told us by inspiration that the scepter shall never depart from
between the legs of Judah. You know what that means? God
has always chosen a ruler over this universe to come out of
Bethlehem. And then we are told about Bethlehem
again in the book of Ruth, where in the book of Ruth we are dealing
with this major Theme called redemption and in the book of
ruth we're taught about two women naomi and ruth friends and relatives
Who lost everything in their relationship with their first
husbands you guys remember that? Naomi married a man named elimelech
ruth married her son Maylon kilian wanted it too But all three of
the boys died remember that they made a mess of their life Didn't
they make a mess of their life? Like you and me. We make a mess
of our life. Now, do you know Elimelech was
from Bethlehem? Yes, he was. Naomi was from Bethlehem. The two boys were Bethlehemites.
But they left Bethlehem because Bethlehem was suffering a little
bit of trouble. They departed from the place where God said
He would bring His promise. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we
do that too. Some of you are here today actually having departed
from God. You are here physically, but
your heart is far from God. You used to be in Bethlehem,
but something drove you away, much like Elimelech and his tribe. And Elimelech ended up dying,
him and his sons, in Moab. Naomi and Ruth made their way
back to where? Bethlehem. How come? Because
they had heard that the Lord had visited Bethlehem with bread. And when they came back home
to the place where God's promise was conceived, God started to
bless them again, didn't he? My prayer is that for some of
you, that you are on your way back home right now. that the
celebration of the birth of Christ is not merely a passing fancy,
so that when we leave here today, you are still far from God. My prayer is that the birth of
Christ, the life of Christ, and the death of Christ, and the
resurrection of Christ as we believe it, would impact you
in a real significant way, bringing you back to birth. One of the
reasons we love traditions, is that traditions allow us to encourage
loved ones to come out on that special day. And sometimes God
takes the externality and the outer shield of tradition like
a present and open it up, open it up, lift the lid off, and
then show the reality of His grace on the inside. and some
people's hearts are warmly touched. And the next thing you know,
they are now ready to serve the Lord. Am I making some sense?
One of the reasons we do it, for those of you who have raised
kids in the church, don't ever get tired of the celebration
of those critical points in our life where we remember what the
Lord has done for us. It might just be on this day,
the spirit of God might secretly touch someone's heart. because
we have exalted the king. The book of Micah then is, like
I said, one of the small minor prophets. It's a powerful book.
You can study it in your own time. But couched around this
promise that we have in verse two are a lot of warnings, a
lot of threats, a lot of prophetic indictments against God's people
because of their rebellion against him. God is not pleased with
his people's departure from him, and he makes it known in his
prophets Interestingly enough, if you read with me chapter 4,
I'm going to start at verse 9 and work my way through verse 13
and then I'm going to share with you three simple points in our
outline. Michael says these words to Israel
and to Judah. Now why do you cry out aloud? Chapter 4 verse 9. Now you know
when people are crying, something's wrong. Is that true? When people
are crying, then something is wrong. One of the things babies
do because they are so naturally honest is they cry when they
hurt, don't they? Now, what we do as grown folk,
we try to cover up our pain with all sorts of other methods. But
when the pain gets so deep, you're going to end up doing what? Crying
out. And here's what God is saying to his own people. Why are you
crying? What's the reason for your pain? What's the reason
for your sorrow? Listen to it. Now why do you
cry out? Is there no king in you? What an interesting inquiry
on God's part. Are you crying Israel, Judah,
because you have no king? Is your counselor perished? Is
there no Holy Ghost to speak comfort to your soul? We cry
out when we don't see Christ, don't we? We cry out when the
Spirit of God is not ministering to our soul, don't we? At least
that's what we do when we're children of God. We cry what?
Abba, Father. Lord, where are you at? Now,
some of you again today may be very well right there saying,
Lord, where are you at? Well, the Lord is where he has
always been on his throne ruling the universe. And the real question
is from him to you. Where are you at? Now you guys
hear me. We like to act like God moved. But the reality is God never
moves. We're the ones that move. And if today you are far from
God, you're gonna get an invitation to return to him again. Even
as we're contemplating the questions that are coming. Is there no
king in you? Is there no counselor? For the
pains have taken thee as a woman in what? Those are some difficult
pains. Now, I'm not a woman, I don't
know, but I've watched it at least eight times. And every
time I watched it, I said to myself, no, I don't think I want
that job. I'm not that egalitarian. Because
the Bible uses it as a picture of what happens when we conceive
sin. That's James chapter one around
verse 14. Every man is drawn away by his own lust, and when
lust is conceived, it brings forth sin. And when sin has fully
grown, developed as a pregnant person, and you know what happens
once you enter into that period where you're about to bring forth?
You have birth, what? Pains. Contractions. And what God is saying concerning
His people right now is, you're like a woman that's about to
bring forth a child, only this child is sin, which produces
death. Verse 10, being pained. Do you
hear it? Labor to bring forth, O daughter
of Zion, like a woman in travail. For now shall you go forth out
of the city, and you shall dwell in the field, and you shall go
even to where? There shalt thou be delivered. There the Lord shall redeem thee
from the hand of your enemy. Let me explain this briefly so
that you can appreciate the Bethlehem account. God is telling Israel
at the time that Micah is preaching, Micah is a contemporary of Isaiah. He's a little bit younger than
Isaiah. But he's a contemporary of Isaiah. They're preaching
at the same time. Isaiah was a major prophet, Micah a minor
prophet. But if you read the book of Isaiah,
66 chapters, right? And Micah's is only what? Seven
chapters. And yet if you read Micah's very
carefully, what you will discover is that Micah says essentially
the same thing that our brother Isaiah says almost verbatim. It's just compacted. He says
the same thing. And it's this, Israel, you are
in trouble because of your sin. When God said, cry out, bring
forth, you're going to Babylon. You know what God is teaching
us? That because of his covenant mercies, sometimes what he has
to do is send us into captivity so that we might learn to appreciate
the blessings he gave us before we entered into captivity. Some
of y'all following me in the house? See, because I love the
prophets. I mean, I really, really love
them. But to get with the prophets, you've got to understand their
calling and their office. They were lawyers for God. That
means they had to go talk to the people on the behalf of God
to let the people know that God really sees you acting a fool. Because what we do as church
folk is we pretend We pretend that we all right with God. And
then we try to pull the wool over God's eyes. Now his servant
comes to tell you, God sees your hypocrisy and your falsehood. And when you don't listen to
a servant, then here's what God does. He allows providence to
come into your life, to take you away from the land of blessing.
and leave you in captivity for long periods of time. Who here
has ever been in God's captivity for long periods of time? There
you go. It's true. Some of y'all won't lift your
hands, but I'm here to tell you God will send you into captivity
and you'll be there long periods of time and you're not coming
out until God has persuaded you that you've messed up and you
need to repent. So this is what he's telling
Israel. He's telling Israel, you're getting ready to go to Babylon.
So you can cry and you can whine like you're not pregnant. You're
pregnant. And you're about to bring forth death because that's
the wages of sin, right? And this is the context in which
Micah is setting forth one of the most, one of the most known
promises in the scripture. Listen to the way he closes it
out in verse 11 and following. Now also many nations are gathered
against you that say, let her be defiled and let our eyes look
upon Zion. This is the picture of God allowing
his people to be a public ridicule and a public disgrace because
of her sin. You guys follow the logic? The
nations are watching Israel. Imagine this, a million and a
half to two million or three million Israelites walking as
slaves from Jerusalem to Babylon, but naked. And the nations are
watching. When you go into captivity in
those days, they would shame you by chaining you and causing
you to walk behind the leaders and the rulers naked as slaves
of that country that has had dominion over you. Now everybody
gets to watch it. You guys see that? So now here's
the pattern for those of you who are listening to the message
today. God will deal with you privately. And then when you
refuse to repent, He will deal with you personally. And then
when you refuse to repent, he'll bring it out into the public
in order to get you to understand that he means business with this
covenant. Are you guys following the logic? This is what's going
on now. Watch how God works. Watch how he works. He says in
verse 12, but they know not the thoughts of the Lord. Do you
see that? Who is he talking about? His own people. This is what
Isaiah said in Isaiah chapter one, right? The birds of the
air, fish of the sea, the storks, the animals, the oxen, the asses,
they know their master, but my people don't know me. And then
he goes on to say, neither understand they his counsel, for he shall
gather them as sheaves into the what? You guys following me?
Now watch how quickly God turns the corner. He says, I'm gonna
send you to Babylon, but I'm gonna bring you back, because
you're my sheaves. You're my harvest. You are my
cultivated field. I'm not gonna let them destroy
you all together But sometimes don't it feel like it when God
is getting at you don't it feel like you're gonna just disappear
I can't get a witness in the house. That's okay. I don't care.
Listen. I didn't celebrate at Christmas. I'm happy I didn't
got a bunch of gifts from a bunch of y'all. I'm so thankful. I
want to bless you now, especially the food. It was good I'm happy. I know how the Lord works. He
he will chase in us and and his love and mercy, and it will feel
like he is totally abandoning us, but around the corner, he
already has our restoration. Some of you are about to be restored
by God, even though it feels like you're on your way to hell. He wants you to feel that way.
The people that will love God and serve God most passionately
are people for whom much is forgiven. Isn't that true? If you don't
feel like you've been forgiven much, you won't love him much.
But when he shows you that you are the only sinner in the world,
you will be like that woman with that alabaster box of ointment
who could care less about who was watching her when she broke
that oil on his head and got busy worshiping her savior. Do
y'all remember that? Everybody got offended. She could
care less because she was forgiven so much. This is where our Lord
is with Israel. They don't know it. We read then
in verse 13 as we prepare now to deal just with a few verses
in chapter 5. Arise and thresh, O daughter
of Zion, for I will make you like your horn like iron, and
I will make your hoofs like brass, and you shall beat in pieces
many people, and I will consecrate their grain unto the Lord, their
gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the
whole earth. Verse 13 is talking about the
recovery of his people and the triumph of his people over the
world and over the nations and the booty of it being brought
to God. Now look at verse 1 of chapter 5 so we can get into
our thoughts. Now gather yourself in troops. Do you see it? Crazy? Crazy? If you don't know what
this means, what this means is God is saying to his own people,
let's fight. Now gather yourself in troops.
What he's saying to Israel is You have a tendency not only
to fight against everybody else, but me too. And so God has said,
do it. You can gather yourself in the
troops, oh daughter of troops. Watch this. But Babylon's going
to still lay siege on you. He's going to still bring you
into captivity. You're acting like this is not
my council, but it is. You're acting like Nebuchadnezzar
is not my servant, but he is. You're acting like the people
who have a strange tongue and stammering lips are not my servants,
but they are. You're acting like I am not against
you, but I am. See the context? It's crazy,
but it's so consistent with scripture. If you and I are forward towards
God, he'll be forward towards you. Isn't that right? If you
try to blow against omnipotence, omnipotence will let you know
you can't. See, the one people that God
is going to teach his true nature and character is his own people.
You and I don't get to go tell people about God and we don't
know him. And we're going to know him in
his justice and his mercy. The people that know the consequences
of sin and and chastisement and correction are his own people.
Now think about this. And when God says to you and
me that our deliverance is going to be found in a baby, when he
has brought you low, that's good news. Watch how this works. Now gather yourself in troops,
O daughter of troops. He hath laid siege against us.
They shall smite, they shall smite the judge of Israel with
the rod upon the what? Do you see that? What is this
talking about? This is talking about Israel's
utter blindness to the disciplinary hand of God and to the mercy
of God in bringing Jesus into the world. Isn't this passage
fulfilled in the rulers of Israel and the Roman Empire smiting
Christ on the cheek? Is it not? That's Israel rejecting
God yet and again. Here God has brought his son
to redeem them and they're rejecting God. But does God quit because
they reject him? No. Here it is. Here it is. But thou Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
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 of old, even from everlasting. Let me see if I can unpack that
with just a few thoughts. Circle verse two and let's go
to work. Point number one. Point number
one. Troublesome times from BC 7 to
AD 33. What is that encompassing when
I say that it's encompassing the birth and death of Jesus
Christ Jesus Christ was born somewhere between 3 BC and 7
BC and then he died about AD 33. He wasn't born in 0 AD or
1 AD. He was born before the AD era,
the Anno Domino era, okay? Please understand that. And so
we assume him to be about 37 or 38 years old when he actually
died. But the time of Christ's birth
to the time of his death can be rightly marked what? Troublesome
time. Put that card in your pocket.
Your Savior knew trouble like you. This is crazy. Think about
this for a moment. The text tells us in Matthew
chapter 4 verse 16, the people that sat in great darkness had
seen a marvelous light. It gives us again this juxtaposition
of where the people were in their spiritual condition when God
brought his Son into the world. They were in what? Darkness.
The people that sat in darkness had seen a great light. There it is. The light comes
into the what? The darkness is humanity. That's
you and me. Jesus didn't come to a people
loving him, receiving him, wanting him. You guys remember the infamous
account of the birth of the God-man and the wise men coming down
in Matthew 2 because they had followed the star and they asked
about Jerusalem, where is the king born? And the ruler said
he's born in Bethlehem. And they were thankful. But the
rulers didn't go with them. They could care less. Here comes
your savior. He's in town. You don't go to
visit him. That's darkness, isn't it? That's
spiritual darkness. The second one, it's the true
nature of our adversary. When we talk about a spiritual
condition being what? Dark? We're talking about the
nature of our adversary. See, remember, it's not only
a consequence of what you and I do, but the enemy is called
the Prince of Darkness. He's the ruler of darkness. His
job is to keep everything dark. Your adversary wants to keep
you blinded from God. That's his job. Daily he's sprinkling
the dust in your eyes to diminish the glory of Christ so that you
spend very little time with him. Am I telling the truth? 100%
and this was the context in which our master was born and that's
why he said in John chapter 10 The thief comes not but to what
steel kill and what and in chapter 844 he plainly said he was a
murderer from the beginning He never abode in the truth. That's
the role of the devil Watch this the role of the devil is to keep
you and me blind it And he does a great job daily As it were,
seeking to trip us up and blind us and halt us and keep us from
spending time with the God of light. Because He knows what
light will do. If you spend enough time in the
light, your eyes will open up. Are you guys hearing me? Our
Lord was born in the context of this situation. Point number
C, Christ's coming personified in the early life of whom? That's
right. So as you and I are working through
the life of David, and we're seeing David as a great type
of whom? Right. David's early life was difficult,
too. He grew up with parents who fundamentally neglected him.
Remember that? Daddy even denied that the brother
existed when he was about to be anointed. And then he had
trouble with his own brothers, and he will have more troubles,
just like our master had troubles. But remember what I said in the
opening of our message, saints. The way the scriptures are designed
is to teach you and me that the God-man Jesus Christ has more
in common with us than we are willing to admit. See, don't
take the gospel and mythologize it. Don't do what we call in
writing hagiography, and that is to clean it up so much to
make it sterile and unable to apply to your life. The way our
Lord Jesus Christ came into the world is crazy He was born in
a controversial situation. That's point number two. Let
me get to that I think about this every time how good God
is to me to me. I'm talking about to me This
is how good he is the ways of God are Such that they parallel
the ways of men. I The ways of God are such that
they parallel the ways of men in order that the ways of men
might find some connection with the ways of God. Watch this.
Watch this. If you understand how God works, you'll learn something
about God's nature. Point number two in our outline.
Here it is. Smallness is the way God what? Do you see that? Yes, it is. Verse two in our
text says, but thou Bethlehem Ephrata, though you be what? Little, among the thousands of
Judah. See that little word, little?
That's a Hebrew word that actually means so small that it is insignificant. Actually, it gets worse than
that. Kenneth, it's a word that means to be despised. It means
to be looked upon and viewed as nothing. The term is designed
to help you and me understand how God works. Because he works
with nothing. He works with despised things. He works with rejected things. He works with despicable things. One translator translated the
word trifling. I like that word. Now, if you're
a church-going person, you don't like the term. I got it. But
trifling is what, isn't that the word we use when somebody
really, really, really, now you trifling, da, da, da, da, da,
da. Now, this is the thing about
my God I love, I love it. Cause this is the way he works.
See, you don't know it, but God sees us all as trifling. Boom, boom, boom, boom, got y'all. He sees us all as trifling. Is
that true? Is that true? Less than a dot
on the bottom of the bucket. That's what we are as nations.
The nations are reputed as nothing in God's sight compared to his
holiness. The way God views you as despicable. And you are. But that's what his son came
into. His Son came into despicableness. Again, we were trying to work
through the tension between the enormity of His deity. and the
limitations of his humanity as we were working through our Sunday
school lesson a couple of weeks ago and we were making the distinction
that many of our Latin theologians do with regards to the incarnation
of what we call the hypostatic union between the nature of God
and the nature of man and we were clear to admit that Christ
came in the likeness of sinful flesh but he didn't come in sinful
flesh but the mere idea that he would assume a human nature
means that the impeccable holy God was willing to actually enter
into our despicableness. How much so? Well, he was said
to be born in Bethlehem of Judah. But when you think about Bethlehem
of Judah, you have to think about this small, despicable, despised,
trifling city. that was the smallest of all
of the tribes in Judah. Remember what David said in 1
Samuel 18-18 when King Saul brought him into his household? David
said to King Saul, who am I and who is my family that you should
regard me? Here's what I want you to think.
David knew that his family was the smallest of all of the tribes
in Judah. And because they held to this
kind of caste system of hierarchical, you know, dominance, where the
bigger cities were better than the smaller cities. And Ephrathah
of Bethlehem was so small that it really didn't even count for
a city. It was like a municipality. It
was like one of those towns you drive through. It ain't even
got a fire department or a police station. They got to borrow it
from the other city. That's how small it was. Watch
this. Our Savior was born in a place
that was nothing. And then, before He was two years
old, because of the darkness wanting to destroy Him, He had
to leave that nothing place and go to something worse than nothing?
Where was that? Egypt! He had to go from nothing
to less than nothing. He had to become a stranger in
a land that was viewed by God theologically as one of the epitomes
of the city of bondage, the iron furnace, the place where we all
need to be redeemed from. He was an alien and a stranger
in a strange land, running from his own home, which was nothing.
Now watch this, in two years later, when Herod dies, the angel
tells Joseph, hey, y'all can come back. So Joseph and Mary
comes back, but then they find out that Herod's son is on the
throne. We ain't going to Bethlehem because we know they still got
a contract on them. So then they decided now to live in West Oakland. You're not with me. See, you're
not with me, but I don't care. I love the Bible. I love it. Now y'all got your own cities
across the nation. I know you, some of y'all and
across the world too. Some of y'all lived in little
villages that was so small and so funky. It's not even on the
map. You know, I know that. I know
that. And that's what our God knows. Think about it. He was
a born, he was born in a no name town. He went from bad to worse. And then he went from worse to
worse. Remember what Phillip and Nathaniel said? Can any good
thing come out of Nazareth? Now, stay with me now. He went
from bad to worse to worser and he grew up in worser. See, that's why you ought to
love him. You ought to love him. See, some of you ought to be
worshiping right now because we got a God who knows how to
dwell in worser. He knows how to dwell in the
worst place. He grew up in worser land. You understand? This is what the term is getting
at when it says, though thou Bethlehem of Ephrathah, though
thou be little among the thousands. Smallness is the way of God.
The three points. We all start from what? You believe
that? It is the pattern of God's elect. Is that true? You remember your
calling, brother. Not many mighty, not many noble,
not many wise, not many powerful. You and I were the scum, the
despised, the rejected. We are the things of not. God has taken those things of
not and made us something in Christ. Is that true? You see,
this is the way you celebrate. This is the way you celebrate.
He has taken the things of not. And this will help you too when
you want folks to recognize you and they're not going to pay
you much attention. God has already paid you attention in Christ.
He's already paid attention to you. And in fact, he's lived
your life of nothing and despicableness and trifling in order that you
might live with him in the enormity of the eternal blessings of God
almighty. Point number C. And only by faith can we walk
in the humility of what? Take that one home, child of
God. Please take it home. Only by faith can you walk the
humility of insignificance this is going to be your battle all
your days because you know what we're often doing when we get
deep when we get defaulted from our walk of faith we're often
seeking approval of men we're often seeking approval of men
and as some of you guys are going to learn when we teach the doctrine
of rewards and works and grace you're going to be using a wrong
measure a wrong measure to determine the things that are acceptable
with God when you wait on men to give you approval of what
you're doing or who you are. And the reason why our Savior
was born and lived the way He did was to completely destroy
those false measures in your life so that you don't base who
you are on what people say about you but according to what the
Word of God has declared you to be. Now if you get this rule You'll
stop messing up in your own family this way because we love using
human rules to judge one another. But I'm here to tell you when
you and I learn how to walk by faith in the humility of insignificance,
God will begin to reveal his glory to you. Point number three,
which moves us towards the end of our message today. There are,
there's a, there's a, there's a, what I call a process of development
around the redemptive schemes of God that fall under three
categories. The first is blessing. Do you see that? Blessing. The
second is what? Greatness. And the final one
is what? Salvation. So I just want you
to take these as paradigms as we shut it down. So when God
has marked you out, when God has put his hand on you, the
first thing that God does is bless you. Do you hear me? Hear me for a moment. The first
thing he does is blesses you. The first thing God does is puts
his blessing on you. Now, this is wild too, because
the blessing is God's decree. It's God's intentionality. It's
God's purpose. It's God's will. It's God's objective. It's God's goal. He decrees a
blessing upon his people. He decrees it. Now what that
means is he has infallibly obligated himself to bring you to the fullness
of his purpose in your life. But it starts with blessing.
Now what that means is also is the blessing is not something
that is necessarily felt or experienced while it's decreed. Are you hearing
me? When God says I have blessed
them, with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. God has declared that all of
the bounty of his goodness will be theirs, even though experientially
you still live in Nazareth. Experientially, you're still
going through the troubles you're going through. God has decreed
your blessing. This is what God did when he
brought his son into the world. Bethlehem was highly favored,
was it not? to be the place where the God-man
came into the world. God decreed His blessings there.
He decreed greatness for His people there. Are all of God's
people great? You might as well say yes now,
even though you don't know it. I'm almost done. I'm in celebratory
mode, so I'm chilling. So now watch this, watch this,
watch this now. All of God's people are great, whether you
know it or not, because when you are children of the King,
you are necessarily great. When you have the spirit of adoption,
You are necessarily great. And the spoil that Christ achieved
by his atoning work at Calvary is only divided with the great.
The spoil that Christ achieved at Calvary, Isaiah chapter 53,
for those of you who know your Bibles, is only divided with
the great. In other words, when you start
experiencing the portions of God's salvation in your life,
it's because he has decreed greatness for you, his people. Even though
presently you are the despised of the earth Do you see why the
gospel requires walking by what and not by what what that's right
It requires that and it requires that to enter into the blessings
To enter into the blessings of God where you where you are able
to and now Access the resources of his grace so that you can
live down here in this mess. I as his objects of blessings
and as his people of greatness requires faith. Did Jesus know
he was blessed? Did he know he was great? And
did he know that he was the means and object of salvation to all
that were around him? Absolutely. And when we talk
about this, and we talk about this being his work, this is
what we mean by the Bethlehem story. After thousands of years,
the promise was given The promise was given some 1,500 years. No, actually 2,000 years when
it came to Abraham. By the time we get to where we
are in the birth of Christ, those 2,000 years have mustered up
many, many principles. We land in Bethlehem now. What
does Bethlehem mean in the Hebrew? Does anyone know? House of bread. Write it down. House of bread.
Let me tell you about the blessing there. When God talks about the
house of bread, he's talking about the house of resource.
He's talking about the house of provision. He's talking about
the house of satisfaction. He's talking about making sure
that his people always have everything necessary for life and godliness
through him. Are y'all hearing what I'm saying?
The house of bread is the place where Christ is because Christ
is for us what? The bread of life. I love this
concept too. I love it. I love it. Here's
the concept. See, God is still talking in terms of smallness
because like right now you're not excited about a piece of
bread, but let somebody hold you up
from food for just six hours. Some of you, some of you will
go into epileptic fits in six hours and you will be imagining
bread. Just bread. But it's a generic
term for meeting all your needs. And is not Christ the bread of
life? Doesn't he meet all of our needs?
Practical, spiritual, emotional, physical. Does he not? That's
right. That's what God means. That's
what he means. I love the next word, thou Ephrathah
of Bethlehem. What does the word Ephrathah
mean? I was waiting for the theologian. But it's Christmas Day. I know
y'all left y'all theologian hat at home. Here we go. It means
fruitful. Fruitful. Write it down. The
derivative of the word Ephrathah is the word Ephraim, which was
one of the sons of Jacob. Ephraim and Manasseh. And in
the promise given by Jacob concerning Ephraim, he would be a fruitful
boat. Fruitfulness. This is crazy. Now it's not Christ
and eternal fruitfulness. Doesn't he doesn't he become
for us blessing upon blessing upon blessing upon blessing upon
blessing without end and is it not true that you and I are in
Christ and those same blessings are designated to us and through
us and Through us see God has called us to be resources by
which people are blessed to See if you take your union with Christ
seriously when people enter into your presence you can be spiritual
nourishment for them You can be a spiritual blessing for them.
Now, I know I'm getting into the application side, but it's
true. Now, some people will come to your spiritual house and you
ain't got nothing on the plate. You got lights and trees and
glitter and everything, but their soul is hungry for the reality
of the kingdom of God. And you don't have anything to
serve them because you haven't spent time with the bread of
life yourself. You haven't gotten full of Christ
as David said in Psalm 34 8 what Oh taste and see that the Lord
he is what good And when you invite people to the table, what
it is is that you're sharing with them what you have discovered
in your own walk with God God means for you and I to be that
kind of blessing to other people so that we are also houses of
bread and we are also a effort to us for those whom God would
send us to. Let's finally work through our
last three points, and these are strictly around our Savior.
The blessing, greatness, and salvation that God works in the
life of His people in the bringing to pass the redemptive work of
God in Christ first underscores the fact that when Jesus came,
He came as the ruler of the universe. Do you see that? He's God's ruler. Listen to the way he puts it
here in verse 2. But thou Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
though you be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of
thee, out of thee shall come forth, shall he come forth unto
who? Me. In the first sense, this
matter of redemption is all about God. It's about God giving his
son and then bringing his son back to him. It's all about God
and His Son accomplishing everything necessary for our salvation.
So this is really a dialogue between the Father and the Son.
Can you see that? Now watch this now. Unto me, unto me, that last
little line. Unto me is where Christ cried
out before His crucifixion. Father, I'm ready to come home. I'm ready to be with you. I'm
ready to take my place with you. And I'm ready to have the glory
or possess the glory which I have with you before the world began.
There's a sense in which when we read our Bibles carefully,
this is all about the Father and the Son. Is this true? But
again, they have determined to have a people for themselves
from every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue. And are we not blessed
to be such people as to be partakers of that blessing? I'll remind
you again before I move on. When Jesus says, Father, I'm
ready to come home, you know what else he said? I want them
to come with me. Crazy. Father, I want them to
come with me. I want them to behold the glory
that you and I have. I want them to know the love
that we have. I want them to know the unity
and the oneness that we have. In other words, Christ longing
to go back to his position of infinite, blissful, effulgent
glory was not exclusive. He wants his people to be a partaker
of it. Do you believe one day you will?
Do you believe one day you will? We're winding it down. But what
he has done in order to affect that is to make sure that Christ
is the ruler of this universe. We are all struggling with what's
going on in our world with war. You know, the term ISIS, I don't
even know what that term means. Islamic state, Islamic late,
what does the L mean? I don't know. Late, state, what? I don't know. All I know is that
on the part of our secular system, The world seems to be just unraveling
in craziness, right? Isn't that true? Unraveling in
craziness. Child of God, for some reason,
I'm not disturbed. I'm not disturbed. The Lord is
my witness. I haven't lost one night's sleep
since 2001. No, I'm serious. I have not sat up wringing my
hands Oh, what we going to do when they come for us? I have
not. Can I tell you why? It has been
the consequence of his sovereign mercy to allow me to sit at his
feet for 36 years and to behold his glory and to hear his voice.
His counsel rings clear to me. God hath made all things, even
the wicked for the day of evil. Do you hear me? God is so sovereign. God is so magnificent. He is
so omniscient and omnipotent, so powerful in his rule that
his people can rest even when evil is running rampant all in
the world. This is crazy. This is crazy.
See, I've been telling the old saints, sleep is spiritual. So what I do now is when I see
the saints on Sunday, I say, how'd you sleep last night? Slept
good pastor. Thank God Because there are a
lot of people that didn't sleep well last night. Am I telling
the truth? There are a lot of people didn't
sleep well last night and some of them think that's spiritual
That's the furthest thing from the world from the truth to be
spiritual. How is it that you and I've been
anxious? stressing out Losing rest when
we can't change one thing in our life. We can't change our
statute. We can't fix nobody's problem.
We can't even fix our own problems. We can't fix our kids' problems.
We can't fix nobody's problem. And yet we have a God that we
know works everything after the counsel of his own will. and
we won't take that and make it a pillow to lay our head on and
go to sleep when we know we are children of the Most High God?
Sons and daughters of the Most High God? That's our fault, isn't
it? If we don't walk in such faith.
Let me help a few of you as we wrap it up. Because we have a
Savior that sits on His throne, the Father has decreed that He
will subdue all things under His feet, I can go to sleep at
night. And I'm going to show you how
I do it, just in case you don't get it. When you lay your head on your pillow
at night, say, Lord, I messed up today. That's where you start. Somewhere, I messed up. Now,
I may know what it is. I may not know what it is. But
I know I messed up today. I am so thankful that the blood
and righteousness of Christ so fully and thoroughly puts away
all my sins, past, present, and future, that I'm going to simply
thank you for your forgiveness. And I'm going to sleep in the
name of Jesus. I'm going to sleep in the name
of Jesus. And I'm going to let you, who
never sleep nor slumber, handle my business all night long. That's how you do it. That's
how you do it. Watch it now. Because God don't sleep. God don't slumber
and he got angels galore that's flying about the world handling
his business They don't sleep either. Oh By the way, by the
way, we're gonna be talking about heaven in the new year when you
get to heaven One thing you gonna lose sleep So you better get
it now Cuz it's over with when you get to heaven. It's over
with Okay, that's a gift on this side. I There's a gift on this
side. We have a ruler over the universe,
the Lord Jesus. And he has been so good at taking
care of his people since he left glory and sent his Holy Ghost
that we have nothing but praise and thanksgiving to our God for
his goodness to us. Point number D, he is not only
the man that was given to us or born of the Virgin Mary, but
he is from eternity God Almighty. look at the text he says out
of thee shall come forth unto me him that is to be ruler in
Israel whose goings forth have been from of old from everlasting. It's a Hebrew term that means
that the vanishing point of the past in which you and I would
try to pinpoint the past, the vanishing point, where it disappears.
If you could go as far back as possible in time, conceptually,
at the beginning, it would vanish. Once you enter into the vanishing
point, you are in eternity past. Because Christ, right along with
His Father and the Holy Spirit, our eternal God, by which all
things are made, right? And so that without him there
was nothing made that was made. Is that true? That means he was
before all things, right? That means by him all things
consist, right? That means he upholds all things. That means
he was before it all in that eternal dimension that only God
himself could utterly describe. That makes him God, doesn't it?
Point number E. The cross and conversion as a
consequence of his coming. Do you see that? Look at verse
3. Here it is. Because You Bethlehem
of Africa, though you be little among the thousands of Judah,
yet out of you shall come forth unto me that is to be ruler in
Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
Therefore, this is again, this is one of these twists. Here
it is. Will he give them up? Do you see it? Therefore, will
God give them up? What? We're going back to the
people now. He gave us a gospel promise in verse two. He's going
back now to him fulfilling his promise to send his children
into Babylon. Therefore will he give them up Until the time
that she would show what same person hath brought forth. You
see it hath brought forth brought forth what? repentance repentance
From their sinfulness from their wickedness from their idolatries
from their whoredoms See, this is how God works. He'll let you
stay in captivity Until he has softened your heart because our
hearts get hard against God. Can I get a witness? I But see,
listen, have you learned that you can't outlast God? Come on
now, have you learned that you can't outlast eternity? God will
let you go until you get old and gray, your hat fall out,
stomach get big, where there ain't nothing in this life you
can do anymore. Then you realize, you know, I better just call
it uncle, I better cry uncle, because God doesn't seem like
he even breaking a sweat on me. It's true. It's true. No, it's really interesting how
we are here. I'm done. We will fight against God. And
especially Western Christianity. Because God doesn't open up the
earth and swallow us up when we rebel against him or we're
not well pleasing in his sight, we'll harden our heart against
God. I hope we do better in the new year. I hope we do better
in the new year. I promise you that you can't
live in rebellion against God persistently in the face of his
temporal blessings, whatever they may be. Will you hear me? And end up in heaven. Listen
to me, ladies and gentlemen, I promise you that you can't
continue living like hell in the midst of his temporal blessings
and end up in heaven. You will fool everybody around
us because we know how to do religion. Don't we? Watch this
now, but every year God has been good enough to let us see a new
year. There was some times, there was some times when I didn't
think I would see the year 2007 or 2008 or 2009. These are secret things. Cause you know, I don't, I don't
tell y'all a lot of stuff going on in my life, right? But there
were times I didn't think I was going to make it for a lot of
reasons. Do you hear me? For a lot of personal reasons,
threats and all kinds of stuff going on. I just, listen. And
now that I'm like eight and nine years on the other side of those
threats, I jump. I said, Lord, I thank you, I
thank you. Thank you. He's so good to me. I'm on the
other side of those blessings. Do you know why? Because he knows
how to get rid of your enemies. I am so with David right now.
I am so with David right now. I am so with David right now.
I'm living on the other side of eternal blessings eight, nine
years out. And do you know what that has
done for me? That's allowed me to have seven grandkids that
I just get to wallow in and enjoy enormously. They wandered around
when I was going through hell. and God brought me out and he's
allowed the blessings to be so tremendous in my life. That's
how you're supposed to think. That's how you're supposed to
think. Are you hearing me? That's how you're supposed to
think. He's supposed to count your blessings and give him glory
for it. Give him glory for it. Here it
is. Therefore will he give them up until the time that she which
travails has brought forth then the remnant of his brethren shall
return unto the children of Israel. See, when he uses that term return,
he's talking repentance. When he uses that term remnant,
he's talking God's elect. Only God's elect will come back
from the hardening of sin, from the long distance cities of Babylon. My prayer is that the cross work
of Jesus Christ, for which our master came, for which we will
celebrate in March will have its efficacy in your life right
now. As we close, my prayer is that you see this baby, full
grown, walking down the road with a cross on his back, being
stretched wide and lifted high. My prayer right now is that you
see him standing between heaven and earth as the only sin bearer
of the universe. My prayer! right now is that
you see the God-man who came out of eternity into time to
redeem your hell-bound soul right now my prayer is that you would
see that God has made only one way of escape and that escape
is Jesus Christ the one who says unto us come unto me Come unto
me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden. I'll give you rest.
I'll give you righteousness. I'll give you peace. I'll give
you redemption. I'll give you righteousness.
I'll give you wisdom. I'll give you glory. I'll give
you strength. I'll give you blessing upon blessing
upon blessing upon blessing. If I came into this world, assuming
a human nature, won't he do it? Won't he do it, saints? Hallelujah.
Hallelujah. Bless his holy name.