Out of Bethlehem - Christopher G. Brenyo

Ascension Presbyterian Church Longwood

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taken from Micah chapter 5.

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This is God's holy and infallible word. Now gather yourself in troops,

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O daughter of troops. He has laid siege against us. They will strike the judge of Israel with a rod on the cheek.

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But you, Bethlehem of Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.

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Therefore he shall give them up until the time that she who is in labor has given birth.

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Then the remnant of his brethren shall return to the children of Israel. He shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the

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Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God, and they shall abide. For now he shall be great to the ends of the earth, and this one shall be peace.

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At this time of year there is a lot of thought and some of it very passive about the incarnation of Christ, but it is a remarkable time of hope.

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Augustine said nothing was so necessary for raising our hope as to show us how deeply

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God loved us, and what could afford us a stronger proof of this than that the

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Son of God should become a partner with us of human nature.

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Augustine's point is we know something of the love of God, how much he loves us, because he sent his

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Son, Jesus, to partner with us in the human nature.

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The message of the incarnation is one of great hope. What about my sin?

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There's hope in Christ. I can be forgiven. What about my death and my dying?

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There's hope that I will rise just as Christ has risen. What about the hardships

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I face? There is hope. Christ is often pleased to deliver us from our circumstances, but he often let tarries and allows us to see our desperate need of him.

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The Christian worldview is very different from the worldly point of view.

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The world says, I hope it works out. The Christian says,

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I have hope because I trust in the Lord. He has promised and he delivers, though he always does it in his timing.

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In our story, in our verses today, in our section of Scripture in Micah 5, there is a great projection of hope coming in the future, and that hope is nothing less than the incarnation and future events surrounding our

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Lord Jesus Christ. But you have to know something about the timing of this prophecy to appreciate its significance to those who heard it originally.

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Micah prophesied during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, and this is probably sometime between 740 and 685

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BC. This is seven centuries before the birth of Christ.

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He was from the territory, interestingly, of Judah, but spoke to both kingdoms.

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He was speaking both to Israel and Judah. Like other prophets,

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Micah exposed his sin and proclaims God's judgment and assures mercy to the humble and to the repentant.

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I'm going to give you a brief synopsis, just a couple of lines per chapter, basically, about what the book of Micah is about.

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There is a threatening of coming judgment in chapters 1 through 3, and this seems to follow the

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Deuteronomic cycle in Micah, and that's that idea that the people of God slip into a time of forgetfulness, and they begin to do great evil, and they begin to fall into idolatry, and then they begin to suffer the consequences of that idolatry, and then

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God, in His grace and mercy, sends salvation and deliverance to them, and they get back on the cycle because they live a life of optimism and hope and gratitude and thanksgiving and obedience, and they're very secure in the

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Lord until they forget again. My friends, you and I follow the

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Deuteronomic cycle of the nation of Israel. The church does corporately, we do as families and individually.

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So what I would like to have happen today is for us to not be on the side of forgetting, and not to be on the side of falling into idolatry, not to be on the side of chastening, but to be on the side of remembering, the side of thanksgiving, the side of blessing, the side of God's comfort and deliverance.

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We can stay on that side in the power of His Spirit. We don't have to fall into idolatry.

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We don't have to fall into unbelief. In chapters 4 and 5, there is prophetic promises of deliverance, and that's, of course, figuring very much to the

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Christmas story that we're talking about today. The book concludes with exhortations and confessions of national sins, coupled with promises of restoration in 6 and 7.

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What were the sins that Micah condemned? You should know he's contemporary with Isaiah, for example.

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These are the sins they were preaching against. Idolatry, evil plans and devices, covetousness, the greediness of princes, prophets, and priests, witchcraft, dishonesty, universal corruption, and treachery.

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So, in the midst of all this, a prophecy happens, but the timing of the prophecy is this.

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They're about to go into captivity. Assyria is outside the walls.

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There's a threat from Babylon at this time as well. The people of God are not entering a time of prosperity.

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They're about to be put under a heavy yoke of bondage as a consequence for their sin.

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Now, what's interesting is what we've been singing about today, what we've been thinking about, is this promise of a future hope.

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This promise is given 700 years before it's realized.

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Now, I want you to think about what a privilege it is to live in this era of time.

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We're not waiting. We still have hope, but the promise has been realized.

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The prophecy set forth in Micah 5 has come to pass. Look at verse 2.

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But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to be the one to be a ruler in Israel.

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Children, do you remember the place where Jesus was born? Bethlehem.

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Now, Bethlehem is so small and so insignificant, it's left off the list in Joshua 15 -21.

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It's not one of those prominent towns. It may have had a thousand citizens there, but it's not listed as significant.

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It becomes significant later because we learn in John 7 that this is the place, the true significance of Bethlehem.

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It is the city of David, but it's the place where Jesus was to be born.

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It's interesting what the name of Bethlehem means. Bethlehem means house of bread, and Ephrathah means fruit bearing or fruitful.

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It speaks to the fruitfulness of the region. When you think about this language, it seems

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God does everything with a purpose. The house of bread, Jesus would become the bread of life.

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The fruit bearing nature and character of the city. The gospel has produced much fruit.

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It has brought many sons to glory. It has transformed the lives of, dare we say, billions.

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So this little insignificant town, this scruffy little place, one of my friends,

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I've mentioned this before, I was really, if you're from here, my friend said, if Jesus were born in central

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Florida, he'd be born in Bithlow. Do you guys know where Bithlow is? It's where the junkyards are.

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It's a scruffy little place. You drive past it. You go from coast to Orlando.

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You have to go through there. That's the place that Jesus was born.

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Out of Bethlehem, that's the place where Messiah would be born.

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That's the place where Jesus would come from. It seems, again, that God chooses the little things of the world to surpass the world's greatest things.

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We'll start to John chapter 1 really quickly. Gospel of John chapter 1.

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Jesus and his family ended up moving to another place. They moved north. They went to the

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States. They went to Appalachia, where the hillbillies live.

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That's where they moved. John chapter 1, beginning at verse 43.

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The following day, Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and he found

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Philip and said to him, follow me. Now, Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.

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Philip found Nathanael and said to him, we have found him of whom Moses said the law, and also the prophets wrote

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Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

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Later, the Pharisees would ask the question about Jesus' prophetic office.

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They said, he's from Nazareth. Can any good thing come from there?

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You see, he's born in a humble place. He grew up in a humble place, and he's the king of glory.

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We have a distorted view of value as a church. God, the king of glory, who wants nothing, he doesn't need anything, he placed his son to be born in the womb of a peasant girl in a humble little town, and he's going to have him grow up in humble circumstances in the woods, in the north wilderness country of Israel.

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I have to ask the question, why would he do something like that? Why would he do this great work of redemption through such humble circumstances?

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Well, the answer has to be, at least in part, that we might see that it's entirely from him.

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Part of the promise related to Micah of a king is that this ruler would come from David's house, 2

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Samuel 7. And it's interesting that Mary and Joseph are both descendants of David, they're distant cousins, and the descendants of David at the time of Christ's birth were in poverty.

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They weren't ruling the nation. The house of David was consisting mostly of people who were of humble means and circumstances.

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And there's something else. Caesar Augustus asked that there be a census taken in all the world.

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And that's what made Mary and Joseph make the trek all the way down to a few miles south of Jerusalem so that Jesus could be born in Bethlehem according to prophecy.

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You see, she's conceived of the Holy Spirit in Galilee, up in Nazareth. But Jesus has to be born in Bethlehem.

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Providentially, Caesar Augustus issues a decree that everybody has to go back to their home family town to be counted, and that's where Jesus will be born.

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There's something else here. When we look out at the circumstances around us, we must understand, however we perceive the current events,

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God is working all things for His glory. It didn't sound like good news for Joseph and Mary to have to travel down to Bethlehem, but he had to be born there.

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It doesn't sound like good news that this Roman governor is going to issue this decree, they're going to have to probably pay tax, all these different things.

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But all of these things play providentially to the storyline of God saving us as people by sending

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Christ into the flesh. It's no accident that all of these happened.

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All of these different events, all of these things miraculously happened at the birth of Christ.

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Now let's go back to our text in Micah 5. Consistently in redemption,

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God has done unlikely acts. He seems to use humble and weak people.

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Do you remember Gideon? Gideon is from the weakest tribe, from the weakest family and the weakest tribe, and he's the weakest person in the weakest family and the weakest tribe.

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And God used Gideon. So you might think, I'm frail and I'm insignificant,

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I don't amount to much. God can use you very greatly for his glory. In fact, it's much more likely that he would use you than someone who looks very strong in the eyes of the world.

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What about a humble person like Moses? Probably the meekest man, the old child's catechism said, had a humble view of himself and he probably had a severe speech impediment.

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Moses, you're going to be my spokesman. He's probably going, you know, I can't really talk very well.

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You're my guy. Your brother can help you, but you are the guy I'm going to use.

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What about the Apostle Paul? Not very impressive in person, not as great of a preacher as Peter or Apollos, but God would use him for his glory.

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There's a little practical lesson for us. You and I are very worldly. We esteem the strong in the world's eyes, but God isn't impressed.

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The people who are strong in the world aren't impressive to God, but he seems to be pleased to use the frail and the weak and the insignificant for his glory.

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I don't know about you, but I find that to be very exciting. There's another phrase that's very powerful.

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Look at the last part of verse 2. It says, Whose goings forth are from old, from everlasting.

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The promise of the Messiah as Redeemer is a vague notion when it first appears in the

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Hebrew Scriptures in Genesis 3 .15. It's veiled, it's covered, it's a little bit hidden.

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And the progression occurs with the Shemitic division of mankind as the subset of humanity he was to be found.

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This is post -flood, Genesis 9 .26. It's going to operate through this redemptive line through Shem.

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Then it becomes clearer that the Deliverer would come as the seed of Abraham, as one of the

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Jews, Genesis 12. Then from there it moves from a particular tribe, from the tribe of Judah, Genesis 49.

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In Psalm 89 we learn that he's going to come from, and here in our text we learn that he's going to come from Bethlehem.

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The town of his birth is prophesied here in Micah. And his earthly parentage, as we get closer to his coming, his advent, we learn it's going to be

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Mary, the son of David. It's going to be her, his mother.

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And Joseph will be his earthly father, but he himself will be conceived by the

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Holy Spirit. We realize as the progress of Scripture goes on that all the prophecies concentrate and have their fulfillment and significance in him.

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More than 300 could be in the other sense of more allusions, more than 400 distinct specific prophecies about the

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Messiah, his reign, his rule, his incarnation, and all of them were found fully, perfectly to be satisfied and fulfilled in Christ.

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He says here, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.

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This is a startling statement. In the future the

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Messiah will be born in Bethlehem, but the one who's born there is going to be the

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Ancient of Days. 700 years after Micah's prophecy, the

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Ancient of Days is going to appear. And that language is the strongest language in the

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Hebrew language about eternity past. So what does that mean to the people listening to Micah's prophecy?

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Wait a minute. The one from the Ancient of Days, he's going to be born in the future, in here, in Bethlehem.

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Yeah, that's right. That's what's going to happen. Jesus comes as a man, the will of God on earth, but he is the

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Son of God. He's the second person of the Trinity, and his goings forth are from everlasting.

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We know by other places in Scripture that Jesus, places like John 1,

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Hebrews 1, that Jesus is described as the Creator. So, this

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Christmas story is familiar to us. The baby in the manger, that's overtaken a little bit.

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Christmas presents, the family fun, that's really overtaken it.

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But what we're talking about here is effectively that God has sent his

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Son to redeem us, to save us, and this is the most cataclysmic, most incredible, amazing, shockwave sending event in human history.

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But you, Bethlehem, Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be the ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.

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Now what's interesting here, I'm not going to have you turn there, but at the same time, roughly in history, we have a very important prophet named

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Isaiah saying some of the same things. Judgment is coming, terrible things are happening, but we have the incredible prophecy,

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I'm going to read it, just stay there in the interest of time, in Isaiah 7 and Isaiah 9, so if you're writing those, write those down.

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What does Isaiah prophesy in chapter 7? Behold, the

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Lord said to himself, we'll give you a son, this is Isaiah 7, 14. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name

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Emmanuel. Now, I don't want to belabor this point, but these people understood how children came into the world, and it's completely shocking, the virgin birth is shocking, it's impossible, humanly speaking.

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And in chapter 9, again, same time period, he's saying that this prophet is saying the same thing.

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For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called

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Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

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Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. Upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, to order it and establish it with justice and judgment, from that time forward, even forever, the zeal of the

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Lord of hosts will perform this. Now, we've been talking about this a little bit in 1

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Corinthians. Christmas isn't about a cute little baby in a manger, really.

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Christmas is about the great love of God sent to humanity, to his people, and sending a

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Savior, but more than that, to send the one who rights all the wrongs and rules his people with truth and justice and grace.

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So, the baby never stays in that place. You've got the little baby

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Jesus attached to December 25th. But what we celebrate on December 25th is the incarnation of the

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Ancient of Days. The King of Glory has come down to take up residence with his people.

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That's a big deal. That's really what we're celebrating. And Jesus doesn't get to live a peaceful little happy life.

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Jesus is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Jesus was mocked.

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He was spat upon. He was scourged. People didn't believe he was who he was.

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His own siblings didn't believe him at first. And he had the great distinct privilege of taking all of your and all of my sin and transgressions and guilt and shame and to bear it on the cross.

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So the baby Jesus came into the world to have the hardest life that anyone would ever have.

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But he does all of this because he loves his people.

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Let's go back to Micah. I guess you're still there. But the people have to wait.

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But you and I are in a little bit of a faster timescale because we're not waiting for the incarnation of Christ.

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We're now looking back on the incarnation of Christ as a historic event.

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And that historic event happened almost three times longer ago than it was looking forward in Micah's prophecy.

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And he's finished the work. He's accomplished all of that.

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Well, what do we do with all this information? Is it just a neat thing that all the prophecies came true?

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Is it just a neat thing that there was a little baby who was born and slept in a trough in a manger?

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Is that all there is? No, there's more.

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Here in our text, and historically in redemptive history, we see the travail of Israel in sorrow.

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They were waiting for the birth of their deliverance. Today, we're just waiting for Him to conquer all of His and our enemies.

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We're not waiting on anything else. Do you see how rapidly this has advanced?

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Christ has finished the work. He's the hope of the Gentiles. He's drawing in many sons. He's bringing them into glory.

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He's reigning and ruling in their hearts. The gospel is progressing and moving outward all across the world.

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There's also a promise in verse 4 of a returning remnant.

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And there are many thoughts about this. Of course, you study Romans 9 -11.

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You have many questions about Israel. Of course, we have our dispensational friends and others who think a lot about Israel.

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But I want it to be pointed out that at every point in this history, there have been naysayers and people who haven't believed.

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It's true in our day. And the patience of the Lord lasts for a little while, but there's been something that's been bugging me about our doctrine of soteriology and our thinking about salvation.

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And that's this. We have forgotten that the reason there's a salvation is because there is a judgment coming.

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A final and everlasting judgment. And I think our culture and our time has forgotten there's going to be a day of reckoning.

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And guess what? We're on the winning side if you're a follower of Christ. There's only one side to be on on that day.

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You don't want to be on the other side. This is the side you want to be on. And here in verses 3 and 4, there's a promise of the returning of the remnant.

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The small group of people that have abandoned the faith. People like the Jewish people at the time of Christ.

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God, in His mercy, tarried until AD 70. He gave them 30, 40 years before He dropped the hammer on them in judgment.

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And so it's true for those around us today. We have to call men, women, and children, our friends, our family members, our neighbors, our co -workers.

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We have to call them to repentance and faith. They need to come and kiss the sun, lest His wrath be kindled a little.

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We need salvation because there's judgment.

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You and I, in the grace of God, are able to stand in the judgment because of the merits of Christ.

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There's something else. There's this great view of hope. There's the ongoing care that He's going to provide for His flock.

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Look at verse 4. He shall stand and feed His flock. He shall shepherd them.

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The strength of the Lord and the majesty of the name of the Lord is

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God. And they shall abide. They're going to dwell there. They're going to stay there. And they're going to be connected to this

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Great One. And it's interesting. Micah's talking about Judah.

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He's talking about Israel. He's talking about a small group of people in this very small piece of land.

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But he says it extends to the ends of the earth. So we learn now that the object lesson of Israel is the microcosm of what

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God's doing in the world. This is going to the ends of the earth.

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This is going to Asia. This is going to Africa. This is going to the North Pole. Wherever there's people, that's where this goes.

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I didn't make much of this, but in the Isaiah passage, the kings used to wear their incense, the signs of their, the emblems of their kingship on their shoulders.

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And Christ, on His glorious shoulders, bears the kingship and the burden and the honor and all of that on those shoulders of the entire world.

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He is the King of Kings. Capital K King over all the other kings.

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He's the capital L Covenant Lord over all the lords. This is how

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He came. It follows that you and I should have a greater humility to everything that we do.

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If anyone would have bragging rights, it would be Him. And He comes in humility. He comes quietly.

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So on this Christmas Day, I want you to think about this very significant prophecy in Micah 5.

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And I want you to realize that what's happened here is that God has loved His people so much that He goes through all of this with His Son to redeem us.

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We should respond with a lot of thanksgiving, with a lot of worship, with a lot of obedience and a lot of service for Him.

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That's the only logical response to what He's done for us. A life filled with thanksgiving and worship.

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He's promised us hope. If we look at the pages of Scripture, the people reading

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Micah's prophecy, hearing it preached, Micah said effectively, in 700 years,

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God's going to do this. And it was a cause for their hope. How much more hope should we have?

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We've seen it to come true. We know how the story ends because all of these prophecies have been fulfilled.

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He's risen from the dead. Everything going forward. We know how this ends.

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Shouldn't we be filled with much more hope? Shouldn't we have greater joy?

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Shouldn't we rest easy in the peace that He's delivered? Well, the answer is resoundingly yes.

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That should be how we respond. So today, tomorrow, there's going to be a flurry of activity for many of you.

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I hope you have a great time with your family. But even more so,

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I hope you recognize that Christ came not to be a cute little baby.

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But the incarnation in His life, pre -glorification, was about misery and suffering.

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To live a perfect righteous life that He might impute that righteousness to you. So, don't be so sentimental about the baby in the manger.

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It's a cute story. That little baby had a lot of work to do.

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And in some mysterious way, when that little baby was conceived in the womb of the

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Virgin Mary, He was upholding all the world in His own power. All that's still true.

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I don't understand it. But that's how it was. And look what

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He's done. Look what He's done for you. Well, I have a couple of words of application.

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A little transition into a time of communion. First, we have to trust the

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Scriptures. In exacting detail, whatever it says, we have to believe it to be true.

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It is God's holy and infallible Word. Now, the word infallible means it can never fail.

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It can never fail for its intended purpose. It's inerrant. It doesn't have errors in it.

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So, there's contradictions. The contradictions are with you and your understanding. Don't ever twist the

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Scripture, any Scripture, to your advantage. Sit under the authority of the

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Scripture. Be instructed by it. Live according to its precepts. Trust the

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Scriptures. This prophecy is one of several hundred that came to pass with exacting precision.

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Number two, we should be filled with hope. God has sent His Son to redeem us.

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He did not leave us in our sins. That should make your heart bleed.

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That should give you a sense of gratitude, and thankfulness, and joy. These sentimental notions about baby

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Jesus need to lead you to think about His sinless life,

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His perfect righteousness, the cross, His death,

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His burial, His resurrection, His ascension, and His ongoing reign and rule today.

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That's where the story of the Incarnation should take you. And finally, we have to recognize that we are, it seems, part of a redemptive cycle.

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And like Israel before us, we can find peace though we enter and pass through many trials.

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The Gospel message is one of peace. Whatever you're facing, and I think

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I've told you guys this before, there's only three stages of life.

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You're in a trial. That's number one.

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Number two, you're coming out of a trial. Number three, you're not in a trial. Those are the stages of the

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Christian life. And I was thinking about this, and I went through my mind, and I could identify trials that everyone in this church is having.

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All my friends, and all my family members. I can identify trials that every person, every family is having.

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Isn't that something? You look at it like, everybody's life is better than mine. My life is hard. They have things better than me.

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Closer examination. Everyone has trials. And the promise of Christ, the promise of the

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Gospel for us who believe in Him, is secondary to salvation, of course.

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But this is a big promise. You and I should be filled with hope in every circumstance. We can find peace that we are entering into, or coming out of, or passing through many trials.

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This Christmas, I hope you'll remember the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ.

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I hope you'll remember that there's nothing you could do at this point to merit or earn your salvation.

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In fact, you were disqualified upon conception because of original sin.

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Your transgressions have disqualified you from Heaven.

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You can never now start to live a perfect, sinless life to accomplish what we require to enter into Heaven.

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But Christ in His love and mercy has granted salvation for all those who will put their entire trust in life and believe in Him.

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This is the good news of the Gospel. Out of Bethlehem, Jesus came.

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Let's pray together. Lord, we repent of our sentimentality about the

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Incarnation. I pray that we would highly value and esteem the humility of you, our

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Lord Jesus Christ. How you humbled yourself and condescended and came down from Heaven to pitch your tent among us, to dwell with us, to identify yourself with this imperfect people.

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Lord, we always want to be associated with the good people, the best people, the successful people, the pretty people.

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That's our human nature. But Lord, your glorious nature is for you to associate with us.

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You have a desire to commune with us, to take us as your bride, to love us, to dwell with us forever.

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Lord, this is great love. It's mysterious love. We are far below you.

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We don't see what you see in us, but we rejoice that you look at us this way.

44:18

I pray that we would be spiritually nourished when we consider our common union with Christ and each other in the supper.

44:27

I pray that we would derive much benefit from this means of grace, that it would spiritually strengthen us as we consider the complexity and the thoroughness of our union with Christ.