First Corinthians chapter thirteen is often referred to as the “love” chapter of the Bible. It describes true Christlike love. The last verse of chapter thirteen concludes, “Now these remain, faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.” These three words, faith, hope, and love, are very important words for us Christians. Faith, hope and love have been described in the following way: Faith is based on the things of the past, hope is based on the things of the future, and as Christians when we talk about hope we do not talk about an uncertainty, an iffy, maybe thing, as Christians when we speak of hope we speak of a sure and certain hope, something that is a definite. And so we have faith and hope and last we have love which is based on the present. Thus, our past is important, because it is the foundation of and shapes our present and strengthens our look to the future. With that in mind, we continue our Advent preparation as we look at Micah’s prophecy of the coming Messiah. As we look at this prophecy, our faith is strengthened, because we have seen the fulfillment of these things, our love is deepened, because we are reminded of the great love our Savior has for us, so much that He was born to give His life for us, and our hope is increased, as we look to the future and our eternity in heaven.
Our text begins by telling us that the Savior will be born in Bethlehem Ephrathah. We read verse two, “2But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days” (v. 2). Bethlehem Ephrathah, the name literally means: Bethlehem means “house of bread” and Ephrathah means “place of fruitfulness.” This city is important because this is the birth place of King David and as our text says, this will be the birthplace of the Messiah, Christ the Lord. This prophecy also means that anyone not born in Bethlehem has no claim on being the Savior. As we read in the New Testament we see that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, thus He passes this test of being the Messiah.
Another requisite to be the Savior is that this person must be born to be king over Israel. Jesus is from the line of David, the kingly line, making Him a true king. But there is more to this king-ness than being an earthly king, for Jesus is not just king over the nation of Israel, and indeed, He did not come to be an earthly king over the earthly nation of Israel. You might remember He told Pilate that His kingdom is not of this world. Rather Jesus is the true king over the true Israel. He is King over all believers in Him. And He is King even over all unbelievers. He is King of Kings. Jesus is the true heavenly King, the King of which this prophecy rightly speaks.
According to the prophet Micah, the Savior to be born is truly man and truly God. He is true man, born of the human woman, even the virgin Mary and He is true God, as Micah describes Him, from ancient times. Jesus told the Israelites, “before Abraham was, I am.” Jesus was with the Father and the Holy Spirit at the creation of the world, as John reminds us, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). As we confess in our creeds, Jesus is true God, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born in human flesh, of the Virgin Mary. And we are reminded that Jesus had to be true God in order to born in perfection, in order to live in perfection, in order to do for us what we are unable to do, obey God’s first command of being perfect. And Jesus had to be truly human in order to be our substitute, that is in order to trade His life for ours. Remember, the price for sin was set at death, physical death and apart from Jesus it would be eternal spiritual death or hell. All of the Old Testament sacrifices, animal sacrifices did not forgive sins, but only pointed to the one ultimate human sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus, to take away our sins.
Our text continues by telling us that Israel will be abandon at the time of the birth of the Savior. We pick up at verse three, “3Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel” (v. 3). Up until the time of Jesus, Israel had been abandon, or maybe it would be more accurate to say that Israel had abandoned God. A couple of weeks again I mentioned that from the time of the prophet Malachi until John the Baptist there was no word from the Lord. That means that from Malachi to John the Baptist, for almost five hundred years there was no word from the Lord, no prophet in Israel. It was a sign of their being abandoned by God.
Our text also reminds us that it will be a virgin who will give birth to the Savior. This virgin we know is Mary, the mother of Jesus. She was a very young girl who had no relations with any man, however, she did conceive, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and she gave birth to a Son, a human Son, the Savior, Christ the Lord.
Our text tells us that the rest of His brothers will return meaning that all those who believe will be saved. We are not saved because we were born Jewish. We are not saved because of our DNA, because of our family background and family tree. We are not saved because we are members or at least have our names on the rolls of any particular church. We are saved because we are believers in Jesus. We are Jesus’ brothers and sisters by God’s grace, through faith in Him. We are the new Israel. As we have talked about in Bible class time and again, the tree of religions in the world begins with Christianity. When Jesus is born, those Israelites, those of Jewish descent, DNA, who denied Jesus as the Messiah, branched off into a new religion, today called Judaism, while the Christian Church with its roots in the promise of a Savior in the Garden of Eden, continued on with faith in the fulfillment of that promise in Jesus. The true family of God is the family of faith, the Holy Christian Church, the Communion of Saints.
The last part of our text reminds us that Jesus is our good shepherd. He is always with us, guarding, guiding and caring for us and bringing us peace. We finish the text with verse four and the first part of verse five, “4And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. 5And he shall be their peace” (v. 4-5a). Jesus, our Good Shepherd is always with us keeping us safe from all harm and danger. He cares for us like a shepherd cares for his sheep. Jesus is our Lord and King. He is in heaven ruling over us, watching over us, and interceding for us before His Father. At the same time He is right here with us. Jesus brings security, and peace on earth. Faith in Jesus gives us a peace the world cannot understand, a peace which comes only from the forgiveness of sins.
As we begin our fourth and final week in this Advent season we continue to prepare ourselves, our hearts and minds, for the coming of our Messiah, for our Christmas celebration. We continue to think about the prophecies of old. Our faith is strengthened as we see how these prophecies have been fulfilled. We continue to look forward to once again celebrating Jesus’ birth. Our love for our Lord and for each other is renewed as we reflect the love He has first given to us. And we continue to look forward in hope and certainty to His second coming, when He will come to take us to be with Himself and all the saints in heaven for eternity.
Today we are reminded once again that Advent is a time for us to respond with exceeding great joy. Advent is a time to prepare our hearts and our minds to celebrate the Christ-child born in a manger in Bethlehem, just like the prophets foretold. It is a time for the child in us to recall those days of old when we got all excited about the coming of Christmas morning, not that we merely revel in that excitement, but that we let that excitement stir in us an increase of faith, hope, and love as we see the promises of old fulfilled, as we rejoice in God’s love and as we look forward to Jesus’ second coming.
As we prepare our hearts and minds to celebrate this child that is born, that is given to us, so also we prepare our hearts and minds to understand that the reason for this child’s birth was so that He could give Himself as a sacrifice on the cross for our sins. We prepare our hearts and minds for this great wonder, God taking on human flesh, but even more we look ahead to the greater wonder of our God sacrificing Himself on the cross for our forgiveness, and still even more we look forward to our God returning to take us to heaven to be with Himself in perfect peace for eternity. We look forward, because the Lord Almighty has accomplish this, continues to accomplish this, and will accomplish all these things.
As of today there are only two more days until Christmas. Are you ready? When I ask that question certainly some of you are thinking, “are you kidding?” Some of you are thinking about all the things that you still have to get done, presents to buy, presents to wrap, candy and cookies to make, cleaning to be done, so many things and so little time. I have to tell you, the day is coming, whether you are ready or not. But are you ready? I hope that some of you are thinking, “sure, I am ready.” For the last four weeks we have been preparing ourselves. We have looked at the promises. We know of their fulfillment. And we know the Savior. We have already been given the gifts and we continue each and every Sunday to be given the gifts; faith, strengthening of faith, forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. As you exchange presents this Christmas season I pray that you will be reminded of that gift, the greatest gift of all, the gift of forgiveness, faith, life and eternal life. To God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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