Sermon Transcript
Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops! Siege is laid against us; with a rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek. But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God; and they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth, and he shall be their peace.
Oh, little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by. Yet in the dark streets shineth the everlasting light. The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray.
Cast out our sin and enter in. Be born in us today. We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell. O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel. Those are familiar lyrics for many of us about the ancient city Bethlehem that still exists today, of course.
It’s a tune that any child can learn, but it contains a bottomless depth of theology regarding who was born in that city and why he is so significant. We are continuing our Christmas prophecy series looking at what the Old Testament foretells about Jesus. Now, if you are new to the Bible, you may not know that long before, long before Jesus ever arrived on the scene, he was described in detail through numerous prophecies. In centuries, um, and in some, some cases millennia before he was born, prophets spoke about him, saying exactly who he would be, why he was coming and what he would do. Which means Jesus is the fulfillment of a long train of hopes, beliefs, promises, visions.
You know, another song that we sing around Christmas, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus. And he was long expected. The Bible, really from its opening pages, prepares us for the arrival of Jesus. And today we’re looking at this fairly well-known prophecy regarding where Jesus would be born, the little, very little city of Bethlehem. And as we study this passage, we will see the baby born in Bethlehem is actually without beginning.
But secondly, He does arrive in history at a particular moment in Bethlehem. So then we will look at why Bethlehem. And then finally, we will see the scope or reach that he will eventually have, this baby that’s born. So the baby is without beginning, but he does arrive in history in Bethlehem Why Bethlehem? And then lastly, how far his rule will reach.
Okay, so first, the baby is without beginning. He is from ancient of days, uh, from verse 2. His coming forth is from ancient of days. Another way to say ancient of days is that he has always been. He is the ancient one.
From eras of old, he existed. In other words, there is not a time in which he wasn’t, which is quite the claim. It’s saying he is eternal. It’s equivalent to saying that Jesus is divine. But those are the same claims that Jesus made about himself during his earthly ministry.
So, for instance, John 8:58, Jesus said to the religious leaders. He says, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. Who’s telling people that he has existed before Abraham existed, even though Abraham lived about 2,000 years before Jesus was born. Jesus says, I was here first. I preceded Abraham 2,000 years ago.
I already existed. I am from ancient of days. Now, how did the religious leaders respond to that claim? Well, it’s the next verse in John. They picked up stones to throw at him.
That’s how they responded. But Jesus hid himself and went out from the temple. They were scandalized. They did not receive Jesus’ divine claim with affection. And that is not the only time that Jesus said something like that.
John 17:5, Jesus prays. It’s the night before his crucifixion. Crucifixion, he’s praying and he says, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. So now Jesus is claiming to be older than the world. Not only does he believe he is older than Abraham, he believes he was around for the foundations of the earth.
One of Jesus’ biographers says it this way, John 1:1-3, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Later on in John 1, John explains the Word is Jesus. So Jesus was with God in the beginning. Through him, through Jesus, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made.
So, not only is Jesus the creator of everything that was created, it’s he himself is uncreated. He has always been. That’s who Jesus said he was. Those kind of claims scandalized many people of his day, as I’m sure they still do today. Because it’s easy for us to believe, for some of us to believe, you know, Jesus is a good teacher.
It’s easy to believe. He had some nice things to say. It’s more difficult to believe that Jesus is the eternal origin story of the universe, and now he has come to earth. That’s harder to believe. But Jesus really won’t let us separate the two.
He won’t let us separate his moral teachings from who he understood himself to be. He, throughout his ministry, he pushed people to choose. You know, the people of his day, some of them liked his teaching, they liked his miracles, and then he would press ’em, force them. You either accept me for who I say I am or you reject me. He wouldn’t let people, you know, be comfortable with the idea of you’re a good moral teacher, and that’s it.
He made them deal with the fact that he is God because he kept saying it, which is hard for some of us, makes some of us uncomfortable. But however hard of a time we might have embracing him for who he said he was, first-century Jewish people had an even harder time. Because they believed, you know, God lives in the heavens. He lives in inapproachable light. God says to various people in the Old Testament, if you see me, you will die.
So they certainly didn’t think he would come to earth as a man. He’s much too big for that, right? The earth couldn’t contain him. It’s like, it’s like if the surface of the sun came to the earth, the earth would explode. It’s impossible for that to happen, they thought.
You know, in the Old Testament, Solomon, when he completed the building of the temple, he has this dedication ceremony for God’s house, essentially. And Solomon makes a speech and he says, this is 1 Kings chapter 8, Solomon says, after he builds the temple, will God really dwell on earth? Is that possible? The heavens, even the highest heavens cannot contain you, God. How much less this temple that I have built?
And if God can’t fit fit into a temple, especially the magnificent Solomon Temple, how, how much less could he dwell as a person on earth?
So the people of Jesus’ day really struggled with his claims, especially Jewish people.
But frankly, they should have seen it coming because it’s all over the Old Testament. We’ve said this most weeks in our Christmas prophecy series. The Old Testament, not just Jesus’ claims, the Old Testament before Jesus was born, the Old Testament leaves no doubt that the Savior, the Messiah, would be God himself. Calls him Emmanuel, meaning God with us. God is here.
And we see it again here in our Bethlehem text. Right? From you, Bethlehem, shall come forth one who is to be a ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from old, from ancient of days. He has always been. He had no beginning.
He was never created. He was one with the Father before the creation of the world, and he made all that is made. The only thing he didn’t make is himself who is unmade. That’s who was born in Bethlehem from Ancient of Days. But he was also born at a particular moment in history.
He did come forth as it says in verse 2. He did arrive at a certain point. In the baby’s arrival was at exactly the right time in exactly the right place. This is verse 3, he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth. In other words, the moment when Jesus came into the world was not an accident, and the place he came into the world was not an accident.
It was preordained. When the time was right, she who was in labor would give birth and he would come. So it was planned and it was always going to be Bethlehem. It was always going to be Bethlehem for Mary and Jesus. But if you read the account of Jesus’ birth in the New Testament, it certainly would not have felt preordained or planned by the people involved in the story.
You know, Mary, Jesus’ mother, she’s pregnant. She’s married to Joseph. They didn’t live in Bethlehem. So when she started labor, it’s not like they just went down to the maternity ward at Bethlehem General. They lived in Nazareth, for crying out loud, which is about 80-ish miles away from Bethlehem.
So how do you end up in Bethlehem if you’re Mary and Joseph? Well, Mary, when she was late in their— when her pregnancy, uh, her and Joseph chose to travel to Bethlehem, which would have either been by walking or riding on a donkey. I know that’s in all the nativity scenes. It’s not actually in scripture. Maybe they rode a donkey.
Hopefully they did, so Mary, super pregnant, didn’t have to walk. But regardless of whether you’re walking or riding a donkey, Neither one of those are great if you’re 9 months pregnant-ish. I mean, so I hear. It’s what I’ve been told. It’s not what you want to do when you’re 7, 8, 9 months pregnant.
A donkey would have been uncomfortable. Walking 80 miles, even more unbearable. It had taken them a week to get there. So why would they do that? Why make that difficult journey to Bethlehem?
Well, Luke tells us. It was an order to register for the census that the Roman government was making everybody register for. Rome wanted to count how many people were in the empire, so Rome ordered a census, Caesar Augustus, and everyone needed to go register. But here’s, here’s a little interesting side quest. Uh, Rome would have been perfectly happy for Joseph and Mary to register in Nazareth.
Rome wouldn’t have made them travel to Bethlehem to register. I mean, as far as Rome was concerned, they could have stayed where they were because either way they’re still in the empire, so who cares if they’re counted in Nazareth or Bethlehem? But Joseph and Mary, for them, Bethlehem was their ancestral town. It was their heritage. And for Jewish people, being counted among your people That was a significant deal.
So, it wouldn’t have mattered to Rome, but it absolutely mattered to Joseph and Mary where they were registered. So, off they went to Bethlehem, either walking or on a donkey, traveling for about a week, which was not what they were planning to do when Mary was late in her pregnancy. Traveling 80 miles was not in her birth plan. There’s no indication that they knew anything about the census before they decided to leave. I’ll venture to say if they had known about the census, let’s say months before, then they would have traveled to Bethlehem months before.
They wouldn’t have waited till she’s about to pop and then go, right? So going to Bethlehem at this kind of last hour was just thrust It was not really their choice. Certainly wouldn’t have been their preference. And I just, it probably, ’cause many of us have been there, right? When either us or our wives are late in pregnancy.
I’m guessing that created some discussion between Joseph and Mary. Like, do we really need to go? Can’t we just register in Nazareth? Rome’s fine with that. It would be so much easier for us to stay.
Of course they worked through that together. I mean, I’ll confess, if when Beth, my wife, was 7, 8, 9 months pregnant, if I had said to her, hey dear, we’re gonna go on a week-long walk And then we’re going to try to find some place to stay. We don’t know anybody up there. I’m sure somebody will take us in. We’ll just do our best.
I’m just kidding. There would have been some discussion, right? She might have said, Dan, you can take a week-long walk, right? And then keep going, right? Uh, and then if somehow we ended up making that journey together we probably would have complained about the government the whole way.
Like griping about Caesar Augustus. Like, who does he think he is counting all the people? We aren’t his. We don’t belong to Caesar. He shouldn’t count us, making us walk all this way.
I don’t know if that’s how it went for Joseph or Mary or not.
But what we can be pretty sure about is they didn’t— they would not have felt like they were part of some special prophecy. It’s not as if when the census was ordered they were like, oh, wonderful, all the stars are aligning for us, we’re part of a grand plan, you know. And now that I think about it, I remember the Savior’s supposed to be born in Bethlehem. That’s great. I wondered why we would be down there when we haven’t made any plans to be down there.
This is awesome. God worked this out for us. It did not feel that way.
Again, if they had been trying to orchestrate Jesus being born in Bethlehem, they would have gone earlier. They wouldn’t have waited so long into her pregnancy.
You know how God’s plan felt for them? Chaotic.
Painful. Like, this can’t possibly be the plan. Like, this is all wrong. This is not the way I wanted my pregnancy to go. That’s how they would have felt.
But nothing was wrong. This was exactly how it was meant to be, foretold probably 700 years when Micah writes, before Jesus was born. They were right on schedule, apparently unbeknownst to them. But that is often, if not always, how God’s plan is fulfilled. God’s plan happens to us.
It comes upon us much more so than us sorting out what it is and then making it happen ourselves. It’s like the circumstances are out of our control. That’s usually typically how God’s plan unfolds. There’s many instances of that throughout scripture. My favorite one is if you remember Joseph in the Old Testament, not Mary’s husband, the other Joseph.
Joseph, the son of Jacob, he had 11 brothers. Joseph, if you’re into musicals, it’s Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. Have you seen that? Joseph would have never chosen the plan God laid out for his life. If you’re unfamiliar with Joseph’s story, God shows Joseph this vision.
He’s about 17 years old, and Joseph has a vision from God. And the vision is that one day Joseph will not only rule over his 11 brothers, he will also rule over the whole country. And as a teenager, just imagine being told that when you’re 17 years old. Joseph probably thought, oh, this is fantastic. This is wonderful.
I’m going to rule everything. I’m going to become the prime minister. Of the whole region. What a great plan God has for my life. I guess— how’s that going to end up happening?
Well, I guess probably first I’ll go get a fancy education, and then I’ll increase my flocks and herds, and after that I’ll gain more and more respect from all the movers and shakers around me until everyone sees how important I am to the grand plan of the universe, and then all of them will collectively decide that I should be in charge in charge to, you know, many cheers and much fanfare. Like they’ll roll out a red carpet for me. They’ll give me a throne. If I’m going to become ruler, that’s got to be the plan.
That would be the plan if Joseph tried to make himself the penultimate authority in the region. That’s probably the schedule he would have laid out for his own life because that plan makes sense.
But that was not God’s plan. That was not how God was going to fulfill the prophecy that he gave Joseph. Instead, God’s plan included Joseph’s brothers selling Joseph into slavery, then for Joseph to be falsely accused by his slave owner, go to prison, and then in prison be forgotten about for years. He’s rotting in the dungeon until the time had fully come, until everything was in place that he would have had no way of orchestrating himself, but it was orchestrated for him so he could step out of that prison and into the role of prime minister.
That was God’s plan.
Joseph never would have guessed it. He could have never made that plan happen on his own. It felt chaotic, in some instances painful, I’m sure, but that’s how God was going to do it. It’s the same thing with Jesus being born in Bethlehem. His parents never would have chosen those events.
The census, the timing of it. I mean, just think if the census requirement had been a little earlier, 4 months earlier, They could have gone and gotten back from Bethlehem before she went into labor. And if the census was a little bit later, then she would have had Jesus in Nazareth before they ever went down to Bethlehem. But none of that’s when the census was. The census was at the exact time it was supposed to be to get them to Bethlehem.
Because that’s where Jesus was to be born, foretold 700 years beforehand, which is a great reminder to us, right? Whenever our lives feel chaotic or out of place, when we feel like this couldn’t possibly be the plan, it is the plan.
God is working in whatever circumstances we find ourselves that do not seem planned at all. He is working in those to fulfill what he has for you, what he has for the world. You know, even if you’re 8 months pregnant and you suddenly need to drive across the country contrary to your OB’s advice, God’s got you. It’s part of your story.
Whatever you’re facing right now, I can’t tell you what the specific outcome will be, but I do know this: God is not frantically trying to figure out how to fit whatever is happening with you into his plan for you. He was not surprised by your circumstances. He wrote your story actually long before 700 years ago. He wrote it in preexistent eternity. Psalm 139:16, all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
He’s got a plan. That random difficulty that’s stressing you out right now, it’s not actually random. It is part of your story. It was always going to be part of your story.
Jesus was born right on time in the right place. Now, why Bethlehem? Why is Bethlehem the right place? Other than just God said it was going to be Bethlehem, why Bethlehem? Because Bethlehem is the least of all clans.
Micah hints at this reason by saying, it’s verse 2, but you, O Bethlehem, who are, you know, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel. Okay, so in other words, God chose the little one. The out-of-the-way one, the one no one would expect him to choose, the least of these, that’s who God chooses. We’ll talk about why God chooses the least of these in a minute because the New Testament explicitly says why God does that. But first, God choosing the smallest, the weakest, the most unqualified is— that’s a consistent pattern through Scripture.
Like, why did God choose Abraham?
Abraham’s just some guy. He wasn’t a prince. He didn’t have extraordinary influence. Same with why did God choose Jacob and not Esau, his brother? Jacob was the younger brother, and the common practice in the ancient world was primogeniture, you know, preference for the older son.
But God, in defiance of that, chooses the younger. He overturns their assumptions about who should be at the head of the line. And then after that, I mean, God chooses Israel, the nation, or he continues his choice of Israel. Even when they become a nation of slaves and they have nothing, God chooses them again. Why?
I mean, if God’s goal was to influence the entire world, why hitch his wagon to a group of people, to the least powerful group of people that you could possibly find. Why slaves? Why not the powerful? Why not the mighty? I mean, why not use Pharaoh in Egypt?
If you’re going to pick somebody, pick the one with influence. Why not Genghis Khan? Why not the Tang Dynasty? Why not the U.S.?
Why not use any of those strong nations.
But God doesn’t do that. He chooses the nobody with nothing, and then they get established as a nation.
And after they get established, their greatest king, of course, is David. But David was the younger son. Apparently, it seems like he’s the runt of the litter of all his brothers. David’s dad didn’t seem to think David would amount to anything because Samuel comes to visit. Samuel says, I’m here to choose one of your sons.
And dad doesn’t even remember that he has David as a son. He’s like, it couldn’t possibly be him. It’s got to be one of the other ones.
But God says through Samuel, no. I want David.
He always chooses the unexpected one, the weakest one. So, when the Savior comes into the world, of course, He comes to the smallest tribe that doesn’t even count as a tribe, right? Obviously, that’s on brand for God. That’s what He does. It’s consistent.
Okay, but why does he do that? Why does he choose those ones among us? New Testament says explicitly, Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 1 starting in verse 26, for consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many of you were powerful, not many of you were noble birth, but God chose what is lowly and despised in the world, even the things that are not. We’re like, yes, we see that in Scripture, but like, why is that?
Why would he do that? Why would he choose the things that are not? To bring to nothing the things that are so that no human being may boast in the presence of God. God chooses the weak so that when— so when it happens through them, none of them can claim the credit. No one can say, look at what I’ve done!
Aren’t I the greatest? Everyone come bow at my feet and celebrate how amazing I am for what I’ve achieved!
God chooses people who could never possibly say that. God works through people and nations who have zero strength of their own. So that when they do succeed, everyone knows the only way that, that it could have happened is if God did it through them. Like, so for instance, choosing the nation of Israel, this nation of slaves. God liberates this nation of slaves out of Egypt.
After that happened, no one was under the impression that Israel did that themselves. Like, how could a nation of slaves— they own nothing, they’ve really never been in a battle, they’ve, you know, been slaves for all these centuries— like, how could they outwit the most powerful army on earth at the time? How could slaves do that? They couldn’t. But it happened.
And therefore, everyone knew the only way Israel could ever get out of Egypt is if God did it. And everyone at the time knew that. Everyone did. And that’s the point. If you read through the Old Testament, there’s these instances where, you know, other nations fear Israel.
It’s after Israel gets out of Egyptian slavery. They fear Israel, not because Israel was mighty, but because of what God had done for Israel. Joshua 2, for instance, you know, they’re entering into the Promised Land, they’re outside of Jericho. Rahab, who lived there, she said to some of their representatives, I know the Lord has given you the land and that the fear of you has fallen upon us. Okay, so why, Rahab?
Why do your people fear Israel? Well, she explains, we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you. When you came out of Egypt. Rahab knew, her people knew, everyone knew. The only way Egypt— or Israel got out of Egypt is if God did it for them.
It took miracles. So therefore, everyone revered God. You know, conversely, think about it the other way. What if a powerful nation defeated Egypt? What if that had been the story?
Then everyone would think, well, I guess that powerful nation somehow pulled it off. I mean, maybe God helped, maybe he didn’t, who knows? But when little Israel, slaves, defeat Egypt, everyone understands it had to have been God. That’s why God chooses the lowly, the weak, the foolish, the least of these. That’s why God chose Bethlehem.
A ruler is going to come out of Bethlehem?
Yes. And when he does, there will be no doubt that the hand of God is upon him because no one could possibly rise up out of there unless it was God working in him. Which again is good for us to keep in mind. When God calls us, if God calls you to step into something that feels too big for you, maybe it feels like you’re out of your depth, like you can’t possibly do it on your own, If God calls you into a spot like that, you are poised for him to do something through you that you can’t imagine. You’re about to have the best time of your life.
You know, escaping through the waters of the Red Sea kind of time. God’s going to work in a way that is beyond you. A friend of mine always prays that he wants to see something big. He wants to be part of something big. He wants to see the miraculous.
He’s tired of seeing the normal. He’s unimpressed by what can be accomplished by humans. He wants to see something that never could have happened unless God did it. And we probably all want to see that. But if that ever happens, you know, to the extent that we get to experience something like that, we will feel very small.
‘Cause it’ll be so much bigger than us. We’ll feel very small, but it’ll be a good small. You know, like standing under a sky full of stars kind of small. We’re so insignificant versus this gigantic backdrop. But those are some of the best moments of our lives, right?
We forget about ourselves. We get lost in what’s bigger than us. We know we had absolutely nothing to do with it. If we praise anything, we’ll praise God.
That’s why God chooses the small, so that we would not boast in ourselves when it happens. We’ll boast in him. We’ll thank him. Bethlehem is chosen because it’s the least of these. Okay, now finally, this ruler who has always been, but also comes forth in Bethlehem, is ancient and new.
What is the scope of his rule? It’s to the ends of the earth. He will eventually rule everything. Verse 4, he will 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. He will rule the entire world, all of it.
Every knee will bow to Jesus.
Did you know that no one has ever ruled the entire world in the history of the world? No one has ever pulled it off. I mean, even though it’s the ambition of many, It’s the plot of every James Bond movie. It’s why we fought some world wars. People have certainly tried, but no one has ever done it.
No one has ever ruled from where east meets west, north meets south. Hasn’t happened. But this ruler, the one born in Bethlehem, will rule the entire world. And the New Testament again It tells us why or how he would achieve this global rule. It’s not just because Jesus is God.
That’s not the reason we’re given, although he could play that card. I mean, Jesus could power up, and if he did, no one would have a chance. It would be over. But that’s not how he achieves it. Instead, it’s Philippians 2.
Christ Jesus, who though he was in form God, so he is God, he did not count equality with God to be a thing to be grasped. He didn’t play the God card to rule. So what did he do instead? He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Therefore, this is why he rules.
God has exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. It is because he humbled himself that he was exalted. It is because he humbled himself, continuing in verse 10, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So, why does everyone bow? Because Jesus made Himself a servant.
He made Himself the ultimate servant to the point of death in your place. Why does He have the highest name? Because He went to the lowest. He didn’t dominate people. He died for people.
Therefore, it says, He is exalted. He is unlike anyone else who has ever attempted to rule the world. Jesus wins because he lost. He rules because he emptied himself completely. He died for you that you may live, in your place for your sin so you could be counted with his righteousness.
And when that clicks for you, you will commit yourself to him. You will bow to him. If you see he has given you everything, you will give him everything. That’s how he wins.
The one born in Bethlehem without beginning gave up all he had that you might have life and have it to the full. And therefore, therefore, we bow and surrender to him.
Let’s pray. Father, we do thank you for Jesus, that he is unlike any other ruler who tried to influence the world. He’s utterly singular, giving up all that he had for us, Lord.
May we surrender to him. May we live our lives for Him.
It’s in His name we pray and give thanks. Amen.
