“Small Beginnings”
CCCAG December 8th, 2024
Scripture: Micah 5:2 (ESV)
Last week I received an invitation from the church where Tammie and I started following Jesus. They will be celebrating their 75th anniversary as a church and invited all of the previous members to celebrate with them.
That took me down memory lane for a minute.
I received my call to the ministry in the second row, center left pew of that church.
Just a small moment in time, but it permanently changed the direction of my life.
What if I had written it off as my imagination and never pursued ministerial studies?
I’d have a very different life right now.
Another thing I thought about- what if Tammie and I had decided to stay at that church? We would never have been ordained in the Assemblies of God, and would not be standing before you today?
Those are just two small decisions that actually turned out to be major decisions that changed the course of my life.
It’s been 31 years since I started to follow Jesus, and HE Has spoken this truth to me many times-
“Don’t despise the season of small things.”
Today we are going to be talking about the place of Jesus’ birth- the small little town of Bethlehem.
There is a prophecy given about 500 years before the birth of Jesus that this tiny village would be the place of his birth, and this prophesy was given by a man named Micah.
Micah was a prophet to the southern Kingdom of Judah at the same time as Isaiah. His focus was warning the kings of that period that God was going to allow the overthrow of their nation if they didn’t repent.
While giving these warnings, Micah gave a prophecy about the birthplace of the coming Messiah- indicating that while judgement was coming, God still had plans for Israel.
The Jewish leaders really held on to this prophecy. In fact, Micah’s prophesy was well known at the time of Jesus’ birth.
Remember when the Magi came to King Herod looking for Jesus, and Herod asked the Pharisee’s were the Messiah would be born, they immediately quoted this verse from Micah.
Micah 5:2 (ESV)
"But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah (Eff Ra Tha), 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."
Prayer- small beginnings can mean big things
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Introduction
In this verse, we are reminded of two things-
God’s ability to bring greatness out of small beginnings
and His faithfulness to fulfill His promises.
God’s great at making small things huge.
Think about it- everyone here started as two cells, merging into one, that grew into 30 trillion cells.
God is not hindered by small beginnings.
This morning, we will be exploring this idea through our study of Bethlehem being chosen as the place of Jesus’ birth, and what is means for our lives today.
First we answer the question-
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I. Why Bethlehem?
The answer to that question is simple- that God keeps HIS promises.
This promise takes us back 800 years before Jesus was born, to the time of King David.
Long before David became famous for killing Goliath or became King of Israel, he was the youngest son of a shepherd named Jesse who lived in Bethlehem.
That is why Bethlehem is known as the city of David.
This is important because God made David a promise in 1 Kings 8:25 that David would always have a descendant sitting on the throne of Israel.
Jeremiah echoed and expanded on this promise in
Jer 33:14-15
"'The days are coming,' declares the Lord, 'when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.
15 "'In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David's line; he will do what is just and right in the land.
Jer 33:17-18
For this is what the Lord says: 'David will never fail to have a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel,
God further goes onto say that this WILL happen- the language used here is very emphatic.
God goes all out here saying that this Messiah will come, and HE WILL come from David’s family.
God then says that for this promise not to happen- you will need the power to make day into night, and vice versa.
God is saying, “This is how it will be because I’m God and I said so”
This is one of the reasons why those boring Genealogy’s are in the bible- to prove that God kept this promise to David-
In the Gospels, both Mary and Joseph’s lineage is recorded-
Joseph’s lineage was traced back to King David by Matthew in the Jewish tradition through Joseph’s family.
Luke was an educated Gentile and instead of using Joseph’s line, he traced Mary’s lineage back to King David.
That is why the birthplace was so important.
The second thing we see is the
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II. The Humility of Jesus being born in Bethlehem
(Micah 5:2) “who are too little to be among the clans of Judah…”
Prior to Jesus being born there, Bethlehem’s only claim to fame was being the birthplace of King David. Otherwise, it was a small, obscure, and seemingly insignificant little town. It was about 5 miles from Jerusalem.
It was like a minor suburb of a great city, but one you really didn’t even want to visit because of its strong connection with shepherds and sheep- making it a bit dirty and smelly.
Yet, God chose this humble town to be the birthplace of His Son.
We have looked at a few of the biblical reasons for Bethlehem being the place of Jesus’ birth-
I want pause for a moment and do a thought exercise:
Critics of Christianity say that the bible was just written by a series of men without any divine influence.
If that is the case, who in their right mind would pick a run-down town full of shepherds and sheep for the birthplace of their God?
Because if humans were just writing this story- Bethlehem would make no sense to host the birthplace of the Messiah.
We saw this recently- We just went through an election season, and all of the candidates, with a few exceptions, generally stayed in population centers- medium to large cities when it came to the political rally’s.
It makes sense- get the message to the most people with the least amount of time, money, and effort.
If human’s had made up this story- Jesus would have been born in Jerusalem- the largest and most important city in all of Palestine. In fact, if you were making up a religion, you wouldn’t go anywhere near Palestine to start it- it was considered the worst place on earth by the entire western world at that time.
If you were a Roman official assigned to Palestine- someone didn’t like you at all. It was generally a punishment to be sent there.
This is one of the reasons God was using Bethlehem to show
The small things + HIS will and power can accomplishes the impossible.
Bethlehem reminds us that God is not limited by human expectations.
He often chooses the weak and the lowly to display His strength and glory.
King David is a great example of this- Let’s just spend a minute looking at God choosing him to be king-
After the Exodus from Egypt, and the death of Joshua, Israel had been led by a series of Judges- men and women specially called by God during times of crisis to lead the nation.
During the time of the last Judge of Israel, the prophet Samuel, The people asked God for a king (1st Samuel 8), God doesn’t like it but relents and lets them choose a man named Saul in chapter 9.
Saul is an abysmal failure as a King. God tells Samuel to travel Bethlehem to the House of Jesse to find and anoint Israel’s future king from this family’s men.
Jesse brought out his sons, form oldest to youngest and they were shown to the prophet, but God rejected every one of them.
Every one of these men were mighty, strong, tall and imposing men- we would look at any of them and say “Yes- that person can be king”
But God does not judge as we do. 1 Sam 16:7b The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Samuel asked Jesse if he had any more sons. Jesse sent for David- the youngest, and the bible indicates the smallest of the men in his family, so much so he wasn’t even considered to be invited to this gathering.
When David entered the room, probably right from the fields, dirty, sweaty, and smelly, God immediately told Samuel- he is the one- anoint him the next king of Israel.
The reason we are looking at this is its application for our lives today-
Application
In our lives, we may feel like Bethlehem or like David
—too small,
-too old
-too young
-too insignificant,
-or too overlooked to make a difference.
But God doesn’t see what we do. God sees potential in the places and people the world often disregards.
The question for all of us today-
Have you completely ignored a calling from God because there are there areas in your life where you feel inadequate?
Is there a sin that you struggle with that you think automatically disqualifies you?
But do you still feel that tug on your heart that God has something greater for you?
If so, you are qualified.
Our Father delights in using the foolish things of this world to shame those who think they are wise.
The more you lack, the more God can shine because you will trust in HIM more than your natural giftings.
If that is you this morning, step out in obedience to God’s leading or call on your life. A calling is not limited to a full time position in a church.
God might be calling you to be the pastor of your workplace, or the elder of your shop.
You might be thinking, “I can’t do that. I’m not qualified.”
GOOD!
You can be used. God does not call the qualified HE qualifies the called. X2
He will use you to change eternal destiny’s.
I alluded to this verse at the beginning of the message
Zechariah 4:10 tells us not to despise the day of small beginnings.
Many times God is waiting for us to take a single step of obedience to His calling to release His provision and blessing into our lives.
This obedience to God’s plan for us leads us to the next truth-
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III. God’s Plan is always in motion, and will always come true
“…from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel…”
Micah prophesied that Bethlehem would be the birthplace of a ruler, one who would lead not only Israel but the whole world.
These verses are what confused both the disciples and the religious leaders about Jesus’ mission on this earth.
They were trying to view this promise through their own desires and thoughts about what God’s plan should be, but not what HE was actually doing at that time.
Jesus will indeed come into Jerusalem as an earthly king someday, but first He had to take care of humanities sin problem.
What good would it have been for Jesus to become king in 30 AD, only to have all of humanity go to hell upon their death?
It shows us the danger of trying to understand God’s plan or HIS Will for our lives through our ideas and desires.
This is why so many of us get stuck in paths that God has not called us to walk on- we allow the enemy to put just a minor detour in God’s plan for our lives, we eventually look around and find out we are completely lost.
That’s why it’s important for us to stay as close to God as possible, because we have an enemy,
and he is throwing up detours, roadblocks, and ambushes all along the path God has for us.
But God is really good at getting us where we need to go.
If you consider all that God had to do to fulfill this one promise to David-
Here are three roadblocks God had to overcome so that David’s descendant would be born in Bethlehem-
1. God has to protect David’s bloodline for almost 900 years- from 885 BC to 1 BC. People kept trying to wipe it out.
They got close- down to one small baby named Joash that was hidden from a murderous queen who did her absolute best to wipe out the bloodline of King David.
But God protected that child against all odds so that HIS promise to David would be fulfilled. That was just one incident.
The Jewish nation and people were conquered no less than 5 times by major world powers that would all attempt to dilute all of the family bloodlines so that they were all intermarried with them and therefore would be loyal to their new government.
So God sustained David’s bloodline through all of that
2. God had to find a Mary and a Joseph- two people of extreme faith and obedience, and put them together in one of the smallest towns in Palestine.
Have you ever thought about the situation they were in when Mary announced she was pregnant?
They just got married. In 1st century Jewish culture and tradition, the marriage would happen, but there would be no consummation of the marriage yet. The groom would leave his parents and build a house and livelihood for his new wife, and then come to get her to live with him. Then there was the consummation.
When The Holy Spirit came upon Mary, and Jesus was conceived- they were in the first part of that marriage- they had not come together yet.
Now Mary’s pregnant, and although they were married it would have been a major stain on both of their reputations to not have followed tradition. God needed a woman with enough faith to believe, and a man with enough faith to believe the wildest story ever told.
More about this next week-
3. God has to get them from Northern Israel to Southern Israel, all while Mary is very pregnant
This was one of the most dangerous roads of that time. They probably would have stayed with a group of people to protect them from bandits and thieves along the way, but they also had to cross a large river twice as there wasn’t a road on the west side of the Jordan.
That and the western shore was Samaria, and no good Jew enters Samaria.
So God had to move on the ruler of the known world at the time, Caesar Augustus, to declare that everyone had to return to the town of their ancestry to be counted in a census and pay a tax.
Those are just three things that God had to do to make HIS word come true.
What that tells us- We can trust HIM.
God’s promises are yes and amen. God said it, that means HE WILL do it.
I’ve used this quote in the past, but it’s one of my favorites from Oswald Chambers that says-
(Pharaphrasing) When you are in obedience to God, HE will strip the resources from furthest galaxies in this universe to supply your need according to HIS will for your life.
What an incredible God we serve.
All Rise
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What God is showing us this morning is that HE works through the “Bethlehems” of the world—those small, overlooked places and people—to bring about His purposes.
The question for us this morning- Will you allow Him to work through you?
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, thank You for Your faithfulness and the gift of Your Son, Jesus. Help us to trust in Your plans, even when we feel small or insignificant. Use us, like Bethlehem, to display Your glory to the world. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
