The Seed Of Christmas

We often sell ourselves short when we say to each other simple clichés, like, "Jesus is the reason for the season". Now, I'm not shaming anybody who's used it because it works at this time of year. But the reality of it is, is Jesus is not the reason for the season. Jesus is the reason, period. Today we look at the Old Testament prophet Micah. Micah 5:2 is not a place you traditionally turn to for a Christmas sermon. But the reason that I've chosen it and feel led of God to speak to you from this prophet's perspective is because if you leave the Christmas story in Matthew and Luke, you do not recognize how long God was planning and preparing and moving all of the pieces of the world in order for us to receive the greatest gift that has ever been given to man, which is Jesus Christ, His Son.

The simple fact of the matter is, the Bible is about one thing. And that is God's desire to connect with you, and to connect you with Him. And the only way that He could do that is through His only begotten Son. You realize that all the way in the end of the New Testament. It connects us back to the beginning of the Old Testament, in Genesis 1:1, where it says, "God created the heavens and the earth". God being outside of time, being eternal, being in eternity past, He realized that if He created heaven, if He created Adam and Eve, if He brought mankind to this creation, that we would need a Redeemer: that we would need a Savior. That we would have to have someone to come and be our sacrifice. And knowing all of that, He did it anyway. What a mighty God we serve!

Today I give glory to God in the highest because He put a treasure in Bethlehem. Being a sovereign God, He preordained the place "Bethlehem". It's unassuming when Micah speaks of it. He says, "Though you be small among the thousands of Judah". You would think that if God was going to do something special, He would pick a more significant place. But from our perspective, His ways are not our ways. Why Bethlehem? Consider the name. English has butchered good Hebrew. "Bethlehem" is actually two words brought together. Anywhere you see "Bet," B-E-T, in the Bible, that means house. So you have Bethlehem, Bethesda, Bethany. Here, you have Bethlehem. This is "House of bread".

Now, for practical reasons it was called "The house of bread," because it was a city in the middle of wheat fields. And whenever the wheat was harvested, there was a threshing floor there. And this is where the grain was separated from the chaff, and it was ground into flour so that it could become life-giving bread. How fitting that it be called Bethlehem, the house of bread. In the natural, it made perfect sense. But in the supernatural, this is the house where God is going to bring you and I the Bread of Eternal Life. This is the place where the one Who is going to be sacrificed for us is going to begin His life. And His life is not something that is to be lived in luxury but His life is something to where He was sent into His own and they received Him not, where He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. He was chastised for our peace, and the punishment of our sin was upon Him. He was ground from the seed that was sown into the flour that could be made into the Bread of Life that gives you and I the opportunity to become sons and daughters of the Most High God.

Today, I thank God for Bethlehem, because though it was unassuming in the eyes of men, it was everything in the hand of God. And when something is in God's hands, He can use it to change your world forever. So often, I'm concerned about the treasure that God has given us, because we have forgotten the power that it has empowered us with. Today, I want you to come with me to a place of God's grace, His mercy, the house of bread in Bethlehem, and recognize that it was an appointed place. God has an appointed place to pour out His blessings in your life. Nothing happens by accident. Nothing happens by happenstance. And oftentimes, we as Bible-believing Christians filled with faith, we want to put our faith in things like irony and luck.

How many times do you hear people say, "Well, I was fortunate". You're not fortunate. You're favored. And there's a God Who has His hand of favor on you. God chose Bethlehem. Why? Because it was in the ancient city of Bethlehem where the first person, who was outside of the lineage of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, was grafted into the promises of God. We read in the Old Testament, in the book of Ruth, that a man from Bethlehem was in a famine and left Bethlehem for Moab. And there in Moab, his sons took Moabite wives, one, Ruth: and the other, Orpah. Those sons and Naomi's husband die. Naomi returns to Bethlehem. And this is where we get the Ruth statement, the loyalty oath, "Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to turn back from following after thee. For where you lodge, I will lodge. And your people shall be my people, and my God shall be your God, and where you die, I die".