The Ruler from Bethlehem

Jacob's chosen a text from Micah, a prophecy about Christmas, no less about Bethlehem, written some six hundred years before Jesus was even born. And thereafter, we go to the book of Matthew, and we hear how Matthew treats that same prophecy. So first of all, Micah, and the reading is from chapter five. Micah chapter five, verse one. If you need to look it up, please do so.

You'll see it on the screen behind me. 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 labour 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. So far from the book of Micah. We turn now to Matthew. Matthew chapter two, just the verses one through to six.

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men came from the East to Jerusalem saying, "Where is He who's been born king of the Jews? For we saw His star when it rose and have come to worship Him." When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. And they told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet, and you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel."

Thanks, Tony. Yeah. As Tony mentioned, even over these next few weeks as we look forward to Christmas with a sense of anticipation, it's good for us to be reminded that that same sense of anticipation existed among God's people for centuries before the coming of Jesus Christ and was built into these prophecies that we read in places like Micah chapter five. And what a blessing it is to live on the other side of the fulfilment of those prophecies. How about I pray briefly before we get into those words together? Lord God and heavenly Father, we thank You so much that You are a God who can be trusted because You have made promises and predictions and prophecies.

And Lord, we live in the days where we see those things fulfilled in and through Your Son, Jesus. Please give us the eyes of faith this morning to see Him as our good shepherd and king. We pray it in His name. Amen. Well, human beings, we're pretty funny, fickle people, aren't we?

We're complex. At one level, we really desire autonomy. We really balk at the idea of having someone tell us what to do and tell us how to live our lives. But at another level, something that seems to be pretty hardwired into us is a desire for good governance, good leadership. At a societal level, we kind of want to see the right people in charge, and we want to see them doing a good job of running the place, governing in a way that is fair and just and good for everyone.

We get angry and upset and confused when we see our governments doing a lousy job, and depending on who you ask, they always seem to be doing a lousy job. And so we long for good governance. For someone to kind of come in and take charge and fix things up and lead us in a more positive direction. That's true at a kind of societal level. I think it's also true at an individual level at some point.

Do you ever feel the need for someone to just kind of come into your life and take care of you and show you what to do, tell you which direction to go? I think we all crave that at various points, particularly when things get hard or complex or confusing. We want, and in fact we need, someone to lead us through that. As individuals, as a society, we want good leadership, rulers ruling in a way that is fair and just and good. The passage in Micah that we just read was written to a group of people who, as well as us, were desperately in need of good leadership.

And the words we read contained a promise that one day they were gonna get it. A ruler was gonna rise up and rule well, but he was gonna come from an unexpected place and use his power in surprising ways. And of course, we do live on the other side of that promise. That ruler has come to us in the person of Jesus, born at the very first Christmas. And so this morning's message is gonna be really simple.

We're gonna think together about our need for a good ruler. And second, we're gonna see who that ruler is and the kind of ruler that He is. First, our need for a good ruler. There is a sense in which we face a similar situation to the people who Micah was written to. Micah was a prophet who lived in the years around 750 to 700.

The ten northern and two southern tribes of Israel had long since split into two kingdoms. And Micah, he lived in the Southern Kingdom in a little town called Moresheth, but his prophecy was particularly aimed at the capital cities of Samaria in the North and Jerusalem in the South. Micah spoke at a time when these cities in particular enjoyed a fair degree of material prosperity and success, but it was covering up political and moral and religious corruption. So even though on the surface things might have seemed like they were going okay, under the surface there were some serious cracks and they were starting to show. At a political level, there was jostling for power.

Particularly in the North, there was a series of coups and assassinations. No king that came to the throne was able to just kind of get on with the job of governing the country because he was too busy looking over his shoulder and waiting for the next person trying to take him out. Really, if you read the history of those kings of ancient Israel, particularly in the North, it was a basket case. At a societal level, injustice was rife. Rich people were exploiting poor people.

There was very, very little care or concern for people who were poor or disadvantaged or marginalised. And even the religious leaders of the day were corrupt. They were doing things like taking bribes. The prophets weren't speaking God's truth, were just telling people what they wanted to hear. And so while things might have looked okay on the surface, underneath things were very, very rotten.

And Micah speaks into this situation and he warns the people, unless you change, unless you turn things around, God is gonna judge you for the direction you're heading in. He's gonna raise up a neighbouring country, Assyria, to come and conquer and take over Israel. In those quite well known words of Micah 6:8, let's see if we can get them. Not sure. But you may know these words.

Micah tells the people what God requires of them. What does God require of you, O man? That you would do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with your God. But it seems like across the board, instead of justice, there was injustice and inequality. Instead of kindness, there was violence and oppression.

And instead of humility before the Lord, there was a sense of pride and arrogance, particularly from those people who were in charge. And so we see in the first part of chapter five that the nation comes under siege. They haven't heeded the words of Micah and they're suffering the consequences. We read there, muster your troops, O daughter of troops, siege is laid against us. The Assyrians have arrived.

With a rod, they strike the judge of Israel. Things seemed like they were in disarray. These people desperately needed someone to come in and take charge and fix things up. And I wonder if that sounds familiar to you. Do you ever kind of look at the world around us, look at society and get the feeling that we're not tracking so well?

It's hard to put your finger on exactly what's going wrong, but there seems to be a sense that we're really not doing okay. And maybe it's just how things appear. Maybe it's the way the word crisis gets thrown around so often. Every two weeks, we seem to be in some other kind of crisis, whether it's a cost of living crisis or a climate crisis or a health system crisis. It could be that the problems we face today seem worse than the problems of the past because we just hear about them all the time.

We have a twenty-four hour news cycle. We can, at any given time, pick up our phones and be plugged in to all the problems that are happening around the world. So maybe things aren't really that bad. They just seem like they're bad. But it could be more than that as well.

It genuinely does seem like as a society, we're not going so well on a number of fronts. There seems to be a growing sense of unrest among us. So just take one example, an issue like trust and social cohesion. There does seem to be a growing distrust and division between people. You only have to look at the symptom of the amount of houses around these days that have security cameras attached to them or cars with dashcams.

Now, maybe that's just because technology's improved and we've got better access, but maybe it's because at a deeper level, there is a growing distrust between people. But you could argue that there's good reason for that. Homes get broken into, hit and runs happen, you can't rely on people to do the right thing. That's one symptom. Another symptom is that perhaps there seems to be a growing distrust of politicians and people in power.

There's this growing mood of cynicism. But there's arguably good reason for that as well. Sometimes our politicians blatantly lie to us, or they make promises that they can't keep, or they just seem incapable of solving some of the major problems that our society faces. And all of that tends to erode trust. Major corporations and institutions, even including the church, have been exposed for gross abuses of power and cover ups, and that erodes trust.

And alongside the erosion of trust, we're also seeing that people are becoming increasingly disconnected from each other. The rate of people who report loneliness and social isolation is on the rise. You probably heard that in the UK, they established a minister for loneliness, a government minister for loneliness in 2018. There are so many people who are not plugged into any kind of meaningful community at all. The rates of volunteerism and community participation are way down.

There seems to be a growing distrust and disconnection and division in society. I wonder if you feel that. This is just one issue. You could point to others, whether it's the rates of anxiety or the prevalence of family violence or the falling academic standards of kids in schools, rising wealth inequality. It seems to be that on a number of fronts, we're not going so well.

And people are worried about where it's all going to end up. We could really do with some good leadership. That's true at a social level. What about an individual level? Again, I ask you the question, do you ever feel the need for someone to just kind of come into your life and take good care of you and show you what to do and lead you in the right direction?

How often in life do you feel confused or lack direction and don't really know what to do? How often have you tried to do things a certain way, if you're like me, and it blows up in your face? How often do you feel powerless to solve the issues in your own life or the lives of people you love? Thing is, you get told over and over and over and over again in movies and songs and everything you hear that the answers are found inside of yourself. But the problem is the same self that's supposed to have all the answers is the same self that gets it wrong so much of the time.

The same self that feels confused and disheartened and directionless. As an individual self, do you ever feel the need for someone to just come along and sort things out for you? I know I do. We need a good ruler. Just like those people living all those years ago in Judah needed a good ruler, so do we.

And a good ruler is exactly what was promised to them. Let's look at the identity of that ruler now. We learn from Micah 5:2 that this ruler is gonna come from unexpected humble origins. The promise goes, 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 old, from ancient of days. Bethlehem was a little town that was about eight kilometres southwest of Jerusalem.

The capital in the South. It was a place that was so small and insignificant that it was barely even on the map, and yet it was the birthplace of the most significant and influential ruler in human history. And these words tell us that this was God's plan from of old, from ancient days. Right throughout the Bible, we see that God just has this way of using people and places that seem small and insignificant and weak to accomplish His purposes. And we see the ultimate example of that in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Born in this tiny little town of Bethlehem to desperately poor parents, not in a palace or even a motel or even a hospital, but in a place for animals. But of course, we know He wasn't just a baby born into humble circumstances. This passage tells us that He was an all powerful ruler and so we must not miss the identity of Jesus. He's more than just a historical figure. He's more than just a good teacher.

He's more than just a prophet. He's a ruler. He's a king. Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king. There's a reason that wise men came from a far country to worship Him when He was born.

There's a reason why a host of angels appeared to give praise to God. A reason why we're told in the next verse of Micah five that Jesus shall be great to the ends of the earth. The reason we're even talking about Jesus today, two thousand years beyond the events of that first Christmas on the other side of the world to Bethlehem where He was born, is because of the true significance of who He is. Not just any old baby, but the king of the world, a ruler. Which raises the question, what kind of ruler is He?

We find that out next in verses four and five. We read there that this ruler promised 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. We see the strength of Jesus in these verses. We see His power and His authority in these verses.

We see the way He takes care of His people and makes it so that they dwell secure. There's a lot in these few words, but I just want you to notice with me that Jesus is referred to as a shepherd ruler. Someone who will stand and shepherd His flock. What do shepherds do? They care for their flock, putting them in pastures where they have food and water. Shepherds lead their flock, guiding them in the right direction where they need to go.

Shepherds in ancient days, they knew their sheep individually. They were able to recognise them from a long way off and see them. They knew the ones who were weak or sick and they knew how to nurture them back to health or strength. Shepherds gather their flocks together. They bring in the ones who are lost and they help the ones who stumble.

Shepherds keep their flocks secure. They give them shelter and boundaries to stay safe. They protect their flocks from predators. How wonderful it is then that later in His life Jesus spoke these words. In John chapter ten, He says, "I am the good shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep."

Jesus is that shepherd ruler who humbly laid down His life for everyone who belongs to Him. He is a king who went to a cross to die the death that we deserve for our sin and rejection of God. Jesus is a good shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep. He also says, "I know my sheep and I call them by name." Jesus knows you personally.

He's not a far off, distant, impersonal kind of a ruler. No. He's a ruler who knows you intimately inside and out, warts and all. Those very worst parts of yourself that you would be horrified for anyone to see, you don't have to hide them from Jesus. He sees you all the way to the bottom and He loves you all the same.

He loves you in spite of the person that you can sometimes be. He loves you in spite of all the times that you get it wrong. Jesus sees all of that and yet He loves you all the same. He also says in John chapter ten, "I lead my sheep and go out before them and they hear my voice." Here's the thing about Jesus, He loves you as you are, but He doesn't leave you as you are.

He leads you in the direction that you need to go. He's the kind of ruler who's wise enough to teach you what to believe and show you how to live. He's a ruler who is strong enough to carry your burdens and help you along the way. He's a ruler who is kind enough to pick you up when you stumble. He's a ruler who is powerful enough to change you from the inside out, to pick up the pieces of your messy broken life and put things back together again.

And so I wonder, do you hear His voice? And are you following Him? That longing that we can sometimes have for someone to come in and take care of us and put us back together and show us the way to go, if you feel like that sometimes, then know that that longing is ultimately met in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's part of the reason why the start of verse five in Micah chapter five says that He Himself will be our peace. What does it mean that Jesus is our peace?

It's an interesting question. Again, we see the hint in the Christmas carol. Peace on earth and mercy mild. God and sinners reconciled. Jesus is our peace in the sense that it's through His death on the cross that we can be reconciled to God and have peace with God again.

And that is the peace that matters most, but it's also a peace that brings peace to other areas of our life. As we learn to live under the rule of King Jesus who laid down His life for us, we learn that the way He wants to lead us is a way of genuine peace, personal flourishing. Not meaning that everything in your life will be rosy from that point forward, but just knowing that walking closely with God, walking according to His ways, knowing Him, knowing His loving care over your life, that is a life of flourishing. Peace in relationships. Living according to how Jesus wants us to live where we don't only look to our own interests but the interests of others, where we take on His same humility, where we forgive one another as God has forgiven us through Christ, where we know the fruit of the Spirit of humility and gentleness and kindness that leads to peace in relationships, peace between people. You might even say peace in society, but only as we are willing to live under His rule and do things His way.

Recently, I was reading about a revival that took place in the country of Wales in the year 1904. It's estimated that out of a population of 2,000,000 people in Wales at the time, about 100,000 people became Christians in the space of about six to twelve months. A wave of people who recognised Jesus as the good ruler and submitted their life to Him. They trusted Him as the good shepherd who laid down His life for them. And as they did that, society itself changed.

Here's one historian's description of what happened. He writes, "During the time of revival, the police were left with virtually nothing to do and the courts were empty. Saloons and bars shut down for lack of business. Public drunkenness was almost nonexistent. Old debts, many long forgotten, were paid off in full.

Travelling theatrical agencies cancelled their engagements. Everyone was in church. Profanity disappeared. It was said that horses everywhere were in complete confusion. They had become accustomed to responding to their master's profane shouts and kicks and cursing, virtually all of which had disappeared.

Relationships were healed and marriages restored." This is the kind of impact that a good ruler has in the lives of individuals and even in the life of society. Peace and flourishing, that's what a good ruler can do, and that good ruler's name is Jesus. Do you recognise Him as the king of your life? And do you gladly live under His rule? Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, we again want to thank You so much for Your loving rule in our lives. We thank You so much that You would use Your power and authority to accomplish our salvation, to lay down Your life for us. And as we come to You in faith, that You would get to work in us by Your Spirit to shape us and change us and mould us into the people that You would have us to be. Please help us to trust You more and more deeply. Even as we lead up to the Christmas season and think about Your birth in humble circumstances, let us never lose sight of the fact that You are also our king.

And Lord, help us to live according to Your ways, to follow where You lead, and to receive from You great blessing and great peace. We pray it all in Your mighty name. Amen.