Past, Present, Future

Well, good morning, beautiful people.

And as always, it is an absolute blessing to be together.

Let's pray.

God, I thank you for this opportunity that you have given me to share with your people.

Now, Lord, I pray that you would let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.

Oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer.

Amen.

I grew up in the church.

And in the church world that I grew up in, I've come across those who have claimed to be prophets.

Now I'm not one who could say whether or not they were prophets, but I've been to many services where people would fill up worship spaces in the hopes that this prophet would speak directly to them, almost as if they were some sort of Christian fortune teller.

Now I only say this because this looks very different from the prophets that we read about in the Old Testament.

You see, prophets in the Old Testament were Israelites who had a radical experience with God's presence and then were commissioned to speak on God's behalf.

Their job was basically to remind Israel of the need to keep the covenant.

Now, the covenant, in short, was a promise that God would protect and provide for the people of Israel as long as they kept his law and were faithful to him.

And the prophets would remind the Israelites of this in three ways.

They would do it through accusation, uh accusing Israel for violating the covenant.

They would call the people back to repentance, and then they would speak to the day of the Lord, which connotes two things, the judgment and the restoration of God.

Prophets were not a beloved group of people in that time.

There were more times than not shunned by the leaders of Israel because they were most often speaking directly against them for leading the people away from God.

Now, Micah, like all of the prophets of the Old Testament, spoke on God's behalf in order to accuse uh Israel of its rebellion against God and warns them of the coming judgment.

And at that time, the uh first uh judgment was the kingdom of Assyria who would attack the north and then the city of Jerusalem, and then after that, Babylon would come and exile the people of Israel to Babylon.

However, Micah also had a message of hope about the restoration that God would bring on the other side of his judgment.

And that restoration comes through Jesus.

In Micah 5:2, we read, it says, But you, Bethlehem, Ephitha, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.

Micah 5:2

This is one of many prophecies in the Old Testament pointing to Jesus being born in Bethlehem, from the line of David or Judah, ruling over Israel, the messianic king.

Now there's something to be said about the nature and accuracy of this and other biblical prophecies.

I say this because we as human beings are incredibly inconsistent.

This is something that I've experienced as a young man through a game that we used to play called the Whisper Game, where you'd put 15 or 20 people in the circle, one person would begin by whispering a sentence into the ear of the person on their left.

As the sentence made its way around the circle, when it got to the last person, oftentimes the sentence that was then spoken aloud among the room was very different than the sentence that began the circle.

We also notice this while by putting two people in any space, there can be one experience.

And the two people who would then leave that space would express or explain that different that experience very differently.

And then married couples know this pretty well.

One conversation, two very different experiences.

God's consistency, despite our inconsistency throughout history, is nothing short of miraculous.

He maintains it all.

Speaking of history, there are some that say there is no archaeological evidence for Jesus.

And to this I say, as it relates to the physical body of Jesus, we as Christians believe that he not only died but rose again and ascended into heaven.

So there would be no physical body or skeleton to be found.

Also, Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

Nazareth was where he grew up.

And Nazareth was a city that was, or excuse me, an area that was southwest of the Sea of Galilee.

And in this area, this area was not adjacent to any large city.

And so in Jesus' time, if you weren't adjacent to large cities, you would be considered living in either lower class pool or in a town of meager means.

In the book of John, chapter one, you hear Nathaniel make a statement about Jesus in reference to where he grew up, in response to Philip telling him, We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law, about whom the prophets also wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

And Nathaniel's response was, Nazareth, can any good thing come from there?

This sums up the perspective of Nazareth to the people of that time.

Dr.

Lawrence Mikutiuk, whose PhD is in Hebrew and Semitic studies, says, in response to the perspective that there is no archaeological evidence for Jesus, peasants don't normally leave an archaeological trail.

With all this against him, there are quite a few non-excuse mecular or non-biblical mentions of Jesus by historians around the time of the first church.

Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, Roman senator and historian Tacitus, Roman governor Pliny the Younger, and Roman historian Suetonius are just a few of the non-biblical non-Christian historians who refer to Jesus in their writings.

Bart Ehrman, author of Did Jesus Exist?

The historical argument for Jesus of Nazareth says, this collection of snippets from non-Christian sources may not impart much information about the life of Jesus, but it is useful for realizing that Jesus was known by historians who had reason to look into the matter.

No one thought he was made of.

Why does this matter?

Why does it matter that Jesus was an actual person in history, actually here with us?

Well, if there is no Jesus, then there is no permanent sacrifice, no complete pardon of sin.

There is no full payment for the debt that we owe.

Romans 6 23, the first portion of that scripture says, for the wages of sin is death.

This means that something or someone had to die in order to pay for our sin.

In the Old Testament, in order to appease a God who is just, they would offer sacrifices.

Now these sacrifices were imperfect, but could you imagine having to offer sacrifices today?

Having to cut a bull in half, or a goat, or a lamb, or a dove, if you didn't have much money at that time, in half, and then take out specific organs and prepare it, lay it on the altar and set it on fire, as to say this should be me for the sin that I've committed, for my violation of the covenant before the Lord.

This was a bloody yet necessary process.

And if there is no Jesus, then we'd have to bring the sacrifice to the altar and slay and prepare it before the Lord.

But thank God it does not end there.

Romans 6.23, the latter portion of that verse says, But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 5.18 says, Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.

This speaks to death entering the world through the sin of Adam, and it also speaks to the access to life entering the world through the sacrifice of Jesus.

Ephesians 2, verses 8 through 9 says, For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves.

Ephesians 2:8–9

It is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.

If Jesus doesn't come, we don't have a way back to God.

There is no full pardon of sin.

And we have to attempt to earn that which we could never afford.

I'm so glad that Jesus came.

And I pray you feel the same.

God bless you.

Thank you, David, for reminding us of the historical accuracy of the birth of Christ.

And now we're singing about it several thousand years later.

The next part of our passage from Micah 5 talks about Jesus as our shepherd.

And I want to ask two questions that I hope to answer together today.

Why do we need a shepherd?

And how does he shepherd his people today?

Micah 5, 4 says that 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 will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.

When my husband and I were in Israel about 15 years ago, we saw shepherds moving flocks of sheep across desert lands.

If you've not been to the Middle East, imagine the landscapes of Arizona or Colorado.

And shepherds are an integral part of the agrarian society because they are taking care of possibly the most valuable commodity of the tribe.

And the job of the shepherd is often relegated to a young boy in the family.

The young shepherd stands and shepherds his flock, often walking many miles a day to take the animals to places where they can drink clean water and eat from fertile fields and rest.

I think we see a picture of this in Micah 5, 4 as Jesus being the shepherd of his people.

Modern shepherds, I've learned, have only two needs for their trade.

The sheepdog serves the shepherd in calling in the flock, keeping them together, rounding them up, bringing them to the sheepfold.

And the shepherd's staff helps him to care for the sheep.

Did you know that the Bible references sheep over 500 times?

Actually, before I tell you that though, I want to tell you a little bit more about the sheepdog.

I don't want to miss this.

And that herding dog's name is Griffin.

And the first thing Griffin learned was his name.

And he is being trained by a teenager in my home, our youngest son, his name is Micah.

And when Micah calls Griffin by name, he answers.

He knows the call of his master, his human.

And also part of Micah's training of our new family member is that he has to care for him.

He has to feed Griffin and give him clean water.

He has to train him and teach him where he can be safe within the confines of the electric fence.

He has to comfort him in the middle of the night when the puppy has trouble sleeping.

And in the process of adopting this dog into our family, we have been changed.

We have been gathered in and collected together for a singular purpose.

So now that we have a good picture of a sheep shepherd and his dog, let's talk about the sheep.

Like I said, the Bible references sheep 500 times.

And it's almost always in a not so subtle reference to mankind.

Sheep are needy.

People are needy.

A sheep without a shepherd is in harm's way, is lost and wandering, is likely to get caught up in brambles or fall off a cliff or get eaten by a predator or die of thirst or starvation.

Clearly, sheep have needs.

And I think we would all agree that people have needs as well.

And God, in his abundant goodness, has sent the good shepherd to the people of this world.

And his name is Jesus.

And I hope we can pause today to think about how he shepherds his people today.

What I know to be true is that sheep, like sheep, people are needy, and our greatest need is that we are lost without him.

We are lost and wandering, and this is nothing new.

The prophet Jeremiah talked about this about the people of his generation.

My people have been lost sheep.

Their shepherds have led them astray and caused them to roam on the mountains.

They wandered over mountain and hill and forgot their own resting place.

So some people are like the sheep that are lost, but some people are within the sheepfold and they need to be here to be cared for and comforted.

For they are in the process of being changed from lost and afraid and weak to being found and strengthened and made whole again.

Some people are like the sheep, the strong sheep in the flock.

Maybe they've lived with the shepherd a long time.

They've learned to hear his voice and listen and follow in his perfect way.

But even they are in need of full dependence on the good shepherd.

Which sheep do you find yourself relating to today?

This is what I know to be true about the Good Shepherd.

I see throughout the scriptures that Jesus the Good Shepherd consistently calls, cares for, and comforts and changes his people.

He calls us.

Some would say that maybe we come to God, but honestly, he calls us into relationship with him.

This is what 1 Peter 5.10 says.

The God of all grace, who has called you into his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

He is the one that calls us, and sometimes he uses his people to call us into that relationship.

This is true in my own life.

God used my granddaddy to shepherd me.

He literally called me when I was a weak little lamb and invited me to church.

And it was there that I met the Good Shepherd and learned to hear his voice.

And when I think of my granddaddy, I think of his voice because he sang the Christian hymns with gusto, always slightly off key and behind the beat.

But when I hear those hymns, I think of the one who shepherded me into faith.

And I'm thankful that he extended himself to me.

Sometimes the shepherd, the good shepherd, he calls and people ignore his call or they don't listen.

Or they walk away, they think we're just like sheep and we're stubborn, and we think that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, or that we can make our own way in this world.

Sometimes I've seen that the good shepherd chases after those people.

He goes after them.

If you or somebody that you know is far away from God right now, be encouraged because the Good Shepherd, he sees and he calls and he cares for the ones he loves.

He cares for us and he comforts us.

When a mother sheep has twin lambs, sometimes she will reject the secondborn because she is incapable of caring for both of them.

And in that situation, the the shepherd will take that secondborn lamb into his home, into his family life, and bottle feed that little lamb until it matures.

I know that sometimes people have been rejected and cast out by the very people who should have cared for them.

And I also know that the good shepherd is always ready to take in those cast out, rejected people and care for us deeply.

And the scriptures remind us again and again that we can cast our anxieties on him because he cares for us.

Check out 1 Peter 5.7.

What does it look like to live securely in under the care of the Good Shepherd, as we see in Micah 5.4?

Well, I think we've seen a glimpse of that in our recent series at Orchard Hill Church, if you've been around listening to the Upside Down Living series taken from the famous Jesus' Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5 to 7.

I've um renamed that set of teaching as the shepherd's guidebook for sheep, because I see in that teaching that he shows us how he cares for us in his word.

He cares so much for us that we are poor in spirit and that we hunger and thirst for righteousness.

And I see that happening here at Orchard Hill in mentoring relationships among women and in life groups.

We see in that passage of Scripture, the Sermon on the Mount, that He cares that we extend mercy to others as He has given us His perfect mercy.

And I see that in my friend who is struggling through a devastating divorce.

I've heard her cry out to God for his perfect mercy in her life so that she can extend that mercy to someone who's hurt her badly.

Jesus teaches us that he is the one who loves us dearly and so much that he doesn't want us to be anxious or worried about the things of this life.

He says, look at the flowers of the field and the birds of the air.

And how much more valuable are you to me than them?

I see this playing out in a prayer group that I'm involved in.

And the women, they take truth from God's word and they speak that truth in prayer over someone who is paralyzed in her anxieties and fears.

And I see a change in that truth speaking and the power of prayer because I know that it is life abundant, life-giving, life-changing.

So the Good Shepherd, he calls us, he cares for us, and he changes us.

The good news of the gospel is that he who began a good work in us, he is faithful to complete it.

He wants to transform us into his very nature, his very image.

And then he promises us something.

He promises us an unfading crown of glory.

1 Peter 5, 4 says, When the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.

Now that's something to look forward to, especially those of us who appreciate some beautiful bling.

Maybe that doesn't resonate for everyone.

But I want to tell you about a woman I met a couple years ago.

She came here lost and afraid and gripped by fear and grief.

And she came to church and she got involved in the women in prayer group.

And I have seen a remarkable change in her life.

My friend, who was once depressed and afraid and fearful, now has a very visible countenance of joy about her.

And because that she has placed her confidence in this miraculous work of Christ in her heart, in her mind, in her thinking, and she's put her eyes on her eternal security.

Because she's been changed by Christ, she extends herself to others and she invites them in to find and follow the Good Shepherd.

I know for sure that when we've been changed by Christ, we want to share our experience with others.

And I think we see a glimpse in Micah 5 of What will happen?

The end of five, verse four says, For then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.

Humans are always going to be like sheep.

We're always going to be stubborn and wandering and needy.

But perhaps you see yourself in the image of the sheepdog today.

Let's consider how we might assist the good shepherd in calling the lost and the wandering sheep of the world into this place where Jesus can shepherd them also into his family, where he can care for us and change us.

May we join in the mission of Orchard Hill Church this season.

And may we invite others to find and follow Jesus.

Would you pray with me?

Father God, I thank you so much that you sent your son Jesus to stand and shepherd us in your strength, that you have called us and that you care for us, and that you are about changing us.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to you, O Lord, our rock, our redeemer, our good shepherd.

Amen.

Well, thank you, David.

Thank you, Emily.

Thank you to our worship arts team.

Um as always, we applaud for them.

As always, they um just bring such great effort.

They've been rehearsing all week for Christmas Eve services, and yet today it was still a plus effort.

So way to go with that.

Well, uh, what we've tried to do today is through the passage in Micah, paint a picture of the past, present, and future for us.

Now, Micah was writing well before the time of Jesus, and then he wrote, Jesus came, and now we look back to that time through our eyes.

And what David did was he took this idea of Jesus being born in Bethlehem in a literal place, that he actually came to this earth, and that that matters because Jesus living on this earth, going to the cross, provides an opportunity for all people to have a relationship with God and be saved.

And then Emily talked about this idea of Jesus the shepherd, that Jesus presently is at work in this world, drawing people, caring for people in all that goes on.

Now, my guess is that just if you hear that, whether you've been around church, you haven't been around church, that you hear that, and some of us say, well, history it seems kind of old, doesn't really move me.

And some of us say, uh, shepherding, I haven't felt a lot of God's care.

If I look back at the last few months of my life, the last few years, some of us would say, I'm not sure that I feel as if I can relate entirely to that.

And I certainly understand that.

And what I want to do is paint a picture that's yet future from Micah 5 and another text.

And my hope is that as you hear this, that wherever you are, whether you resonated with history, resonated with this idea of a shepherd, that there will be a part of you that says, as I talk about this, I hope this is true, and that maybe you'll be able to see a little hope in the midst of this.

Now, here's what Micah chapter 5, verse 4 and 5 say.

Micah 5:4

It says, In the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God, they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.

And then it says this, and he will be our peace.

And if you read through the rest of the chapter, which we didn't do, what you'll see is there are all these statements of almost judgment that don't seem very Christmassy.

That's why we always cut off here when we read it at Christmas.

But but the picture is that one day God, through Jesus Christ, will take everything that's wrong and he'll make it right, and he will be our peace.

In fact, there's a word in the Hebrew that's used for peace, and it's the word shalom, and what it means is to put everything right or things as they should be.

And so the image here is that there will yet come a day when the greatness of Jesus will be seen all over this world, and he will make things as they should be.

Things will be put right.

I was thinking about this, and you heard David quote a PhD in Hebrew and Flavius Josephus, and I thought I needed to go the other way.

So this is from Dave Grohl.

Some of you are saying, who's Dave Grohl?

I don't know.

He is the lead singer of the Foo Fighters, the creative force behind the Foo Fighters.

You may ask, who are the Foo Fighters?

They fight Foo.

I don't I don't know.

Um you may say the Foo Fighters have no creative force behind them, but Dave Grohl would be that if there is one.

My kids tell me it's dad rock, but I don't care.

I still like it.

So um so here's what Dave Grohl said.

Earlier this year, kind of when everything was was happening around this pandemic, he said, I don't know when it will be safe to return to singing arm in arm at the top of our lungs.

Hearts racing, bodies moving, souls bursting with life.

But I do know that we will do it again because we have to.

It's not a choice.

We're human.

We need moments that reassure us that we're not alone, that we're understood, that we are imperfect, and most importantly, that we need each other.

Now, Dave Grohl was talking about a Foo Fighter concert.

And I don't know if you've been to a concert, but there's a moment in a concert, whatever it's for, you know, classical music, rock music, it doesn't matter, where often people stand and you don't feel alone and you feel a sense of something bigger.

But here's what his vision is.

His vision at this moment is saying, here is what I have hope in, that one day we'll be able to do a Foo Fighter concert again.

And that'll make us feel good.

And here's what I want to say: that's not a big enough vision.

It's a small vision.

And some of us have been kind of helping ourselves get through this year with small visions.

And here's what I mean when I say that.

Some of us, our vision has been maybe next year I can go out to eat.

Maybe next year I'll be able to go on vacation.

Maybe next year there will be a vaccine, and we'll all be able to do stuff like have family over.

And some of you are saying, maybe this thing will continue for another year, so I don't have to have family over.

But but you've been you've been having these visions, and here's my point: these visions are all way too small.

Because Jesus' vision, the vision that Micah had that he gave way before Jesus came, was Jesus will come to Bethlehem, that is past to us, future to Micah, Jesus will be our shepherd, but Jesus will one day be our peace to the ends of the earth.

And everything that's wrong will be made right, everything that's broken will be fixed.

This is hard for me to comprehend.

It's probably hard for you to comprehend.

Here's what we see in Revelation chapter 21, where we get a description of this same time period.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

This is in verse 4 and 5.

It says, He, speaking of Jesus, who will be our peace at that time, he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.

For the old order of things is passed away.

He who was seated on the throne said, I am making everything new.

Then he said, Write this down, for these are trustworthy, these words are trustworthy and true.

Now notice what he says.

He says, There will come a day when he will wipe every tear from your eye.

Maybe some of you have cried a lot.

Maybe some of you have said, I haven't cried at all physically, but maybe you've been heartbroken about something.

And the vision isn't just that one day we can do concerts and go out to eat.

The vision of the New Testament, the vision of the Old Testament prophets is this vision that says, one day God will make everything right.

In other words, there will be no more tears.

Things that shouldn't be won't be.

Then he says, there will be no more death.

Any of you lose anybody this year that you care about?

Was that hard?

We're probably getting to the point now where most of us know somebody who died perhaps from COVID in this last year.

And the picture of everything being right is there will come a day when there will be no more loss, no more death.

Things will be as they should be.

Then he says, there will be no more mourning.

Now you may say, isn't that just another way of saying there will be no more tears?

But mourning is a more substantial word.

It means something that goes on and on and is deep-seated.

Crying may be more uh kind of temporary, but mourning means the soul ache that some of us carry around.

He's saying, there will be no more mourning.

In other words, whatever gives you the soul ache, whatever wakes you up and says, this is not how it should be, one day will not be.

That's what Jesus will one day do.

And then it says, There'll be no more crying and no more pain.

I can't even imagine a world with no more pain.

I think most of us have seen enough pain in other people in our own lives that we just get so used to it that we say, I don't have a frame of reference for what that would be, but that's what what we get here as a picture.

C.

S.

Lewis said this, wanted to quote him after quoting Dave Grohl, so you didn't think I was just a Dave Grohl quoter.

The Christian, says C.

S.

Lewis, has the great advantage over other men, has a great advantage, not by being less fallen than they, nor less doomed to live in a fallen world, but by the recognition that he is a fallen man living in a fallen world.

And here's what C.

S.

Lewis is driving at.

Christianity, becoming a Christian doesn't mean I'm less fallen than other people, that I'm better than people, and it doesn't mean that I escape the fallen world.

But what it means is that I live in a world in which I understand that it's fallen, but it won't always be that way.

And that I am fallen, that I am sinful, but I'm being redeemed.

I have been redeemed, and one day I'll be made right too.

That is the hope of Christianity.

That is the story of Christmas.

That Jesus came once to deal with sin.

He will come again to be our peace, and today he is our shepherd.

That is a big vision.

And it's one that compels hope.

But here's the thing: we only share in this vision if we believe in Jesus.

In Romans, we're told that if we believe in our heart and confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord, then we will be saved.

In other words, we'll share in this.

But if we don't believe in Jesus, what it means is that we'll go through this world without a shepherd, we'll go through this world without the anchor of hope of saying, saying Jesus has come and done something in history for me, and without the assurance that one day he'll make everything right.

This life is as good as it gets, in other words.

But if you have Jesus, then you have this compelling hope that says, one day all that's broken will be made right.

Father, I thank you for this incredible hope.

And I pray for those of us who've trusted you that we would live with that and we would have a bigger vision.

Not that we won't have smaller visions, but we would have a bigger vision of what you can and will do.

And God, for those who are here saying, I'm not sure, don't know, God, I pray even in this moment there would be an acknowledgement that they would long for and want what you have said you will do.

And that by acknowledging our sinfulness, that we can enter into that as well.

And saying, I want Jesus to be my savior and my substitute.

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.