Sermon Tone Analysis

The Most Wonderful Time of the year!

I love my daughters to death.

They are so beautiful and give me and everyone around them so much joy, especially around July when they start playing Christmas music.

They are blatant with it at first.

I will hear subtle sounds of bells or someone dreaming of a white Christmas coming our of their room.

By October they are not hiding it any longer.

We have been listening to Sovereign Graces Christmas Album, “Prepare Him Room” for over a month now.

My girls are not the only ones to do this.

This year, I made note to my wife that Walmart began putting Christmas trees and decorations up before Halloween.

Amazon was celebrating Black Friday deals long before Black Friday.

It’s as if our culture cannot wait for it to be the most wonderful time of the year.

Christmas is a wonderful time of year.

It is festive and filled with holiday tradition.

We look forward to decorating the house, special meals, and of course seeing the kids get excited about Christmas morning.

It seems like, for about four weeks, people try to be happy, even for one another.

They appear to try to maximize the idea of peace.

There is some confusion in our culture about peace.

True peace is not limited to four weeks out of the year.

Genuine peace cannot be bought.

And the real peace that Christmas offers does not come from Santa Clause.

The peace everyone is looking for, the long lasting, eternal giving peace that Christmas provides, is found in the birth of the Messiah.

When the world went dark God promised he would send a light into the world.

When world broke under the burden of sin, God promised he would send someone to restore the world.

When the world came under the rule of the prince of darkness God promised he would send the prince of peace.

This morning I want to open up one of God’s promises about that relates to Christmas morning.

I want to do this because I am convinced that the peace that everyone longs for during Christmas can be had all year long, and once you know the true meaning of Christmas, you can live in a peace that surpasses all understanding.

In Micah 5:1-6, you see that

God promised to raise up a Shepherd King who would secure peace for His afflicted people.

To get a better picture of what afflicts your peace, I want to show you a contrast between two kings.

A Conquered King: The Shame of God’s Judgement (Micah 5:1)

God expects his people to live in a way that honors what he honors and love what he loves.

Toward the end of the book, Micah tells Israel what God expects from them.

The reality is, this was not a reality in Israel at the time.

Micah was a prophet who lived in Judah 750-700BC.

Israel was divided into two kingdom's, north and south.

Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom Israel and Jerusalem was the capital of the southern kingdom of Judah.

Both violated God’s covenant and rebelled against his Torah.

Micah was called by God to declare Israel’s sin and transgressions.

He says as much when he says he was filled

Micah 3:8 (ESV)

...with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.

Their peace was ruined by sin.

Micah begins with accusations and warning in the first two chapters.

He accuses the leaders of idolatry, covetousness, and perverted justice.

In Micah 1:6, God says that he will beat their images into pieces and lay waste to her idols.

Israel’s leaders coveted other people’s houses and fields and would seize them illegally (Micah 2:2,3).

The leaders would become wealthy by exploiting the poor through theft and greed.

This led to severe injustice.

The prophets who were charged with God’s word and keeping Israel’s integrity intact, became corrupt by taking bribes which led to perverted justice (Micah 3:9-11).

Idolatry, covetousness, and perverted justice always leads to ruin.

This is no way how God’s covenant people are to act toward each other, nor is it pleasing to God.

It was a direct violation of his Torah and Covenant.

For 500 years God warned his people that if they remained in their wicked ways he would bring his judgement.

Chapter 3-4, God says that Israel will be overcome first by Assyria then led into exile by Babylon.

Micah prophesied in the days of Isaiah the prophet.

They were contemporaries.

He was around to see Assyria overcome Samaria and take ten tribes of the northern kingdom into captivity in 722BC.

Jerusalem would fall sometime later.

In Micah 5:1, the prophet says,

Assyria is the seige that is laid against them.

The prophet Isaiah likened the Assyrian army to a rod (Isaiah 10:5, 15, 24).

The judge is the king.

To strike the king on the face is to utterly humiliate him.

He is so defenseless that he cannot protect his face.

He will be helpless and treated like a criminal, and led off to captivity as a slave.

As one commentator put it, “The venerable king has become but a whipping boy.”

Sin ruins peace because it brings the shame of God’s judgment.

Israel’s king was a conquered ruler.

His sin brought humiliation and shame for him and his people.

It brought exile from God and scattered God’s sheep away from their Good Shepherd.

That is what Jesus saw when he came to His people.

He had compassion on them because they were scattered like sheep without a shepherd.

This might describe some of you this morning.

Some of you may be letting sin ruin your peace.

Some of you may be wondering outside the pasture of God’s fellowship.

It is likely you have put his word on a shelf and you stopped praying, which means you’ve stopped talking to Him.

Something has captured your attention and turned your heart away from Him.

Maybe it was the enticement of pleasure.

Maybe you are angry with God because you don’t like his will for your life.

Whatever it may be, whatever has replaced God in your heart is an idol, and that idol is ruining you peace.

It is a conquered king, God’s word strikes you r idol on the cheek and it has no defense.

I implore you this morning to lift your eyes up to the hills and se where your help comes from.

It comes from the Lord.

There is a better King.

God promised to send a Shepherd King who will give you everlasting peace.

A Shepherd King: The Splendor of God’s Promise (Micah 5:2-4)

There is a tension in Micah.

The book is broken up into three sections.

Micah moves back and forth from God’s judgement to God’s hope.

At end of chapter two, there is a poem that assures Israel that though things are bleak, God will save a remnant of his people.

He will be there Shepherd and care for them.

Further on in chapter 4, the temple will be destroyed, but God promises a better temple.

He promises to exalt his temple and fill it with his presence and he will fill his new Jersualem with His people.

The nations will come to his New Jerusalem and bring peace to all the earth.

In chapter 5, he promised a special king, from the line of David, who will rule the New Jersualem.

He will not be like the old king.

He will not lead his people into idolatry.

He will not lead his people into ruin.

Where is the splendor in God’s promise?

Splendor is another word for magnificence or glorious.