Chosen For A Royal Ministry

I want to talk about a very basic concept of being chosen for a Royal Ministry. Many times we want to hear very indepth topics. that I want to share with you in our in our community that preachers preach very sparingly on this very basic uh topic. I was thinking about in our community what topic is spoken about very less I’ve looked through. We don’t hear very mess very many messages about the birth of Christ. You know, we hear about the birth of Christ a lot in our Sunday schools, but in my recent memory, I cannot recall uh hearing a message on the stage about the birth of Christ. And one reason I think maybe is that people think that the birth of Christ belongs only in the Sunday schools as a kids lesson and not for the adults. It’s not as mature of a topic. Christmas tree. And so I’m not blaming pastors. I know many times if they were to preach about uh the birth of Christ, there are people in the audience that are sitting uh with the judgmental mind uh assuming that this is a message about Christmas. And so that may be a discouraging factor for many humble servants of God from sharing from this particular passage. But the word that God has entrusted me to speak to you today is on the birth of Christ. Let’s go to the Gospel of Luke chapter 2:es 10 and 11. I’m going to be presenting to you you as a a two-part topic. And so the one part of this two-part is before Christ was born on this earth, the preparations that heaven took on this earth for the birth of Christ to happen. The final part of heavenly preparation. Final preparation. And so this first part is about the preparation that heaven took about the coming of Jesus onto this earth. Bethlehem. And so the second part is why was Christ who was born in in the city of Bethlehem, why were the shepherds of Bethlehem the first to come and see him? So the first part is what I want to focus on today and then the second part at some other time when I have the opportunity I will share with you before a head of state visits another country. There’s a lot of preparation that goes on months in advance. But when the savior of the earth was coming down to this earth before he was born, the preparation was not merely days or months or years, but it was centuries before. He did not come into this earth to make any financial or political agreements with anyone. But God had one purpose in sending his son to this earth. No matter what price it is to redeem lost mankind. Let me share you a few things about the arrangements that were made by heaven before Jesus came into this earth. It was a time when the world was waiting for the arrival of Christ. And the birth of Christ was a a moment in history that t turned the tide of the story of the world. Do you know how many uh calendars are in the world existing? 90 calendars. And in my understanding there’s over 90 calendars existing in the world.
168 uh of um 168 of the world’s nations use Gregorian calendar as their only Gregorian calendar. So majority of the countries in the world uh follow the Gregorian calendar.
Introduc Gregori 13th 1582
and it was Pope Gregory that introduced uh the the Gregorian calendar and it follows the solar uh patterns. It’s a solarbased calendar. And let’s come to the most important part. And we see an event happen that never happened before in the history of the world and will never happen again. And so in relation to the birth of Christ, the story was split into two.
BC before Christ.
BC is before Christ. A anodomy
and AD stands for anodominy. This is something that needs to be studied. That is a Latin phrase. And this term ad anodomy we stop at just that basic understanding. But it is a mean it is a term that has a great meaning full form anoi in the year of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
And the real depth of the meaning of AD is in the na in the year of the Lord Jesus Christ. in the year of the Lord, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So all of us who follow the Gregorian calendar when we say that we live in 2026, we are declaring to the world in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ. before Christ. And so in for the secular world because they cannot compromise and agree to uh Christ as being the marker in in the timeline. They have changed BC from before Christ before to before the common era. foreign in the year of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And so the world will try to change things in an effort to hide the hide Christ, but they cannot hide the true uh the truth of Jesus Christ AD in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ. This world was waiting for the arrival of Christ. If you study Genesis to Malachi, you see multiple prophecies about the coming of Jesus Christ. And so those prophecies were awaiting the time to be fulfilled. Let me share some prophecies that the prophet Isaiah mentioned. Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6. Praise God.
For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. And the government will be on his shoulder. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. This prophecy is done by the prophet Isaiah centuries before the birth of Christ talking about these heavenly characteristics of the Christ that is to be born. The second thing is about the virgin birth of Jesus Christ from Isaiah 7 verse4 and the third prophecy comes from Isaiah 11 verse 1 and And we see in Isaiah chapter 11, he’s talking about a rod from the stem of Jesse. And that is talking about the birth of Christ. When you see the work of Jesus, you see that he is one that fulfills in the fulfillment of time, fulfills prophecy. And we see the veil of the birth of Jesus Christ coming on hundreds of years before on the Old Testament prophets. And that those that period of several hundred years is known as the Intertestamental Intertestamental period. And those that period of time is called the silent years. But why was it so quiet even though God was speaking in the Old Testament in that time period between Malachi and Matthew? Why was there so much silence? Why was there in this time period where there was no prophetic voice or God not speaking to his people? Because when God was speaking through the prophets, it was a generation that stoned them and killed them and persecuted the men of God. So God gave them so many years, hundreds of years of silence. For we need to understand that when we so abundantly hear the word of God and hear the voice of God in our life, if we choose to reject it, we may go through periods of silence in our life. The God of heaven was not simply sitting idle. And so while wickedness was spreading on this earth, God in his upper chamber was working behind the scenes. And so in relation to the birth of his son here on earth, what was God doing? When we decide to do something, we are people that make preparations. Perfection. And so something that God does differently from us, when God is preparing or planning for something, it stands in perfection. key developments, political and cultural changes, Israel,
and so couple of the key things that were happening during this period of time was that Israel was under the control of the Persian Empire. Persian.
And so for about 200 years that Israel was under the control of the Persian Empire. And so there was this mercy granted toward the Persian Empire. They were not hindering uh the people of Israel to worship their God. They also gave the people of Israel uh freedom to build rebuild their temple and restore worship. Understand that everything that happens in history, God has a specific purpose for it. 331 BC. And so we know in that during the time of Darius, who is the the lion of the of the kingdom of Persia, several young men came to his kingdom. Alexander. And so this young man came to that kingdom and his name was Alexander. He was a new star in the political empire of that time. Middle East. And it was this king of Macedonia, Alexander, that end ended up conquering that part of the world. And this young man was a very unusual uh not ordinary young man. And so we see in Daniel that the vision that Daniel sees on the four kingdoms, one of these powerful kingdoms was the kingdom of of Alexander the Great. Alexandre. We see that God uh appointed Alexander the Great to do a specific purpose. Alexander and so he has lived during the time period of many people. And so even though he lived during the time of many great philosophers, there was one teacher that made him the greatest. and his name was Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, one of the greatest intellectual figures of classical antiquity and western history. And it Aristotle is described in this great manner in history. And he was a very intelligent student. And Alexander was someone that uh understood Greek very well and learned politics very well. Why did God work behind the scenes to raise up someone like Alexander the Great? Alexander, why did God take the effort to make someone in the world like Alexander the Great? God used Alexander the Great in his hands to do something that no one else could do to fulfill the will of God. The Jewish people in general are not one to propagate or spread the Old Testament. Because the Jewish people of that time were people that thought they are the chosen ones of God. And so God knew that the Jewish people would do nothing to bring the Gentiles closer to God. And so we know the classic example of that is the story of Jonah where there’s hundreds of thousands of people that are suffering and are wicked in in the city of Nineveh. And God told Jonah to go save them, but he refused. When God saw that his own people were not willing to pull the Gentiles closer to him, God used a gentile leader like Alexander the Great. We have to understand there are certain ministries God has entrusted with each one of us. And understand if we are not accountable and responsible for doing the ministry that he has entrusted us, God will reach out to those on the outside, the Gentiles to fulfill that ministry. God was very particular. Before his son Jesus was born on this earth, certain things had to happen in history. And so the Jewish people had no interest in translating their old the Hebrew Old Testament into other languages. because they were adamant that no one else should receive the blessings that they are entitled to. That’s where God makes a decision on his own. So God used Alexander the Great to uh translate the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek called the Septuaged. And so for the whole world to understand and to accept there needed to be a language that everyone could uh universally understand and agree on. Alexandre and when there was no language in that time period that dominated the world, God brought Alexander the Great forward. And so this Alexander the Great was particular about two things. And so the his language and his culture needs to spread all over the world. And so where the Jewish people stepped aside not wanting to spread the Hebrew gospel or the the Hebrew Old Testament, that’s when Alexander the Great stepped in. And so they thought they could somehow convince Alexander the Great, even though he was interested in translating everything into that gentile language. And maybe they thought they could lose the appeal of the king if they didn’t do that translation. And so without uh much argument even though they were very hesitant hesitant to do so they translated the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek personal and I’m saying this from my study and you can analyze this in any way and there’s a second reason for this translation. there was a large population of Jewish people that lived in Egypt in Alexandria before the birth of Christ. And there were these Jewish communities that were spread out all over the world. And those children of those Jewish people all over the world did not know any Hebrew. So when the rabbis of that time realized that the next generation does not know any Hebrew, they realized if they translated it to Greek, things would be better and the future generations would understand. But there was also a accident waiting to happen in this. So when this gentile culture came in, it had all the potential to damage the future generations. And so even though it’s not related to this, let me tell you a story from the Talmud. 313 a BC Alexander Persian. And so we see in 313 BC that Alexander the Great conquers the Persian Empire. And so he goes through the Middle East and comes to Israel. And so one of the enemies of the Jewish people came in front of Alexander the Great and his army. And so these people came to Alexander the Great and told him, “There’s a very dangerous group of people. They’re called the Hebrews. They are very rebellious. They will never submit to a king. You have to destroy their temple. And so the high priest of the Jewish temple at that time uh found out about this news. And so this high priest wearing all his uh royal vestments went straight to see Alexander the Great. Let me tell you this story very quickly. And so these people told Alexander the Great, “This man, he is part of the Hebrews. He is your archeneemy.” Alexander. And so Alexander comes down from his uh his chariot. And so he stood in front of this high priest. Alexander. And so they were asking, “Why is this Alexander the Great bowing down to this high priest?” And so Alexander the Great said this, “Before every battle that I go into, I see a dream of this person. I believe that behind every victory of war of of every battle that I do, I believe this man’s prayer is there. So Alexander the Great because of that told his high priest whatever punishment to give to the enemies of Israel he would do. Alexander and so finally this Alexander the Great and the high this high priest went straight to Jerusalem. entire temple. He and Alexander told them, “I’ll give you all the gold that you need, but you just have to put an image of me also in your temple.” And this high priest very humbly told Alexander the Great, “Oh, oh Alexander, we don’t worship any false images and we come to this temple to pray. But if we put an image of you in this temple, the wrath of God will come on us. But instead of that, we will do one thing in appreciation toward you. And so the our high priest for all the children that are born this year will name every male child Alexander. And that’s how a gentile name like Alexander became a Jewish name. And we read about Alexander in the New Testament. And we see in this intertestamental period is where Darius is subdued by Alexander the Great. Greek that’s where we see because of that the Old Testament was translated into Greek. There was one more sudden development. And it was during these years of silence in this intertestamental period that the concept of the synagogue entered into the Jewish culture. community prayer discussion. And so while the Jewish people had their temple where there was sacrifice and the high priest and worship, they had the this concept of the synagogue on the side, a place of community fellowship and discussion. And the synagogue did not compete with the temple. Synagogue. And the synagogue was a place that studied the worship and everything that happened in the temple. Before he sent his son into this earth, God prepared the people of Israel for a specific purpose. And we see these three preparations before Jesus came into this earth global stage Roman infrastructure. We see before Jesus was born that the Roman Empire built their glorious structures. If the if the gospel is to be spread to the far ends of the earth, it cannot sit in Israel alone. And so the Roman people, the Roman government had built these large cobblestone streets for their army to travel through. these things it caused the gospel to spread all the more quickly in the world. Spiritual foundation And so God had prepared the people of Israel to have a synagogue so they could understand the true spiritual meaning of all the worship and sacrifice that they did. Let’s look at the regular Israeli people. And there’s the Jewish people that was suffering under the oppression of the Roman Empire. The high priesthood that was supposed to bring comfort was turning to idolatry. They were more concerned about greed. That is where the cry of the Jewish people came out. And in their despair, they realized in those years of silence that they need a Messiah. And now let us come to the part where the the angel appeared to the shepherd.
And I’m going to end here in a minute or so who was invited to the stall where Jesus was born. and Augustus the Roman Empire emperor did not get the invitation and Tiberius or Herod did not get an invitation to the cow. None of the noble high priests or the other priests did not get an invitation to the birth of Christ. None of the philosophers or religious leaders got an invitation to the birth of Christ. Christ were the lowliest people in the community of Israel. Were shepherds truly that lowly of people? We read in Amos that he is saying I’m no I’m not a prophet but I am simply a shepherd. Why did shepherds get the first opportunity to see the savior of the world born? And so what happened the to the lowest point was to our savior. And so the heavens decided that the Jesus who would be brought the lowest in the history of the world would be seen first by those considered the lowest in society. understand that the gates of heaven are open for anyone who wants to see Christ. And there’s no one who has been brought low as Christ did on this earth. And so God has given us the opportunity to come to the throne of grace at any time because no matter how low we are, he is the one that has gone even lower than us in this earth. How many of those who take this privilege in our midst? In the Old Testament, there was a great 4-inch thick veil that separated the holy place in the most holy place. Now we need to understand that any child of God there is no separation, there is no veil. But you could come boldly to the throne of grace. And let me tell you, no matter what issue you have, you can cry out Abba Father and come to the throne of grace where he will find a solution for your problem. And due to the lack of time, may God bless us with these words.