Do You Feel Insignificant?
1/26/2022
Written By: Stephen Cox
Do any of you feel like you are insignificant…so insignificant that you feel like God just COULDN’T use you. Your addiction, your sin, your past? Do you feel like you’re just anonymous, another name that is brushed over? Are you in distress? Is your sadness too much to bear? Is your LIFE just too much to bear?
My wife, Kimberly, and I have spent 13 years in full-time ministry. I have been doing ministry in the classroom, teaching social studies for the past 5 years. History is my JAM! And I love Jesus. So, when social studies and the Bible come together in a powerful way, I kind of geek out!
Quick background on this prophecy. The Jewish roots of Christianity rest squarely on the shoulders of three men: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob had twelve sons (and some daughters). The sons were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Naphtali, Issachar, Asher, Dan, Zebulon, Gad, Benjamin, Judah, & Joseph. These twelve sons became the 12 Tribes of Israel.
Joseph was Jacob’s favorite…you know “The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” guy, Judah was another favorite, and Levi’s tribe was the Priestly Tribe and therefore was not allotted land. They were given cities and food offerings presented to the LORD as their inheritance.
Reuben lost his rights as first born, and his inheritance was divided between the two sons of Joseph: Ephraim and Manasseh and they became tribes. For the rest of the story…refer to Genesis 37-50. WHEW…that was quick!
Jacob and his entire family (sons & daughters and their families) all move to Egypt through a series of events that fulfill the purposes of God in Joseph’s life. After many years, the Hebrews were held in slavery in Egypt for about 400 years.
God, later, raises up Moses to lead them out of captivity and to the edge of the Promised Land, and Joshua led them in to take their land as assigned. Over the next millennia…there were wars and battles fought until all the tribes were taken away by foreign nations into captivity.
That’s where the prophecy in Isaiah 9 comes in:
9 Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulon and the land of Naphtali, but in the future, he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—
2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. 3 You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder. 4 For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. 5 Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. 6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.
The seemingly mundane and insignificant parts of this prophesy mention two tribes of Israel who were later to be carried off into captivity, first by the Assyrians. Two brothers of Joseph that most everyone would be hard-pressed to name.
When we get to the time of Jesus, those brothers…Zebulon and Naphtali…their tribal land had become Galilee of the Gentiles, home to Nazareth, hometown of Jesus! Manasseh’s tribal land had become Samaria…an area despised by the Jews of the day. And Judah’s tribal land remains in place and is home to Bethlehem…birthplace of Jesus.
God specializes in the seemingly insignificant. He raises up and is near to the anonymous, brushed over, distressed, and broken-hearted! God sent Jesus just for you! God sees even the most minor and seemingly insignificant of details of your life and maybe, just MAYBE, He is working on something SIGNIFICANT.
Just like He did in a town called Bethlehem, in Judah’s territory and in the town where Jesus would grow up, Nazareth, in the territory of Naphtali and Zebulon. God is working, in ways we may not even know, to bring something MEANINGFUL out of your life.
Oh, I almost forgot…just to solidify that God knows what He’s doing, check out the VERY BEGINNING of Jesus’s ministry, immediately after Satan tempted Him in the desert in Matthew 4:
12 When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali— 14 to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah:…17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Jesus calls His first disciples…a couple of seemingly insignificant fishermen…Simon (called Peter) and his brother Andrew in Zebulun & Naphtali’s area. Here’s to being insignificant.