We pray this in Jesus mighty name. Amen. Well, good morning and welcome. Kids, you’re welcome to take off for children’s church at this time. We’ll see you later.

Goodbye. Sweet little voices. If you have a Bible, we’re in the Gospel of Luke today, continuing in our series, Jesus Came for You. As you’re turning there, I’m curious, how many of you have had this experience where you open up your Bible, maybe in the morning or whenever it’s easiest to get into the word and and you have your time where you’re you’re reading through the Bible, maybe you’re following a plan, and you read a passage and after you’re done reading it, your thought is, “Huh, wonder what that was all about.” And then you read it back again and you try to make sense of it.

It just kind of it’s it’s like it’s there on the page, but you can’t understand what’s going on here. I think that’s a common experience that people will have when they get to this book called Leviticus. Leviticus is a book basically full of laws that are all about things like how to make certain sacrifices. There’s laws about, you know, ritual purity, how to come before God and be right before him. There’s laws about what to do if you have this weird skin problem and and all kinds of stuff.

Leviticus is basically a textbook on how to be a Israelite priest 101. And you know we we read it and we think huh that that’s kind of weird when we read some of these things but we don’t want to say that because it’s the Bible. But we would say well I don’t know how that applies to my life in the 21st [snorts] century. That happens sometimes. Can anyone relate to that experience?

I think that’s happened to all of us. But the key that unlocks those sometimes strange passages in the Bible is always going to be Jesus. When you understand how all these passages that have sometimes these strange observations or these strange laws, these these commandments that in our world they don’t seem to make sense. If we can see how it finds its fulfillment in Jesus, everything starts to make a little bit more sense. Jesus himself said that we’re to read the Old Testament in this way.

Basically always read it with Jesus in mind. He said after he resurrected he said this is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms. And that’s another way of saying everything written in the Old Testament. Moses, Psalms, prophets, everything written in them is about me.

It points you to me. And if you can just see me in that picture, you’re going to fall more in love with me. You’re going to see more of what I’ve done for you. And it’s not going to seem as strange and bizarre once you understand I’m the goal. I’m what it’s all about.

And what Luke is doing in our passage this morning is he’s showing us just one example, but it’s an example that’s important of how Jesus came to fulfill all those Old Testament expectations and laws. And he does it through a very personalized way between two older saints named Simeon and Anna. And they were there to see as they were waiting for the Messiah for such a long time. The big idea this morning is Jesus was born of woman, born under the law to fulfill the law’s requirements and redeem those who put their hope in God. So if you would please stand for the reading of God’s holy and perfect word from Luke chapter 2.

Luke chapter 2 we’ll begin here in verse 21 says this at the end of 8 days when he was circumcised he was called Jesus the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb and when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord as it is written in the law of the Lord every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. And this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And he came in the spirit into the temple.

And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,”Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed, and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.” And there was a prophetus, Anna, the daughter of Fenwell, of the tribe of Asher.

She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin. And then as a widow until she was 84, she did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour, she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. Thank you. May be seated.

The temple features prominently in this passage. This is a recurring theme in the Bible, the temple. Our passage here has Mary and Joseph taking their infant Jesus and it shows them carrying out what is required in the law of Moses, the law of the Lord. They’re going through all these purification rights or these these principles that were laid down in Leviticus. They’re circumcising Jesus and then they take Jesus to the temple and they offer a sacrifice which is was the customary thing to do after you had a baby.

You offer a sacrifice. Now if you were to travel to Jerusalem today, you would not see the temple on the temple mount. [snorts] the in fact that temple was destroyed after the Romans came in AD.70 which was something Jesus predicted would happen. But today, if you go to that exact site where Jesus was taken as a baby on the Temple Mount, you would see not a temple, but an Islamic shrine called the the Dome of the Rock.

And the Dome of the Rock was built in the year 692. And this is the site that Muslims believe that Muhammad had this encounter with God where he was carried up into heaven and spoke spoke with God there. And [snorts] the same temple mount is also known as Mount Mariah. This is the location where Abraham many years before would have offered up Isaac. But during the crusades, the temple mount temporarily came under the control of the Christians and then that mosque was transformed into a church for a short period of time.

So this historically this has been a hill that has been hotly contested and it’s at the basically at the center of a hotly contested region of land. Three different religions all have kind of vied for their stake in this place saying this is important to us. This is important to what we believe and some will even say it belongs to us not you. Just below the Dome of the Rock on the western side is what is known as the Western Wall or some have called it the Whailing Wall because what will happen is people Jews will come from all over the world and they will every day if you go to this wall you’ll see Jewish people chanting swaying and praying and often they will be praying for a redemption still today praying for God to act. This is the part of the wall that’s the only part of the retaining wall that Herod had built around the temple compound roughly 15 to 16 years before Jesus was born.

It’s the only part left. The Temple Mount is that epicenter of all this conflict. We hear about it in the news. This conflict with Israel, the Middle East, and and it’s hard to know what to make sense of all this, but here is where basically is the core or the very bullseye of that conflict. And it is ironically called the holy land.

Although there is a lot of unholy things that are happening there. But in Jesus’s day, a massive Jewish temple stood on that temple mount. And it was impressive because Herod had come along and he had built it up and fortified it and beautified it. And so this is what Joseph and Mary would have seen as they brought Jesus there. And I want you to think about what the great significance is here.

This this is why this is so important because when you look at the Old Testament and what it says about what we should expect the Messiah to do, this passage right here is very crucial. And it all comes down to a promise that was given through the prophet Malachi. Malachi 3:1 says,”Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight. Behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.” Now, here’s why that prophecy matters.

The first temple that Solomon built on this spot, it it was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians in 586 BC. And then what happened is all of Israel had to go into exile for 70 years, 70 long years. They were they were kicked out of the land, but then they came back and they were allowed to rebuild the temple and they were expecting this great and glorious thing as the temple went up. But it says that everybody looked around and they realized, you know what, this temple lacks the glory of that first temple. Says they were sad.

But then we have this prophecy from Malachi where he says the Lord whom you seek, the Lord that you want to bless this temple will suddenly come to his temple. So through Malachi, God promised he would personally visit this second temple. And now in Luke 2, Luke is telling us that the baby Jesus, God in human flesh has come to the temple. He’s come because his parents have brought him there. And since this very temple was destroyed in AD50, about 40 years after Jesus’s death and resurrection, that means that this prophecy of the Messiah arriving could only happen before AD.

70. The Messiah couldn’t come after that point in time. Verse 22 says, “When the time came for the purification rights required by the law of Moses, Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.” So, if you’re taking notes, number one, when Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to Jerusalem, the Lord’s promise to visit his temple was fulfilled. He did what he said he was going to do.

The temple is a place that holds special significance for the Jewish people. Ever since it was Moses leading his people and they had the tabernacle, God had committed to meet with his people in a special way in this house of worship. Now, God’s presence is talked about in many ways in the Bible. If someone was to ask you, “Where is God?” How would you respond?

Everywhere. That’s right. You know, I remember my niece Julia asked this question when she was four years old or so. And and we’re sitting at the family dinner table right after prayer and we all look up and then she says right away, “Well, where is God? I can’t see him.”

And my dad replied,”He’s right here because God is everywhere.” And of course, that’s obviously true because God is omnipresent. He’s present everywhere. That’s what the Bible teaches. And we can’t see him because he’s spirit.

The Gospel of John says no one has ever seen God. But there’s another sense in which the Bible talks about God’s presence and it calls it the we theologians tend to call it the manifest presence of God. And the manifest presence of God is when you personally experience God’s presence in a unique way. Just to give you an example, when Moses met God at the burning bush, God was present at that burning bush in a way that he was not present in every other bush, right? And so we would say that’s his manifest presence.

He was there in a unique and special way. In the same way, it’s one thing to know things about God, but God wants us to not just know about him and and think of him as this idea. He wants us to experience his presence personally in a unique way. One day, followers of Jesus will experience God’s presence on a level we have never experienced here on earth. Not yet.

Because in Revelation 21 and 22, it makes the point, it says God will dwell with his people. And it even says that we will see his face. There will be this tremendous experience where we will be bathed in the glory of God and we’re going to actually see his face. If we can imagine that, that will be an experience of God’s presence we have not yet experienced. So in one sense, God is everywhere.

In another sense, God is right now on his throne in heaven. That’s what the Bible says. And in yet another sense, God is present in our midst personally with us by his Holy Spirit. And the temple was to be this place where heaven and earth would overlap and people would get to be in God’s presence in a unique way that they couldn’t just anywhere else. When Solomon finished praying that prayer of consecration when the first temple was built, it says that glory the glory of God just filled the temple and the priests physically could not enter the temple because that the the glory of God was so powerful and manifest that they couldn’t go inside.

And when Jesus was on earth, he in many ways identified with the temple. His body even was referred to as as the temple. And in a very real way by coming to earth, Jesus was replacing the temple. Before Jesus came, the place you go, if if you’re a Jewish person, you’re thinking, I want to go meet with God. You go to the temple.

You go to Jerusalem. That’s where he’s at. That’s where you would encounter the living God. Now that Jesus has come, you encounter the living God through faith in him. Jesus is where you meet God and find his presence.

You don’t take an animal sacrifice to the temple anymore. You go to Jesus for forgiveness because he’s already offered that full and final sacrifice of his body. In Luke 2, we see Joseph and Mary as faithful Jews coming up from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. They are just following the laws of purity that Moses laid down. It’s important to understand here though the Bible distinguishes between moral impurity and ritual impurity or ceremonial impurity.

You know according to Leviticus a new mother was ritually unclean for those first 40 days after giving birth to a son. And I remember I talked to Whitney about this one time and she pointed out that in giving this law God was allowing that new mother to spend time with her newborn baby. And and you know they weren’t going to be exposed to all those germs. They were ritually unclean. That’s that’s the the reality of the situation.

But it also benefited that new mother. Leviticus 12 says that after that time of ritual uncleanness, the mom should offer a lamb as an offering. But there was this provision. If you didn’t have the means to afford a lamb, if you couldn’t you couldn’t buy a lamb to offer, you could offer up two turtle doves or two pigeons instead. And so when we see that Joseph and Mary offer up two birds, what does that tell us?

They didn’t have a lot. You know, Joseph was a humble carpenter. He didn’t make a lot of money. The these were two Jewish peasants. They they offered what they could.

[snorts] Now, here’s the irony. They can’t afford a lamb. But who’s in Mary’s arms? We remember the song Mary had a little lamb. Well, Mary did have a little lamb.

The the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And here’s the point of application in your notes. God is more concerned with the heart of the giver than the amount that is given. You want to know what God cares about? He cares about your heart when you give.

Not the amount that that is totally subsequent to he wants to know where is your heart at when you’re giving to him. See, even in the law, God made this provision for those who didn’t have a lot to give. God can do much with little. He He fed over Jesus fed over 5,000 with just five loaves and two fish. God is not limited.

He has infinite resources. And so when God is calling us to give, it’s not because he’s hurting for cash and he just needs us to generously help him out. No, God has no needs. The reason he calls us to give is because we need to give. Our souls need that.

The Apostle Paul says this 2 Corinthians 9, “Whoever sws sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sws bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver.” God says, “You get to decide how much blessing you’re going to reap. If you sow a little, you’re gonna reap a little.

If you sow bountifully, you will reap bountifully. God has a special blessing for those who give generously from the heart. Not under compulsion. So, not in a forced way, not not a bitterly like I have to do this. No, out of the the love and joy of your heart.

You’re giving because you get to, not because you have to. And this is an act of faith. See, by sewing abundantly or giving with a cheerful heart, you’re demonstrating your trust in God’s promises. You’re saying, “I’m God’s child, and he has promised to never leave me nor forsake me. He He has promised to meet all my needs.

I never need to be anxious. Never. I don’t need to worry about tomorrow. He’s taken care of that.” And by giving, you’re saying,”I trusting that if I sow abundantly, he’s going to cause there to be an abundant harvest in my life.”

That can take different forms. It’s up to God. But he says, “You will reap bountifully.” But mark this, the Lord doesn’t look down on those who don’t have much to give. He doesn’t have this special class of the wealthy who get more blessings because they have more to give.

No, he he looks at the heart and he sees what you have to give. When that widow could only give that might, that tiny amount, you know, it was all she had. But Jesus praised her even though it was a small amount. So, do we bring animals to the temple today? No.

But we still give from the heart. The same principle is there. And we ask that whatever we give, God would use it for his kingdom and his glory. While they’re in the temple, Joseph and Mary are greeted by this man named Simeon. It says this in 25 verse 25.

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. And this man was righteous and devout waiting for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. So Simeon was this older man nearing death. And God has given him a special promise.

You, Simeon, are going to be able to see the Messiah before you die. Just imagine what a promise like that would do in your life. Imagine that the Holy Spirit told you, you are going to see Jesus return on the clouds in this lifetime. Imagine how that would affect you. That would be the the guiding principle of your life, right?

You’d continually be looking, maybe it’s today. Maybe, maybe because I know he’s coming. How many days had Simeon wandered up and down the temple courts wondering, “Is this the day I get to see the Messiah?” And then finally, one day, as he’s nearing his death, he’s a very old man at this point, he’s nudged by the Holy Spirit to go into that temple one last time, and he sees this promise fulfilled. The spirit leads him right to Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus, and he’s overcome.

It says verse 28, Simeon took Jesus in his arms and praised God. Now, how many of you moms would be okay with some random old guy coming up and taking your baby, lifting him up? By the way, Simeon is frail and about to die. But somehow in that moment, Mary just knew this is right. This is of the Lord.

Because as she’s looking at Simeon and she sees the promise that he’s about to give, she sees the look in his eyes as he recognizes this is my savior. This baby I’m holding is going to save me. Imagine the emotion of that moment. And he says this verse 29, sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the sight of all nations, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel.

So Simeon is like that that servant who’s been told by his master to watch for this star. And once he sees that star rise in the sky, he’s free. He’s dismissed. He can go. And it says that Joseph and Mary marveled at what was said about Jesus already.

This young couple has been through a lot. You know, they had an angel show up to them. Both of them. They were there on that night. Jesus was laid in the manger and they saw the shepherds come talking about this angel choir and they called their little baby Lord and Savior.

See, the picture is getting clearer and clearer for them just who this baby of theirs is. He’s not just a part in salvation. He is salvation. When you see Jesus, you are looking at salvation. Some of you can remember the first time it all clicked for you.

When it all made sense and the Holy Spirit cleared away the rubble and you recognized Jesus really is the savior. He really did die in my place. He loved me that much. Do you remember that moment? And you can still probably think back to how that changed everything.

Your whole perspective on life was changed because if Jesus has come to save me, then I have to live for him. How could I not live for somebody who died for me and rose again? Simeon says Jesus is a light for revelation to the Gentiles. That’s us. Jesus came not just for men.

He came for women. He came not just for the Jew. He came for the gentile. There’s that scene in Revelation where we see gathered around the throne of God is people from every tongue, tribe, people, and nation. They’re there and they’re worshiping the lamb.

Worthy are you to receive all praise, glory, and dominion. Jesus is the savior of all who repent and trust in him. You can imagine Mary and Joseph just looking at this this promise given. And they look at their little baby and they’re thinking, “This is incredible.” And Mary takes her baby back into her arms and she has this renewed sense that this baby has come to save all of us.

[snorts] And Simeon says, “Now, because God has kept his word, I can go. I I can die because God has done everything he said he would do.” And this principle has a wider application in your notes. Anyone who has seen Jesus with the eyes of faith is prepared for death. If you’ve seen Jesus, you’re prepared for death.

If you have looked on Jesus as your savior, you’ve put all your hope in him. You’ve recognized that he bore your guilt and punishment. He died in your place. If you’ve looked at him with the eyes of faith, you are ready for death. And what could be more important than being prepared for death?

It’s something, you know, the Bible says that we all lived in this fear of death. In other words, we try to suppress it, deny it, pretend it’s not there, pretend it’s not going to happen to us. It’s for other people. But then we attend another funeral and there’s that reminder once again, death is coming. And am I prepared for it?

Am I ready for what comes next? Socrates said that all of philosophy [snorts] exists to help us prepare for death. To prepare for that moment when you take your heart beats that final time you take your final breath and your soul passes on to the next life. The Bible says that until we have Jesus, we’re driven by this fear of death. It overwhelms us.

But but even though we try to ignore it or put it to the side, it’s still there. We’re reminded once again, death is a reality. Job tells us or tells God, I should say, “You, Lord, have decided the length of our lives. You know how many months we will live, and we are not given a minute longer.” God already has on his calendar the day of your death.

He knows the exact minute, the exact moment. We don’t know it. He knows it. And the question is, are we prepared for that? Comedian Woody Allen says, “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work.

I want to achieve immortality through not dying.” I think that’s a sentiment that many people would agree with. I I would just like to skip that whole death part. You know, it’s fine if, you know, just get right into heaven, get on a chariot like Elijah. That would be wonderful and skip death.

But no, the Bible says it’s appointed for every person to die once and then comes judgment. It’s the inevitable fact we all have to face. Interestingly, even atheists will sometimes admit that Christianity offers a far better hope than their worldview. Atheist Sam Harris in an interview admitted just as much. He was talking with a guy who had lost his daughter to cancer and he admitted, you know what, as an atheist, I I can’t offer you any real comfort.

He says, you know, it’s consoling to believe that the daughter was just taken up with Jesus and everyone is going to be reunited in a few short years. There’s no replacement for that. He’s saying, “As an atheist, I’d like to have a hope like you Christians have, but to be honest, we don’t have that. It It’s kind of a bleak worldview. You just you end it.

No more love, no more relationships, just the end of you. That’s it.” And interestingly he says the New Testament I should say says since the children have flesh and blood he too shared in their humanity talking about Jesus so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death that is the devil and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. And I just want to emphasize that again. The Bible says all their lives, it’s not as though you go on vacation and you’re no longer somehow impacted by this fear of death.

Are held in slavery by their fear of death. Thankfully, we have a God who delivers us from the fear of death. And his name is Jesus. Jesus came and he broke the power of death. In his death, the sting of death was taken out for all those who belong to him.

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even though they die. Yes, you’re going to still have to face death, but you know what? Because of my death in your place, and because you put your faith in me, death is no longer just this dead end or this dreadful thing you have to fear. Now death is transformed and it’s now a portal into this glorious presence with me.

That’s what it’s going to be. Simeon then looks at Mary and says something else. Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed, and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. Simeon tells Mary that her son will split the world in half. It it’ll be those who fall and those who rise.

He will be opposed by many. In fact, Simeon says, “Mary, a sword is going to pierce your own soul.” And and you think, Mary must have wondered all those years that Jesus was growing up, what does that mean? A so a spe a sword will pierce my soul until maybe even on that final day. She may have wondered this all the way until the day at Calvary.

And she looked up and she saw her son, that little boy that she used to cradle in her arms, is now this grown man and he’s bleeding staked to a Roman cross dying in front of her. And she knew what it means to have a sword pierce your soul. Can you imagine the anguish of a mother having to see a son die in that way for the sins of the world? When Whitney and I were at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, we saw the sculpture called the Pieta by Michelangelo, and that depicts Mary holding Jesus after he’s been taken down from the cross.

And and it just it makes you pause and wonder what was going through her mind at that time. What was she thinking? How could she handle that? Simeon says, “A pier, a sword will pierce your soul.” [snorts] But then he says this about Jesus that he will be this great divider.

Jesus himself would later say, “I have come not to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” >> [snorts] >> Now, yes, Jesus is the prince of peace, but he’s also the king of kings. And the reality is that not everybody wants Jesus as king to rule over them. And the more people realize that Jesus demands our full allegiance as king, then you will either more fully want to serve him and live for him and give all your allegiance to him or you will be more and more opposed to him and rail against him because you don’t want a king.

The more I’ve talked to people, the more I’ve seen that Jesus Christ is the most loved and the most hated person on the planet. Jesus himself said that love for him would show up as obedience to him. That’s how you show your love for Jesus. You obey him. He said that hatred for him would show up in how the the church would be persecuted and maligned and mistreated.

He says really that’s that’s showing their hatred for me. As Simeon says, Jesus is the one who will reveal what’s really going on in our hearts. Next, Luke includes a story about an elderly widow named Anna. Verse 36, a prophetus Anna, the daughter of Fenwell of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin and then as a widow until she was 84.

She did not depart from the temple. Amazing. She never left worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. So like Simeon, Anna has been longing to see the Messiah. She’s been there waiting, anxiously hoping for this fulfillment, this great king to arrive.

And it says that, you know, she’s had a hard life because she’s lost her husband when she was only married seven years. She’s lived as a widow, but she has this eternal perspective. She’s had a hard life, but rather than turning her back on God, she’s been drawn closer to God through her suffering. We don’t hear Anna speak at all, but we learn about her. She’s been quietly worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.

She’s she’s been there serving the Lord. And this is how many Christians show their love for Jesus. They may not be big on public speaking. They may not be outspoken evangelists. And they might not be, you know, leading worship up front, but they’re quietly and patiently in the background serving the Lord through prayers, fasting, and serving in other less visible ways.

And while people like Anna never want the attention, we should commend them for their service. When you see someone going out of their way, maybe behind the scenes, showing their love for Jesus, express appreciation for that person. Let them know that what they do really does matter to the body of Christ. Finally, in your notes, you were created to worship Jesus every day and for all eternity. That is why you exist.

That’s what you were created for, worshiping Jesus. Anna is looking on as Simeon prophesies over Joseph, Jesus, and Mary and and she’s recognizing this is my Messiah. And she suddenly can’t help but speak about him. So even though she’s been quietly there in the background, even at this point, she she wants to tell others about what God has done. This is the only time we read about Simeon and Anna.

They’re just on the stage briefly and then they they’re passing away. But reminds us that reminds us that even those who have a quieter role still will want to serve Jesus and they still do something that makes a big difference. So here’s my encouragement for you. Expect God to us

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