New Year’s Revelations

Once again, it is a joy to be with you, Christ Covenant Church.  If you will take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Luke chapter 2, we’ll actually read verses 21, starting there, just one page over from the familiar Christmas story.  Luke chapter 2, verses 21 through 40.

“And at the end of eight 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 to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, 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 prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, 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 eighty-four.  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.”

“And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.  And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon Him.”

Would you bow your heads and pray with me? 

Faithful and true God, reveal Yourself to us through Your Word tonight.  Keep us engaged and attentive that we might know You clearly and worship You earnestly.  I pray this in the name of Christ.  Amen.   

Oftentimes when we come to a passage of Scripture, many of you know this, it can be difficult to know what to make of it, difficult to make quick or easy or particularly the relevant application to our own lives.  Sometimes we don’t see ourselves in a passage of Scripture.  Sometimes our names don’t jump off the page.  Sometimes we don’t hear any commands.  There’s nothing for us necessarily to do in certain passages.

As has been the case for most of this year as we’ve studied the book of Joshua, or even just this month that we have rehearsed the narrative of the Christmas story, especially in these sort of historical narratives, it can be hard to find ourselves or to know exactly what to do given a certain passage beyond believe that God’s Word is true.

But thankfully in these historical narratives we see oftentimes repetitive examples.  Examples are particularly helpful in Scripture because instead of just telling us what to do, they set patterns for our lives, and these patterns take shape in our daily lives as habits.

The passage that we just read and the passage we’ll study tonight I think is an excellent example of one of these cornerstone habits for our Christian life, and that is the practice of seeking God.  Pastor Kevin mentioned this just briefly this morning as we studied the wise men and he remarked on their faithful, their earnest, their almost puppy dog like faith that was born out in their eager seeking after the baby Jesus.  Even though they didn’t know exactly where they would find Him when they left on their journey, they didn’t know exactly what He would look like, their seeking of God is one of the acts of faith that cements them in our Bible forever to this day.

Psalm 119, verse 2 says blessed are they who seek after the Lord with their whole heart.  The Old Testament together gives us the idea that those of us who love and who serve God with our whole heart, mind, and strength are engaged together in seeking after the Lord.

So I can’t think of a better habit for us to meditate on while we perhaps rehearse the year behind us or look to the year ahead when we study this passage in front of us that follows the Christmas narrative.  One of the reasons this passage is helpful for us is because if we’re honest, there are a lot of road blocks that we can come up against when we earnestly desire to seek God, wherever it might be – busy schedules, the distractions of this life, your jobs, the schools that you go to, and the work that you have to study.  We need some help when it comes to seeking God.

This passage I think gives us three helps and encouragements as we desire to earnestly seek after God, to know Him better, to love Him daily, and to serve Him more faithfully.

What is the first helper that we see?  The first encouragement that we see when it comes to seeking God in our passage tonight?  Well, look back at the first few verses we read, 22 through 24.  There is a refrain that comes over and over again.  First we’re supposed to see, I think, that God’s Word equips you to seek Him.  God’s Word equips you to seek Him.

When Mary and Joseph take their baby Jesus, eight days old, to the Temple, they do so as we hear over and over again according to the law of the Lord, according to the God’s Word.  We see this repeated several different times and then you can see that Simeon echoes it in verse 29.  He says that God has been faithful according to His Word.  Then finally the summary statement at the end of this episode in verse 39, the refrain again, “when they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord.”  Mary and Joseph are excellent pictures of faithful obedience to God’s Word.

Why are they doing this?  Why are they so careful to perform this whole process according to the law of the Lord?  Well, certainly because they had been visited by an angel who told them who Jesus was and what He would do, but there are also specific biblical reasons.  Some of you may have a little footnote in your Bible that connects this sort of parenthetical statement that they’re doing what was written in the law of the Lord in verse 23 back to Exodus chapter 13.  God had commanded that the firstborn sons of every Israelite would be dedicated specially to Him.  He does this the Passover night, if you were to flip back to Exodus 13.  That command to specially dedicate the firstborn sons of Israel is sandwiched in between the description of the Passover and the description of the Feast of Unleavened Bread where Pharaoh, the evil king in Egypt, had threatened to kill Israelite children and God had instead visited that curse on His enemies in Egypt.  He said now I will especially preserve the firstborn sons of Israel.

Why is this connection to a major redemptive event in Israel’s history so important for Mary and Joseph here?  Because they want to honor God just like all of their family members, their fellow tribe members, have done before them.  For them, these aren’t just traditions, these aren’t just medical laws, but they are the very instructions for how they can meet with God, or for how they can seek to be into God’s presence.  Under the old covenant, these rules that Mary and Joseph are following faithfully here, there was a ceremonial, a ritual cleanliness that God’s people needed to adhere to in order to meet with God.  For Him to dwell with them, they had to be faithful to keep themselves clean by following His Word.

Though the laws are different for us, the principle is the very same.  We as new covenant believers will always be blessed when we live according to God’s Word, when we meet with God by following the guidelines that God has set for meeting with Him.  We will always be blessed when we follow God’s Word.

Now, I don’t think any of you will misunderstand me here, but we need to be clear that saying we will always be blessed is not the same as saying we will always be successful when we follow God’s Word.  It’s not the same as saying we will always be comfortable when we follow God’s Word.  If you think back to our New Testament reading, when Paul and Barnabas tried to preach this same message that Christ came to bring salvation to the nations, they were met with opposition, with persecution.  Saying that we will always be blessed when we live according to God’s Word is not the same as saying that we will always get what we want when we follow God’s Word. 

But just like we hear the refrain that the people in this chapter are doing things according to the law of the Lord, according to God’s Word, are faithfully obeying, we hear another refrain, this phrase “blessed” that comes up several times.  Their souls are lifted up, their hearts are encouraged that they are faithful to God’s Word, even Simeon who we meet here in verse 25 is described by the inspired author of Scripture as a man who is righteous and devout.  He is blessed because he follows God’s Word.

Even baby Jesus, eight days old, couldn’t speak, couldn’t walk, had to be carried to the Temple, probably had to be burped on the way there, is blessed because in this episode He is faithful to God’s law.

Likewise, you and I when we come and we worship God in His house on His day according to the stipulations set by God in His Word, if we seek Him faithfully we are blessed.  When we pray in the name of Christ for things agreeable to God’s will, we are blessed.  Children, when you obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right, you are blessed.

God’s Word is such an excellent gift when it comes to seeking after God because it includes everything that we need to know to meet with God.

I want you to imagine a scenario with me that you’ve gone to the doctor, I don’t know who this doctor is, but he tells you that to be happy, heathy, to look good, to feel good, to get straight A’s, what you need to do is every day, from here on out, just have a little bit of Taco Bell.  It can be anything from the menu, a little sip of Baja Blast, a double-decker taco, it doesn’t matter, but you’ve just got to have a bit every single day.  Maybe for some of you I’m describing your nightmare scenario, but stay with me here.

You might be a little bit excited but you might be a little daunted by this task.  I’ve got to remember to do this every day.  The traffic on 51 is terrible.  How am I ever going to work a little Taco Bell into my schedule every single day?  Well, you wake up the next morning after getting this prescription and bam!  There is a full functioning Taco Bell kitchen in your house, just like the one on the TV commercials.  Now all of a sudden it has become a lot more realistic for you to get a little bit of Taco Bell every single day.

Maybe we need like a smoothie place or a salad place or something to make this a better example.  But if the gifts that you need to follow this prescription have been given to you, have been put in front of you, following this prescription become a lot more realistic.

A much better illustration is the parable of the talents in Matthew chapter 25 when Jesus tells the parable and a master gives several servants different amounts of talents, of money, and charges them to take care of these resources while he is away.  He charges them to be faithful with his wealth and then provides them with the very means to honor his command.  He gives them five talents or two talents.  It is very realistic for these servants to honor the master’s command because he has provided them with the means that they need to be faithful.  In fact, if we read the rest of the parable, the only way to be unfaithful is to not touch the talents at all, it’s to bury them in the ground, forget about them, and then make some sort of mean comment about the master when he returns home.

God’s Word is everything we need to know who He is and to fellowship with Him, to seek after Him, and we will always be blessed when you seek God through the Word that He reveals Himself in.

So God’s Word helps us to seek after Him, but there’s a second helper pictured here.  God’s Spirit empowers you to seek after Him.

Let’s focus on this person of Simeon in this chapter here as another excellent example of faithfulness for us in verses 25 through 27.  Simeon is described first as a man who is righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation, for the comfort of Israel.  Then he’s described this way – the Holy Spirit was upon him and the Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ, this promised King, this anointed Messiah.

Then 27, one more detail, when he came in the Spirit into the Temple.  If there’s one thing we know for certain, it’s that Simeon knows and follows God’s Holy Spirit.  I’m not sure what it looked like.  The Scripture isn’t detailed or clear what it means that he came in the Spirit to the Temple.  Perhaps during his morning prayer he felt the need to go meet with God in God’s house.  Maybe he was at the Jerusalem Starbucks across the way and the sounds of the Temple invited him in.  Maybe he received, as we know he did at least once, another direct revelation from the Holy Spirit saying, “Go to the Temple now, this Messiah you’ve been waiting on is there.”  Whatever it is, Simeon was ready to respond to the Spirit’s call.  He was eager to see the promises of God fulfilled in his life. 

The Holy Spirit can and will use all kinds of things to turn your attention to the Lord.  Now this isn’t to say that we need to go around looking for signs all of the time.  Certainly God is pleased to reveal His will to us in various ways, especially through His Word like we’ve already mentioned.  But I don’t think you’re going to say follow a dove to Chick-fil-A up the road to meet your future spouse.  That said, there are both natural and supernatural worlds around us that Scripture is very clear constantly are declaring the glory of God.  The Holy Spirit will use the creation, will use the songs that we sing in church, a variety of things to direct your attention to the Lord.

If you have small children, or if you’ve been with or taken care of small children before, you know that one thing that they like is attention.  They are constantly saying things like, “Hey, look at that” or “look at this” or “did you see that, Mom and Dad?”  They’re constantly asking you questions.  Right?  You know that typically, not all the time but typically the best thing to do in these scenarios is to look.  Right?  Is to see what they want you to look at, to see what their directing your attention toward, or to answer their questions, to stop, perhaps helping them go the bathroom, to explain to them what a door stop is, for example. 

I think we can think of the Holy Spirit a little bit in the same way, constantly using the world around us to direct our attention, to call for our attention but specifically, not on Himself or not on some crazy skateboard trick, but on God.  We are charged by Scripture to be just as ready as Simeon was, be ready to seek God when the Spirit moves us to.

You might be moved to thank God for His generosity when opening or when giving a Christmas gift.  You might be moved to thank God for His protection when there’s a close call on the road in bad weather.  You might be moved to confess your sin to a God who is eager to give you forgiveness when you’re laying in bed, going over the day that you just had.  Whatever it might be, be ready.  Be ready to listen to the Spirit’s call and have your attention turned to God and His glorious things.

There’s one more quick application here as we study the character of Simeon, who faithfully held on to the words of the Holy Spirit.  I think that it is this.  In Scripture we often come to parts of the Bible to prophecies, even especially that we don’t always understand.  Simeon didn’t have to know exactly what baby Jesus would look like.  He didn’t have to even know in what form the Messiah was going to come  to see Him or to deliver the people of Israel for his faith to bring him into the presence of God when the Spirit moved him.

I actually don’t think it would be too far to suggest that this might have been a scary call for Simeon to hear.  For most of the history of the people of Israel, while they were seeking God, while they were called to love God, it was not a particularly enticing thing to think about seeing God face-to-face.  Remember in the Old Testament even Moses himself was not allowed to look directly on God’s face.  Only one person in all of Israel, once a year the high priest could come into the holiest place in the tabernacle or the temple and meet with God.  If he did this with a wrong heart or in the wrong way, it means instant death.  The presence of God for many, many people in the history of Israel meant death.

And yet when Simeon responded in faith to the Spirit’s movement, he wasn’t met with death.  He wasn’t met with holiness that was too great to look upon.  He was met with something so accessible.  God Himself could be seen and held.  He looked like any other firstborn baby brought to church for the first time. 

You don’t always have to understand the Word for it to be living and active, for the Holy Spirit to move.  Now that’s not an excuse not to study God’s Word.  That’s not an excuse not to plumb the mysteries of God’s Word, but know this, that faithful study of Scripture, faithful church attendance, faithful meeting with God, are all tools that the Holy Spirit can use to open your eyes to who God is.  You might say any given Sunday you can have your eyes opened to what Scripture is.  Just because you don’t understand a prophecy doesn’t mean it’s not true and it certainly doesn’t mean that you won’t ever understand, or that you won’t ever see it come to be fulfilled.

My students in middle school and high school have heard me say this many, many times before, but for the Christian the phrase “I don’t know” is often very acceptable, very appropriate, and even a mark of humility for us.  To say “I don’t know but that doesn’t meant that God’s Word isn’t good or God’s Word isn’t true” is no blind faith, but is in fact a superpower give of the Holy Spirit to see invisible things.  You and I can’t see God yet, but the Holy Spirit opens our eyes of faith to see Him and His handiwork everywhere.

So the Holy Spirit helps us to seek after God because He shows us invisible things.

Finally, our third helper tonight, are God’s promises.  God’s promises encourage you to seek Him.

Verses 36 through 38 add another person into the mix, another faithful temple attendee, the prophetess Anna.  Anna is advanced in years.  She’s a widow and she is in the temple, worshiping, fasting, praying, day and night.  Now the title of prophetess is an interesting one here.  Certainly it could mean that Anna was someone who had unique insight into the future or had received direct revelation from God, but oftentimes biblical prophets are less like fortune-tellers and are more like God’s heralds.  They are uniquely tasked with understanding and knowing God’s Word.  Anna likely would be intimately familiar with God’s Word, specifically the prophecies and the promises made in it.  She probably spent her days exhorting people to believe in the written Word of God to return to the Lord and to seek after Him, just like many of the Old Testament prophets.

The truths of God’s Word shaped her daily life.  They brought her to God’s house, worshiping, praying, fasting daily.  Her faith in the promises of God, her commitment to the promises of God, brought her into His presence.  They changed her heart, they changed her perspective, they changed her behavior.  God’s promises help you seek Him because they grip your whole being.  They are both things that you can believe when things are going well, things that inspire you to start new building projects, or to take on big moves and challenges.  They are comforts to you when things are going wrong, when you’re suffering, when you, like I already mentioned, don’t know answers to questions.  God’s promises are about motivating your behavior, they’re about changing your perspective, and they are about laying your foundation.  They grip your whole person from your head to your feet.

So God’s Word equips us to seek Him, God’s Holy Spirit empowers us, and God’s promises encourage us to seek Him.

Before I close, I think we need to take a minute to note, and probably lament, that seeking God can be very costly for us.  This is another truth that we heard echoed this morning as well.  Look at some of the costs that the people in our narrative this evening have to pay.  Mary and Joseph have to pay financially to obey God’s Word here.  They have to come to the Temple, and if you look back at the beginning in verse 24, they offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves and two young pigeons.  Now that’s not even to count the cost of traveling to the Temple.

It’s interesting here that we get the specific nature of their sacrifice, the turtledoves and the pigeons, as some of you may know is actually a provision from again the Old Testament.  This was specifically from Leviticus chapter 12.  This is the offering that only the poorest in Israel were required to give.  Mary and Joseph give this sacrifice out of their poverty.  Here again God’s mercy is on display as He provides for them exactly what they need to seek Him, namely something that they can afford, but it still costs them.

Simeon further paid with his time.  We don’t know his age here, we aren’t clued in to that the same way we are as Anna, but he has been waiting on the Lord to comfort him and to comfort His people for years and years.  Maybe along the way he has seen friends and family turn away from seeking God.  He certainly has probably seen injustice and suffering in Jerusalem around him.  He’s given his time in faithful waiting on God’s promises even as he seeks God to fulfill His promise.

Anna has given up her physical comfort.  Even described the loss of a spouse in this story.  She has been fasting.  She spent days and nights in the Temple.  Through what she gives up, we can see that seeking the presence of the Lord is pretty clearly one of her highest priorities.

Finally, easy to miss but probably most significant of all, baby Jesus Himself.  He pays.  He pays in blood and suffering.  Without going into too much detail here, we know that circumcision is messy, it’s painful.  This is not Jesus’ last suffering, it’s not even Jesus’ ultimate suffering, but it is still a necessary suffering on our behalf.  Jesus Christ in order to perfectly obey the whole law of God, even before He is a year old, before He’s one month old, is paying in blood so that He can seek God on our behalf, so that He can fulfill what has been prophesied about Him.

I already mentioned that in Exodus God makes this charge to Israel that all the firstborn sons are to be specially dedicated to Him, but flip with me to Numbers chapter 8.  God will actually develop this charge even further.  He will give more clarity to His people.  Numbers chapter 8 we hear about this command to dedicate the firstborn sons of Israel yet again except with more specificity.

Read with me in verse 14, the Lord spoke to Moses and then He says to the people in verse 14:  “Thus you shall separate the Levites from among the people of Israel and the Levites shall be Mine.  After that, the Levites shall go in to serve at the tent of meeting when you have cleansed them and offered them as a wave offering for they are wholly given to me from among the people of Israel.  Instead of all who open the womb, the firstborn of all the people of Israel I have taken them for Myself.  For all the firstborn among the people of Israel are mine both of man and of beast.  On the day that I struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I consecrated them for myself, and I have taken the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the people of Israel.  And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the people of Israel, to do the service for the people of Israel at the tent of meeting and to make atonement for the people of Israel, that there may be no plague among the people of Israel when the people of Israel come near the sanctuary.””

Interesting here is the narrative of God’s redemptive plan keeps ticking on and on.  He adds this detail that He has specifically selected the Levites to be representatives of the people of Israel before Him, before God, so that they can make atonement.

Jesus is assuming both the role of firstborn and the role of priest, even as an eight day old baby, prepared to make atonement, preparing to cleanse our sin, preparing to restore our relationship with God.  His cleansing will open the doors of the heavenly sanctuary and usher us in to live with God.

So God both this evening, through His Word, invites and equips us to seek Him.  I’ll close with this idea of why.  Because God doesn’t want us to seek Him because He’s somehow so mysterious or hidden from us.  He doesn’t want us to seek Him because He’s so far away from us that it’s this impossible, daunting task.  His call to seek Him is a reflection of how compassionate, how generous that He is. 

Think of all the times that He makes this call to see Him in His Word.  Some of them come mind King David charges his son Solomon to seek the Lord in 1 Chronicles chapter 28.  He says this – if you seek Him, He will be found by you.

Some of you may have sung that old children’s song based on the verse, everyone who asks, everyone who seeks, everyone who knocks will receive, will find, and will have the door opened to them.

I almost hate to use Santa as an illustration in this sermon, so let’s just have that disclaimer.  I also hate disclaimers, but there are two things for you.  It’s tacky, it’s forced, this time of year especially.  I didn’t set out writing this sermon to use a Santa illustration.  But in all the stories and movies and books about Santa, why do children go seek after Santa?  Not because he’s like really scary, even though some of you may have been scared of Santa as children.  He’s kind of coming to your house without being invited, whatever.  Because when you go and see Santa, and you tell him what you want for Christmas, it happens.  Christmas morning, down the chimney, in the stockings, whatever it is.  That’s what the movies and the books told me.

God’s invitation to seek Him comes from the same place.  Actually, it’s probably better and more accurate to say that Santa’s invitation is based off of God’s.  The invitation to seek Him is borne out of how ready, eager, and willing that God is to make Himself known to those who seek Him.

Our last reading this evening.  Turn with me to Isaiah chapter 55.  Isaiah chapter 55.  We will see this borne out for us.  In Isaiah 55, some of you may even have the heading in your Bible, “The Compassion of the Lord.”  Verse 6 makes this charge:  “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.”  If we are to skip some of the curses for not doing so, jump down to verse 12.  What is the result of seeking the Lord?  It’s this:  The blessings given to you by a generous and compassionate God, for you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace.  The mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing and all the trees of the fields shall clap their hands, instead of the thorns shall come up the cypress, instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle, and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

God is so compassionate and generous that He will leave His seat in heaven to seek you.  He will give up His life so that when you seek Him, you can be certain to find Him with open arms. 

Let’s pray together.  Gracious God, we thank You for this Word, for the promises, the examples, set up in it.  We ask that we would cling to this truth that You will bless those who seek You, that we would use all the means that You have blessed us with, the provision of Your Holy Spirit, the truth of Your Word, and the eternal promises you’ve given us.  Would they shape our hearts, the way we live, and will we respond even now with joy and singing as we know the whole world one day will.  It’s in Christ’s name we pray.  Amen.