My Eyes Have Seen Your Salvation

So this next month or so, we're going to be taking a break from the book of Deuteronomy. We're going to be preaching sermons related to Advent. Advent just means coming. Christ has come once, and we live sort of in the intermediary time between his first and his second coming. And so we look both back at his first coming, and we look forward in anticipation of his second coming. We don't typically preach sermons related to Advent. As I was looking through my archives, and it seems that it was 2017, maybe, was the last time I could find that we did this. We preached through Advent, so that's been almost 10 years. Typically, we just keep going on through our normal sermon series, but I thought it would be good for us, and particularly good for me, to have to take time to focus on God's mercies.

and sending his son Jesus to us. Hopefully it will get us oriented to this season and all the pressures that we'll face from the world. We'll establish a bit of a stronghold or a beachhead, if you will, in remembering our Savior and not just all of the stuff that surrounds this season of life. This week, as we heard in the Advent reading, was about the prophets. Before Jesus' birth and before his word was completed to us, most of the time when God would communicate to his people, he would communicate to them through prophets. He'd raise up a man. He'd speak to that man. He'd say, go say to my people or go say to this people this thing. Moses would do that sort of thing and on down through the generations. God would use prophets to tell the people what was coming, to warn them, to teach them.

to call them to repentance. The thing about a prophet is that they tell you what will happen before it happens, as opposed to those who interpret or analyze what is happening or what has happened in the past. The point of this sermon this morning is not to define and defend prophecy as a biblical category, but rather to show how we as God's people ought to respond to prophecy. It's not the sort of thing that's dead and gone now and it's just in the past. There are still prophecies of God that are not fulfilled yet or not completely fulfilled yet. And so we ought not to just set them aside as something that's over and done with, but still things that bear on us today. Our text is from Luke chapter 2. We're going to be studying Simeon, who was a righteous and devout man who loved the Lord. And my point is simple this morning. We ought to be like Simeon.

That's it. That's the whole point of the sermon is we ought to be like Simeon. We're going to look at what Simeon was like now for the rest of the sermon. Would you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord? From Luke chapter 2, verses 15 through 32. And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. And this man was righteous and devout, looking 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. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to carry out for him the custom of the law, then he, referring to Simeon, took him, Jesus, into his arms and blessed God and said, Now, Lord, you are releasing your bondservant to depart in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples. A light of revelation to the Gentiles.

and the glory of your people Israel. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. I want to talk a little bit about prophecy generally before we get right into Simeon. There's a couple of things I think we do well to keep in mind. The first thing I think we should know about prophets and prophecy is that it's rare that people listen to them. People don't like prophets. In the Old Testament, the prophets were not the popular people. They were not the ones that everyone came to. They weren't the ones that everyone flocked to or waited with bated breath to see what are they going to say. They despised them. Why did they despise the prophets? Why don't they like them? Well, oftentimes prophets are bombastic. Oftentimes prophets have negative things to say about us. Often they're dramatic. They could also be too serious.

Why can't you lighten up? Sometimes they could be seen as manipulative, trying to lead and guide our emotions. I think all of these perspectives on prophets are rooted in the reality that they warn us against things that we don't think we deserve. And when I say we, I'm just speaking about God's people in general. They come to us and they say, no. And we say, you can't say that to me. The Lord wouldn't do that. Does the Lord know? And does he see? These are the things that the people would say many times in response to the prophecies. There are on occasion times where people hear a prophet and they do listen. One of the most incredible stories of that is actually Jonah. When he goes to Nineveh, who aren't God's people, and what does he do? He comes and he says, in seven days, the Lord's going to wipe you guys out. Did I give the wrong amount of time? 40 days, I'm sorry. 40 days.

I always look at Daniel for details like that because they get jumbled up in my head. The Lord's going to strike you down. You're a terrible people. And Jonah didn't actually say, if you repent, he might relent. He never said that. He just said, you've got 40 days. Go. And the Lord's going to come strike you down. And then the people of Nineveh, the Ninevites, they do this amazing thing. They repent. They cover themselves in sackcloth and ashes. And they plead for mercy. And they receive it. They receive it. The Lord relents. He doesn't destroy them. And then we have the book of Jonah ends with him going up and sitting under a bush or tree and just grumbling and complaining because he knew God was merciful. And he didn't like the Ninevites. And he was frustrated that God did. That's an extraordinary response to prophecy. Most of the time, if you think about the nation of Israel, how did they respond to the prophets? They killed them. They locked them up.

They persecuted them. They didn't like them. And it's usually because the prophets have things to say about judgment and exile and destruction and their sins and their idolatry. So they didn't like them. So nobody would listen to them because they were not talking about what was happening right then. They were talking about something that would happen in the future. In some ways, it's a bit of a cheat, but it's kind of a picture here. If you have a weatherman down in Florida, he's a bit of a prophet. Now, he's got gadgets and satellites and all kinds of things to tell you about the weather. But if he tells you a bad hurricane's coming and it's 85 degrees outside and beautiful and sunny, he says, there's a hurricane coming in three days or five days. It's not going to be like this. There's going to be 80 mile, 100 mile an hour winds. And you look around and you go, no way. No way. Look, it is so beautiful out here. You're crazy.

It probably won't be as bad as you're saying it's going to be. Even if it is, it probably won't come right here where I am. We have this tendency to take warnings and just kind of discount them or discredit them and say, no, you're overreacting. That's common with all the people in the Old Testament as they heard the warnings that the prophets gave. They thought, well, when the clouds get dark, then we'll start to worry about it. The problem is by then it's too late. It's too late to do anything about it. If the wind's kicking up and the storm's coming in Florida, it's too late to get out. You get to stay. Maybe in your house, maybe on the highway, but you get to stay. Do you remember the story of the 10 virgins? We're told to keep oil for their lamps. And how five of them went and got oil in preparation of the bridegroom coming. They said, we're going to go and prepare because we don't know when he's coming, but we want to be ready when he comes.

But the other five, oh, we'll get to it. Then the bridegroom shows up and they're not prepared. They didn't listen. They didn't listen because they thought, surely that won't happen like that. Surely there'll be time. Surely there'll be opportunity for us to prepare later. But sadly for those five virgins, it was too late. They had been warned or they'd been taught. They'd been instructed. They went, well, we'll get to it a little bit later. And then later never came. Or by the time later came, it was, Too late. And so we have to be careful when we read the prophets that we don't just discredit them as being over the top and bombastic, but that we listen to them. Because there are still prophecies that are not yet fulfilled today. That story about the ten virgins and about the bridegroom coming and returning, it hasn't happened yet. That's not a story about when Jesus came the first time. That's a story about when Jesus comes the second time.

That hasn't happened yet. And so the whole point of that story is be like the five virgins who went and got their oil ahead of time and were prepared. Don't be like the five virgins who delayed. And so in a sense, that's a warning, a foretelling to us of how we ought to conduct ourselves today based on something that's going to happen in the future. And we don't know when. And I think that when we don't know when or how, when we lack the details, we say, well, I want more information first. That can be a deadly error. Another word about prophets. We don't have prophets anymore. God doesn't send prophets anymore in the strict sense. A man that's raised up by God like Isaiah was, where God says to him, he says, who will go and speak to my people? And Isaiah says, I'll go and speak to him. And God puts a burning coal in Isaiah's mouth to signify his word to then be given and delivered to his people.

Or Ezekiel, who he says, who's going to talk? And Ezekiel has to eat the scroll, literally eat the word, so that it's in him, so that when he speaks, he's speaking out the words of God. We don't have prophets in that sense anymore. But some of the things that those men said, as I've just pointed out, are still waiting to be fulfilled. And so we shouldn't pass by them. While the prophets are dead, their messages are still intact. And finally, while we don't have prophets anymore, we do have pastors and elders. And there's a lot of overlap between the work of a prophet and the work of a pastor or an elder. Okay? Prophet's whole job was to guide and shepherd and lead and discipline and protect the people. They're to warn them. And that is largely the work of pastors and elders today. Now, I realize that many pastors and elders don't realize that that's their job or haven't been equipped to do that work, but it is their job.

They're to come to the people and they're to warn them and guard them and protect them. Not just comfort them once the storm hits, but to warn them that if they continue in their path, a storm is coming. We like the Israelites bristle at that sort of goading. When someone comes and says, poorly done, or your child needs some attention, or you're lazy and you ought to get up and provide for your family. Or fill in the blank. We don't like that kind of exhortation. We don't like that sort of warning because the fruit of our behavior is not sitting in our laps yet. We as God's people ought to receive those sorts of warnings and those sorts of admonitions with open hearts and open minds. Whether those come from the prophets in the scripture, whether they come from your pastors and elders now. So now we come to Simeon. Who is Simeon? What was he like?

The passage describes him as righteous and devout. These are the sort of characteristics that we should want other people to use in describing us. If someone were to tell our story and to say, what is he like? What is she like? How would they describe us? If they were honest at our funerals, what would they say? Righteous and devout? I hope. Well, we need more than someone to say we're righteous and devout. What we need is for it to be true, that we actually are righteous and actually are devout. Now, I realize in asking this question, how would you be described by those who know you? I realize that it's possible for you to get discouraged at me asking the question, but actually the implicit point is, well, of course you're not righteous and devout. That's not actually my point. My point's not to discourage you.

It's not to say that it's impossible for you to be righteous or devout or to have these be the characteristics that people recognize in you. You've known people that you would describe this way, haven't you? And in saying that about them, you weren't saying that they were perfect or without any sins. That's not what's being said here about Simeon or about Job when the Lord came to Satan and said, have you considered my servant Job, a righteous man? And there's none like him in all the earth. There are these descriptions of men who are sinful. And yet they're described as righteous and devout men, godly men. And so the goal is not to set the bar so high that you can never say, well, I can't ever be righteous or be considered devout. That's not the point. The point is to get you to sincerely ask the question, am I righteous and am I devout? Is that what people think of me? Not because I'm trying to convince them that that's what I'm like, but because that's actually who I am. And if you find that there's an area in your life where you're lacking,

where you're not righteous, where you're not devout, where you're weak or where you fall into sin, then the goal is not to throw your hands up in the air and say, woe is me, there's nothing that can be done. The goal is to say, okay, well, then I know where I need to, I need to devote myself more fully and more thoroughly to the Lord. It's also worth noting here that through Luke, this is not how just Luke would describe Simeon, but this is how God described him. Luke wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And so these weren't just Luke's words, but God's words concerning Simeon.

He was a righteous and a devout man. He's the kind of husband you'd want or father you'd want or son you'd want or parent you'd want. I think one of the things that's helpful for us to realize here is God's not ashamed of describing us this way. He's not done working in us yet. And he's not ashamed to call us his children and to assign to us things that are not completely fulfilled in us yet. Righteousness and devotion. It's true that we're sinners. And that we forget or deny that in many ways, but it's also true that God didn't send his son into this world to leave us in that condition, but to change us. So that over time, we would become more righteous, live more righteously, and become more devoted to the Lord. One of the things that's interesting in thinking about this, if you know the greater context of surrounding Simeon and Jesus coming into the, being brought into the temple for the law, is that right after this,

There's a prophetess in the temple, Anna, and she's old. And she blesses God, and she's very thankful as well. And you kind of get the idea that she and Simeon are two peas in a pod, that they're the godly ones. When I was talking to my brother-in-law this past week at Thanksgiving, I was telling him, yeah, I'm going to preach on Simeon. And he said, you know, he teaches a youth group and has for, I don't know, what, 20 years? or something down in Bloomington. And he says, do you want to hear my hot take on Simeon? And I said, yeah, I do. He always has interesting things to say. He doesn't think along the normal paths. And so he's a good worker. He's good for the work he does with the youth because middle schoolers are not fully formed yet. But he says, you know what? He says, what I tell my kids in youth group is, you do realize Simeon, it doesn't say anywhere that Simeon was old. It says that Anna was old, but it never says that Simeon was old.

And I said, okay, what's your point? And he said, well, here's the thing. We look at the sort of righteousness and devotion and the way that he's described and we go, as young people, we say, well, that's just not for me yet. That's how old people are. When I get old, maybe I'll be like him. But the scripture doesn't say that Simeon was old. We presume that he's old and we do recognize the sort of perspective that he has as being one that's seasoned with age and maturity. But it doesn't exclusively belong to them. How sweet would it be if the things that attend Simeon attended a 20-year-old? Oh, man, wouldn't it be sweet? And why can't it? Why can't it be said of you that you're righteous and devout? Because I'm too young? That's a crummy excuse. Don't let your youth be an excuse for unrighteousness. Let no one look down on your youth. Be like Simeon. Don't say, oh, well, when I'm a grandpa, when I'm a gray hair.

or got no hair, then I'll be like Simeon. Be like him now. God didn't send his son to save you in your youth so that you could remain a fool for 20 or 30 years or 40 years until you got old. Seek after righteousness and devotion to God now. What else does it say about Simeon? It says that he was looking for the consolation of Israel. The nation of Israel hadn't had a prophet. In 400 years. They hadn't had a word from God in 400 years. They felt abandoned. They had these prophecies that were very old now. Generations, in fact, old. No one had come and said, it's still true. They were old. They were dusty. They were in the distant past. It had been 400 years. They were dim. And add on top of that, that at this time, when Jesus was born and when Simeon was in the temple, Jerusalem was an occupied city. They weren't even governing themselves. They were under Roman rule. In the sense they were on effectively like a house arrest. They were slaves in their own homes. They weren't free to move about and do exactly as they wanted. They had to do what the Romans required. Not a happy time to live. And so when it says that Simeon was looking for the consolation of Israel, I want you to realize that was after 400 years of silence from God. And in the midst of

All of the people are going, hey, there I am. I'm back. You all still here? How long was Israel without a prophet? Yeah, and who were their bosses? Okay, good. Good, you're with me. To look for the consolation of Israel at a time like that, it's pretty astounding, actually. It's not like you just got told last week. Other than maybe they're reading the scrolls in the temple. They're reading old, old, old scrolls from the prophets from long ago. But as far as God sending a man and raising him up and speaking to them in the moment, that wasn't happening. And yet Simeon's in the temple looking for the consolation of Israel. He had faith. It's the kind of faith that we need. The kind of faith that requires us to wait.

Did you know that one of the fruits of the Spirit, one of the things that faith produces in us is patience? Love, joy, peace, patience. It's one of the fruits of the Spirit. We could describe Simeon here as a patient man, waiting, looking for the consolation of Israel. We are accustomed to results that come right away. If there's conflict, we want resolution. If we do something good, we want recognition. If we're in pain or something's hard, we want relief. If we pray, we want an answer. But with Simeon, 400 years since the last prophet, and he's in the temple waiting, looking for the consolation of Israel. Now, it is true also that it says of him that the Holy Spirit was upon him in a particular way at that time. This was before Pentecost. This was before the Holy Spirit was poured out and was attendant upon all of God's people.

Normally, so you have these men or these times where the Holy Spirit was poured out and we're told that the Holy Spirit was upon him and that the Holy Spirit had told him that it was revealed to him that he would not see death until he'd seen the Lord's Christ. That was a special revelation from God. That wasn't a common thing. It wasn't something that he heard about in Sunday school. It wasn't something that they read on the scroll. It was something that the Spirit had revealed to him. What does it look like today? If you were to describe somebody today, remember, we're going through descriptions of Simeon. If you were to describe somebody as the Holy Spirit being upon them, what would that person be like? Is the Holy Spirit upon us? We're after Pentecost now. So if you're a Christian, the answer is yes. So what does the Holy Spirit being upon somebody actually look like? That depends on which.

stripe of Christianity you're in, you'd have different answers for that. But in the Reformed world, I think that the Holy Spirit being upon someone often looks like someone who's very intelligent and well-spoken, who's articulate, who's eloquent, who's logical, who's attractive. We say, there's godliness over there. He's read the right books. He goes to the right conferences. He understands deep theology. Now, you might look at me and say, well, are you trying to describe yourself? And I was like, no, I'm not trying to describe myself. Or you might think, that's not what I think of, the Holy Spirit being on you. But I want to ask, if someone came to you eating locusts and wild honey, would you listen to him? Now, they don't have to eat locusts and wild honey today, but if they were that sort of eccentric, Huh? Cicadas, right? Yeah. Yeah. You do realize that you do have in your mind something of what the Holy Spirit in someone looks like. And I would push you a little bit and ask you to consider, to compare what someone with the Holy Spirit looks like with what you want to become. Because many times, I think that's probably the same image.

I think someone with the Holy Spirit looks an awful lot like what I want to look like and become. I want to become more articulate. I want to become more intelligent. I want to become more well-spoken or logical. But if someone showed up and they were poorly dressed, who spoke simply, didn't use proper English and smelled like cigarettes, would you listen to them? Here's a better question for those of you who smoke. How aware are you of covering the smell of cigarettes on you? When you come to church, I know a number of you smoke, and I'm not here to say whether that's right or wrong or you should stop or anything like that. I just mean to say, of those of you that I know that smoke, I rarely smell smoke on you. Because you realize that people that smell like smoke, you don't have as much respect for. You're like, ugh. Or if you smoke, you're like, we don't smoke in the house. Why don't you smoke in the house? People who like cigarettes tend to like to sit on their couch too. Why don't you smoke in your house? Well, because our house would stink like it then, and then our clothes would stink like it, and then people would know. Would you listen to somebody who smelled like cigarettes?

You say, no one with the Holy Spirit would ever smell like cigarettes. My point is that the Holy Spirit was upon Simeon and the Spirit had told him that he wouldn't see death until he saw the Lord's Christ. And while that was a special revelation, it really did happen. I'm not arguing here for special revelation being the sort of thing that still goes on today and that's how God typically communicates with us. I don't think it is because he's given us his word. However, at that time, it really did happen. And if someone came to the Holy Spirit, just put yourself in Simeon's shoes. If the Holy Spirit came to you and said, you're not going to die before you see the fulfillment of all these promises. Would you believe him? You remember Zacharias when he was in the temple and the Lord came to him and said, you're going to have a baby. Did Zacharias believe him? And everyone knew something was going on in the temple, right? What's going on? Why is he so long in the temple? What's going on?

The Lord's in there speaking to him. You're going to have a baby. And he's like, oh, no. There are times when people do believe the prophecies, though, like when the angel came to Mary and said, you're going to have a baby. And she went, oh, I don't know how. How is that going to happen? And the Holy Spirit told her, this is how it's going to happen. And she went, well, there you go. She stored it up in her heart, and she believed it. She believed it. When Joseph found out that she was pregnant and he had in mind to put her away, quietly and not to bring shame upon her. And the angel of the Lord came to him and said, don't do that. She wasn't unfaithful. He says, I believe it. And he went ahead and married her. You see, there's different responses to this sort of prophecy, these sorts of nudges by the Holy Spirit. And while I'm not advocating for special revelation now where God came and gave you a word, I do believe that God often still

He pokes us and prods us and works in our consciences and convicts us of things. We may be using different words for it. Some people, if they're more charismatic backgrounds, may say, well, the Lord told me. And all the, you know, the reformed hair on the back of your neck stands up and you're going, no, he didn't. No, he didn't. No, he didn't. But you might come and say, you know what? I'm really convicted about this thing. I've become convinced of this thing. And it's like, well, you may well just be saying it differently. But I do believe that God does still work that way. He does still convict us of things. His spirit is still active in us. He does still compel us to do things. So he told Simeon, you're going to see the Lord's Christ. So Simeon's in the temple and he's worshiping because he listens to the Holy Spirit because he was a student of the prophecies of old. He knew there was a Christ that was supposed to come and to bring peace to the people. It didn't look like that around him. And he's going, well,

This is what we need. And then the Spirit told him, you're going to meet this Christ. And so he's in the temple and he sees Jesus. One thing before we go on to Simeon's response to seeing Jesus is I want to point out that Simeon's character, that righteousness and that devotion and that looking and that longing, that's all predicated on his faith in the things God had said. You don't become righteous and devout and longing to see God work. Unless you know what God's promised to do and you're looking forward to it, you want it to happen. I think too often we get tired of that stuff and we just live life like it's just very physical. It's just very tangible. It's just very practical. It's just decisions just need to be made. We just need to make our way through life, doing the best we can with what we got. And we don't expect anything major really to change. It's just not even really possible. It doesn't figure into our way of thinking.

I tend to think, being one of those people myself, that it's one of the things that undercuts our joy and our hope is that there's no place in our mind for God to do something outside of the ordinary to change the course of events. And if he does and when he does, we work real hard to explain how and why he did it this time and we kind of settle back into, but that was just once and we don't really expect that to happen again. I don't think that's true of Simeon. I think Simeon had a place in his mind and his heart for the promises of God, for the prophecies that he was looking to be fulfilled. And when the Holy Spirit told him, you're not going to die until you see the one that you've longed for, it excited him and I think is what led him to the temple to go and to worship. His character was formed by his trust in the revealed word. And ours should be too.

What you'll realize is that when you read the word and when you see what God says your life is like or what you're like or what you should be like, you're going to be like, there's this huge disparity between what the word says and what I think or what I am. And you have a choice in that moment. Which one are you going to believe? Which one are you going to believe? Are you going to believe your sense of things or are you going to believe God's ways? Every time you will question whether God's good, you're making that choice. Do I believe that he's good because the Bible tells me he's good? Or do I believe that good means doing what I want? You're making a choice. Simeon chose to take God at his word. And so he waited and he trusted and he hoped. And what God had said, even though it was a long time in coming. What did Simeon say when he saw Jesus? He took the baby into his arms and he blessed.

the child and blessed God. And he says, now Lord, you are releasing your bond servant to depart in peace. According to your word for my eyes have seen your salvation. This is a sweet and a faithful testimony. It's really stinking sweet. And I think this idea of like, now I can die in peace is the thing that gives us the sense that he's old, but you don't have to be old to die. Now I can die. You've been faithful to me. You fulfilled your word that you've revealed to me that I would see the Christ. And I can die in peace. You've resolved all of my conflicts, all of my longings, all of my desires in this baby. Before Jesus had done anything, what had he done? He hadn't grown up. He hadn't performed any miracles. He hadn't died. He hadn't been raised. He hadn't done anything. He's just a baby a few days old. And he said, that's the one who's going to solve it all, fix it all, make it all better. And so even in Simeon's exclamation,

You have to realize Jesus hasn't done all the stuff that he's expecting Jesus to do. Christians have to have this commitment to believing what God has said and what God has promised, even when it doesn't look like it's going to happen right now, or in a few weeks, or in a few years, or in my lifetime, or in my children's lifetime. We look to the things that God has said and we trust he's going to do what he said. A lot of Christian faith is simply looking at it and saying, do I think that God's going to do what he said he was going to do or not? And am I content to live and to serve him if he doesn't give me what I want right now? Is my soul that important? Or is my interaction with God really based on negotiating and getting what I want out of him? I'll serve you and I'll do these things if you give me what I want. We'll obey you if you'll give us the things that we...

We care about. Simeon was unique in this response. What he wanted was a Savior. And we all want Saviors. We all want deliverance. We all want freedom from our burdens and our cares and our sorrows and our fears. And many of us, as with at Simeon's time, turn aside to false Saviors, to little Saviors that are not capable of accomplishing what Jesus came to earth to do. What are some of those Saviors? Wealth, money, political power. We just get the right people in office. Personal influence, health. If I'm just healthy enough, if we just eat the right food and just exercise and carry on in the right ways, it'll keep me away from the thing I'm afraid of. You and I, we have to identify the things that we're tempted toward, the things that tempt us away from God. And we say, this is the thing that's going to actually get me what I care about.

We need to back up and say, do I care about the right thing? Is my life revolving around the right thing or is it revolving around the wrong thing? As we identify what those things are, what those temptations are, then we know what we have to resist and fight against. You guys have all heard of the Billy Graham rule. Do you know why Billy Graham made that rule? Because he knew what would be the greatest temptation to him. He said, I know what will cause me to fall. This will cause me to fall, so I'm going to set up a boundary so that I don't fail in this way. He knew what his weaknesses were. Do you despise him for saying that that was a weakness of his? I hope not. He identified, this is the thing that's going to get me off track. This is the thing that's going to cause me problems. I'm going to work against it. I'm going to work to not fall into it.

You remember the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and said, I've kept the law and done all of these things. What did Jesus do in asking him or telling him, all you have to do is go sell all of your stuff and give to the poor. He exposed his God. He exposed the thing that that man thought would give him what he wanted. And he says, well, go get rid of that thing. What is it for you? That thing is what keeps us from being like Simeon. The last thing I'll say about those desires as you find them, the thing that keeps us from saying, my eyes have seen your salvation and now I can die at peace, is that those desires really do have to die. When Jesus told the rich young ruler, you have to go give it all away, it was the most extreme thing he could do. He didn't say like, well, you can't have access to it. He said, you have to get rid of it. It has to go away. You have to separate from it. And that's what we have to do. We have to separate from the things that trip us up.

And so there'll be things in our lives as Christians that we don't participate in or don't spend our time on because we know what a temptation they are to us. And that doesn't mean that it's a temptation for everyone. We would understand this if someone was an alcoholic and that they needed to stay away from alcohol and just never, ever, ever have a drink, right? You'd be like, are they saying that no one can have a drink? That it's always wrong for people to have a drink? No, they're just saying for me, given my own proclivity to sin in this way, I can't. I have to be divorced from it entirely. So if we can understand it in that area, then we have to understand it in our own lives. What is it that keeps us from being righteous and devout? What keeps us from looking for the consolation of Israel? What keeps us from listening to the Holy Spirit? What keeps us from exclaiming when we read the scripture, we worship with God's people, my eyes have seen your salvation. That statement,

didn't come from Simeon's head. It came from his heart. It came from his heart. And so both our heads and our hearts have to be involved in our devotion and in our walking with God. And I think there's a danger with Reformed people to get too logical and linear with it all. I just want, I just got a bunch of questions and I just want a bunch of answers. Ask your questions, find your answers. That's good. But your heart needs to be invested in those answers. Your heart has to hope in them. When you look and you long and you desire something, you're hoping in it. You want it. You seek it. And so we're supposed to seek God with all of our hearts and souls and minds and strength. And so Simeon's seeking after the Lord with all of those things. He wants all of those things. And so for us, what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to look at Simeon and we're supposed to say, Lord, make me like Simeon.

Show me where I'm not righteous and where I'm not devout, where I've wandered away, where I go live wandered away. Bring me back. Bring me back. Send me a prophet to warn me to come back so that I can be like Simeon, who is willing to die because he held Jesus in his hands, whose whole life was wrapped up in seeing this one. That's who we need to become. And it's not just an old man's game or an old woman's game. You young people, many of you, you've got a leg up on those of us who are a little older than you. We weren't doing what you're doing when we were your age. Dan George is often saying that. He's like, well, these young people are way more. I remember what I was like when I was their age. So do better than us. That's the exhortation. Do better than us. Like, give us the joy. And I'm not old and I'm not done, but give us the joy of seeing.

you excel in things that we don't excel at. Be a Simeon, be an Anna. I thought about having Anna in the text, but then I would have felt compelled to talk about Anna a lot, and we would have been here for way too long. But be like Simeon and Anna. Name your kids Simeon and Anna to remind yourself. Do what you have to do to seek after God and to look for the consolation of his people, the reconciling of all things. And in this time where there's an opportunity, to remember and to meditate on the incarnation of our Lord, give your heart to it. Go get yourself one of those little Advent calendars. It has the little pieces of chocolate. Spank your kids if they snitch ahead two days, you know, days ahead in the candy. That's what our kids, we've had to teach them not to do. But read them an Advent calendar. Like, do the thing. Give your heart to it. It'll feel so childish and silly and beneath you, but it'll be good for you.

And it's in those simple things that God will work in you. So give your heart to that this Christmas season. Remember Jesus Christ. Remember God's love for us. And look forward to the work that he's yet to complete and the promises he's yet to fulfill in us. As you've got things that aren't the way you want them to be or aren't the way that God would have them to be, pray and ask him to work. And then wait and then wait and then wait and then wait and then pray and then trust and then rejoice. All while you wait. That's the Christian life. Let's pray.