Let's open up our time in the Word with a time of prayer. Heavenly Father, I'm so thankful that we could gather here today on the Lord's Day, gather as the church, gather to read your Word, sing to you, respond to you through song and prayer. We thank you so much for these words that are written, that we can read them and dig in understand what is written to us. Thank you especially today for the words of Simeon and the song of praise that he sings to you, and just that we get to look at these words and see the call and the excitement of your salvation that is extended to us here today. So I pray over these words being spoken today that they would be used to build up the church, that they would be used to bring you glory, and that they would be an encouragement to all of us in this room. And Jesus, it's for your glory that we come together and that we preach your good word. And in your name we pray. Amen. All right, so today we are in week two of our short detour from 2 Peter. We are still in Luke 2, in verse 22 through 35, so you can go ahead and turn there with me. We'll be using this text as we build towards the excitement that is Easter, or the excitement that is Christmas, but we will never forget Easter, and we'll hit that later. So yeah, as we build towards Christmas. So we're gonna be reading this passage in its entirety, Luke 2, 22 through 35. 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 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 of revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people, Israel. And his father and 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, and so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. All right, so last week we covered about the first half of this, looking at verse 22 through 28. And a quick recap to bring us up to speed, we covered the purification of Mary that was required to cover her sins and the presentation of Jesus as the firstborn, the one who was to open her womb. And we got to meet Simeon, this really interesting character who's got a super short biography and described as one who is righteous and devout, who is waiting for the consolation of Israel. He has received a promise that he would see Jesus, the Savior, the Messiah, before he died, and now we get to spend today looking at how he receives this promise and how he responds to God. So let's continue in this section and look at his response. He first responds by grabbing Jesus, the baby, holding him in his arms, blessing God, and then singing this song. So we see that in the middle here. And then at the end, he prophesies about Jesus and about Mary. And when we look through his response, we see that the main theme in a lot of this response is salvation. A salvation that is physical, singular, it's from God, and it's for all. So Simeon was waiting for this consolation of Israel, this comfort of Israel, the comfort from something. He recognized that we are all in need of a savior. And we too know that here in this room, that we are in need of a Savior, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Each one of us in this room was born into the line of Adam. We're all broken. We are brought into this world full of sin. None of us are perfect, and we all have broken God's law, and we've attempted to take the glory that only rightly belongs to God, and we've tried to take that on to ourselves. And since we've all offended God, we are all deserving of death and of the wrath that comes only from God. There's no escaping this, no escaping it of our own power or our own will. There's nothing that we can do to escape this wrath. But that's the joy that we get to see here in these verses and the joy of this time of Christmas, that there is a Savior, and that Savior is not us. So we can look at these verses and see how these point us towards that salvation for all of us. We first see here that this salvation is not some abstract, some metaphysical salvation like some of the philosophers were talking about in Sunday school. It's not all abstract, but it's actually a real and a physical salvation. It's anchored in time, location, and in reality. We look that while they were at the temple, Simeon takes the Christ child in his arms and declares that he has now seen the salvation from God. Look what's written in verse 28. 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 prepared in the presence of all people. I love that line there in verse 30. My eyes have seen your salvation. The salvation is a who here. It's not a what. It is a child, the child Jesus, a real physical being being held in Simeon's arms. Jesus is real. It's only going to take a couple more verses before we start seeing the walking, talking, eating, drinking Jesus. Throughout Jesus' whole life and ministry, we see him being very clear to show that he is a true man, that he has all the same characteristics, except for sin, of all other men. He goes out of his way to prove this, especially post-resurrection. You can look at the end of John, when Jesus appears to Thomas, so John 20, picking up in 24. Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, Unless I see his hands and the marks of the nails, and place my finger into the marks of those nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe. Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. And he said to Thomas, put your fingers here and see my hands, put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe. Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God. And Jesus said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen me and yet believe. Jesus is real. Although he miraculously appeared to his disciples in this room, he is flesh and blood, actual risen, flesh and blood, real. And since he's real, so was his death. He died a real and a very painful death on the cross. He was wounded, and the cross left those marks on him, the nails and the spear. And while that was enough to bring him great pain, and eventually to kill him on that cross, it was not enough to defeat him. Three days later, we know that Jesus rose again from the grave. He is alive and well, which is something that we celebrate at Easter time, Resurrection Sunday. And that's what is one of the most amazing facts about Christmas, that we see that Jesus, the Son of God, condescended himself to leave the very presence of God in heaven and to be born on this earth as a man. Like the song that we sung last week, that he's born a child and yet a king. King Jesus came to earth as a baby. He grew into a man. And that's an amazing reassurance for each one of us here in this room. It means that we're not left alone with a God who doesn't understand who we are and what we go through. Jesus perfectly understands everything that we go through. As a man, he faced all the same temptations that we do, yet he never sinned in all of those temptations. The preacher in Hebrews 4 says, Since then we have a great high priest who passed through the heavens. Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Jesus is our High Priest. He sympathizes with us in our weaknesses and in our fight against sin. While he was tempted in sin like we are, there was no sin that we face here today that he did not also face. And while the modes and methods of our sin and our temptation might have changed from then to now, the core root of our sin has not. 1 Timothy 2, there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself up as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. Remember, there's one God. There are many false gods, but there is only one true God. And there is only one mediator between God and men. Only one true and perfect high priest standing before God on behalf of men. Jesus is that mediator. And how reassuring is it for us here in this room to know that the mediator truly knows you and your temptations. He understands you and is advocating on your behalf before the Father. And this mediator, this Savior who came in flesh and blood, understands us and He is the sacrifice in our place. So it's also important to know that Jesus was physical and that He was actually a man for this sacrifice that He was about to make. Continuing on in Hebrews 9, Jesus entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. Four, if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of a defiled person with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh, How much more will the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without blemish to God, purifying our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance. So it's important to note that Jesus is truly God and truly man, and that he has flesh and blood. He needed blood, blood that needed to be shed in order for the purification of flesh. Instead of the blood of goats and heifers and bulls, we are now purified by the holy and perfect blood of Jesus Christ. Because not only is he truly man, but he is also truly God. He's not born of that seed of Adam, that seed that carries the sin all the way through to us today, but he was born perfect. And his sacrifice was once and for all. There's no need for that continual sacrifice like the priests of the Old Testament were making. Jesus is the perfect and sufficient sacrifice. His blood cleanses us so that we are holy before God, not because of anything that we have done of our own, but only because of what Jesus has done on our behalf. The preacher of Hebrews continues in chapter 9, verse 23. Thus, it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites. But the heavenly things themselves, with better sacrifices than these, for Christ has entered, not into the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the priests entered the holy places every year with the blood not his own, for then he would have had to offer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time. Not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. Jesus died once for all. In the Old Covenant, those sacrifices were offered continually, continually offered to cover all their sins. Every year, that high priest would have to enter into the most holy place. And to enter in, he would have to use the purified blood of other animals. Well, Jesus entered once, using his own perfect and holy blood. And we see here in our text for this morning that Simeon is referring to this as a singular salvation. My eyes have seen your salvation. It's not part of your salvation. It's not one of your salvations. No, it is your salvation. This is one and only salvation. Simeon, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is hitting on two really key points here for us today. One, that Jesus only needed to be the salvation once. His sacrifice covered a multitude of sins, those sins past, present, and all those sins to come. And two, that there is one and only one salvation. All paths do not lead to God and to heaven. In fact, most lead away from God and towards his wrath and to hell. John 14, 6, Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus is that only salvation. And that's a hard message for the world to hear today. They say that it's not very accepting, that it's not very loving, that who are we to judge others and to tell them that they are not going to some wonderful place called heaven and that they're not going to be saved? What lets us arrogantly claim that we know the one and only truth? This view says that there are many paths to God and that there are many paths to salvation. And that view is a very low view of God, His wrath, and His salvation. For the world, they're not being saved from something, they're being saved towards something. In this mindset, there's no wrath of God. There's no eternal and righteous judgment or damnation. There's no hell, only heaven. There's no wrath, it's only so-called love. And sadly, this has become the way for even some within the evangelical world. In an effort to try to soften God and His wrath, they end up removing all of God's wrath and His justice. But the thing about a wrathless Christianity, or any other religion, is that there is then no need to be saved. And we know that's just not the case. Romans 5, 9, There is a wrath from God. And it's through the blood of Jesus Christ that we can be justified and saved from this wrath. Jumping back into Romans 3, there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. God is just in his wrath, and since he is just in it, he's not just going to let sins go. No, there is a penalty for all sin, and that penalty is still demanded. But since God is also the justifier, he provides a means by which that penalty can still be paid. Jesus, as the perfect sacrifice, takes that penalty in our place. This is something given from God. It is not something that we earn. Simeon recognizes this in that baby, Jesus, that he was physical, that he was a singular salvation, and also that he was something from God. We continue looking at his song. He says, For my eyes have seen your salvation that you prepared. The salvation is something that came from God. It's not a human design, some human creation, but it's something that is prepared by God, and it's been his plan all along. 2 Timothy chapter 1. Our Lord has saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. And since it's been God's plan since before the ages began for all time, it's clear to see that man has no part in any of this, no part in bringing it about. It is something that is prepared, instituted, and enacted by God. Ephesians 2 8 for by grace you have been saved through faith and it's not of your own doing it is a gift of God Not a result of works so that no one may boast For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works Which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. I By grace, God gave the Holy Spirit, and through that Holy Spirit, we have been granted saving faith. There is nothing that we can do to earn that salvation. It is purely a gift of God, a free gift prepared by God before any of us in this room were born. God, out of His great love for us, sent His Son into the world. to die, so that through him we might be saved. Jesus lived a sinless and perfect life and took on our sins—our sins past, present, and future—onto his body. As we studied a while back in 1 Peter 2, Jesus himself bore our sins on his body on the cross that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds we have been healed. So Jesus bore all of our sins onto his sinless body to take that wrath that we deserve for those sins, to take that wrath for all the elect and to die. This is the death that we, each one of us, because we sin, deserve to die and face that consequence, that wrath from God. But for our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus lived that life that Adam could not live. He lived the life that we, in this room, as children of Adam, cannot live. And he took our sins so that we could be righteousness before God. We've been alluding to in this, that we in this room and others, that this salvation is not just limited to the Jews. That's one of the great mysteries that we get to see here is that God has extended this salvation that we've been talking about outside the bounds of the nation of Israel to us here. And Simeon says, my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all people. A light for revelation to the Gentiles and for the glory of your people Israel. A light for revelation to the Gentiles. Light in the darkness. Salvation from the wrath of God and sin. As Paul writes to Timothy, God, our Savior, desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. This is not to say that God desires each and every, or that he is going to save each and every person. As we've talked about earlier, there is a limit to this salvation. First, it's a singular salvation. It is only found through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And second, it's not a universalist salvation where all people will eventually be saved. that is not each and every person being saved, but it's all types of people being saved. Not just Jews, but Gentiles. Gentiles being grafted into the true vine. God desires to show that extent of his power and the extent of his salvation by giving it to all nations. And Simeon finishes blessing God with this song. We see that Luke writes, And his, that is Jesus's, earthly father and mother marveled at what was said about him. I was intrigued by this verse when I got there at the end of this little song that Simeon is singing. We see that back at the beginning of Luke, you just flip back and you see that angels announced to Mary, a virgin, that she was going to be pregnant and have a baby. Her barren aunt was also pregnant with a baby that was announced by another angel. We see on the night that Jesus was born, angels appearing in the sky, filling the sky with God's glory, announcing to shepherds that a baby Jesus was born, the Savior, the Messiah. Those shepherds come running and tell all of this to Mary and Joseph at the birth of Jesus. One could not imagine a more spectacular birth story than this. Yet, here we are, two months beyond the birth, and they are marveling at words being spoken by an almost random guy at the temple. They are his earthly parents. They've been spending every waking moment and every sleeping moment with this baby for the last two months. If anyone knows Jesus well, it would be them. And yet, they still don't know everything. They are still marveling at what is being told to them. And so it's the same for us here. We look at what the Apostle John writes as he closes out his gospel account. Now, there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. There is always more to learn about Jesus. Just because you've read through the Bible once, twice, a hundred times in your lifetime, does not mean that you will know everything there is to know about God, Jesus, and your salvation. And what is it that they were marveling at in this account? Well, when I look through, it looks like there is a slight new addition from the beginning of the Gospel of Luke until here. And that's this section. It's that mystery that this salvation is being extended to the Gentiles, that they are being grafted into that true vine. There's allusions to this all through the Old Testament, but here we start to see that become explicitly presented. This salvation is prepared for all types of people. And it is a light to the Gentiles and a consolation to Israel. And so that's that main theme here of this text, is that salvation is physical, it is singular, it's of God and it is for all. So let's take a second now and zoom back out a little bit further and see how Simeon responds to this meeting of Jesus and how we can use his response also to then shape our responses to Jesus. We see Simeon at the beginning take Jesus into his arms. He grabs him and begins to bless God and sing. He responds to seeing Jesus by worshiping God. Back to verse 28. He took him up in his arms and blessed God. His heart was a heart of prayer. The first place that he turns to is to God in prayer. And this is how we should be responding to God too. We turn to him and we bless him. We pray. Just think about our liturgy, so our liturgy on the front of our bulletin, Every Lord's Day Here. And you can see it, especially in our pastoral prayer, or the slight change that we made today. We read God's Word, and then we respond to this Word in prayer. So Jonathan, earlier, read the whole book of Jude. and then turned, with that book in mind, to God in prayer. He used that scripture, those texts, as the foundation to help guide through the prayer for us here in this church, for Colorado Springs, and for bringing all glory to God. So we turn in prayer acknowledging God and all of his power, and we use his texts as that starting point, as that foundation. You just have to flip through any of the psalms to start to see some examples of this, of prayer turning to God. I pulled an example here from Psalm 103, just an amazing psalm. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is in me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. Bless the Lord, O you angels, you mighty ones, who do his word, obeying the voice of his word. Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers, who do his will. Bless the Lord, all his works, so that in all places in his dominion, bless the Lord, O my soul. What a great psalm, calling us to remember and to bless the Lord. Don't forget who he is, what he has done. Bless the Lord, O my soul. And this is how Simeon is first responding. He's blessing God. Bless the Lord, O my soul. I have seen your salvation. And then he moves from that response through into this song of continued singing blessings to God. We're gonna read it here. He says, 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 the glory of your people, Israel. This song is a beautiful and rich song, full of meaning, and we've been covering it in parts here and there, the deep theology that is covered here in this pretty short and simple song in its word choice. And we respond in a very same way. We sing clear, theologically rich songs. We just sang O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, full of great theology, great meaning, great praise to who Jesus is. And shortly, we're going to be responding by singing, I think, Joy to the World together. We're going to sing, one of the lines here is that, No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow, for as the curse is found. For as the curse is found. Jesus is going to put an end to all sin and suffering, and we will see that at the final consummation, at His second advent. He will fully break the power of the curse. From thorns to sin, all will be broken and be replaced by His great blessings. And how far will He do that? For as the curse is found, so over His entire dominion, He will replace that curse with His blessings. And I love that example here, and then just even the opening words of that song, joy to the world, because singing is a joyful and just an ecstatic event for us. It's a joyful activity. This is something that we sing songs to bring about joy. Now, sometimes there are songs of lament, songs of longing. You can find those in Psalms as well, crying out to God, feeling pain and separation. But even that, you are drawing and drawing yourself to God. And we see that a lot of songs we sing, though, are joyous. And we get that great blessing from songs that we sing. And these songs have an ability, even those songs of lament, to mold our hearts and to mold our emotions and draw them towards God. And so that's one of the great reasons for us to be singing these songs. There's so many things that we put into songs, so many things for us to learn. You think of teaching my kids ABCs or anything else in school that you put things to song because the rhythm and the meter is easy for us to learn things. So we have to be watchful of the songs that we're singing and taking in as they are sometimes preaching false gospels. So take in songs that are deep, full of theological meaning, full of blessing to the one and only God, being reminded of His singular salvation, that there is no other path to God, but only through the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is a great song that we see here, full of this truth, full of extra meaning for Simeon, beyond what we are even seeing here, because this is the song of a dying man, or at least a man who is now content to die. We know that Simeon, because of last week, has been waiting a long time for the consolation of Israel, and now he finally gets to see that. He sees the King Jesus. He meets him, his King and his Savior, And the first line of his song here is, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace. This is enough for Simeon. Simeon can now depart and die in peace. Like the modern classic, all I have is Christ. Hallelujah. All I have is Christ. Hallelujah. Jesus is my life. It is enough for Simeon to have seen Christ. He does not need anything else. A convicting statement for all of us. How often do we want Christ plus something? Christ plus comfort, Christ plus wealth, Christ plus a family, plus freedom, plus sleep, plus rest, something else. It's such a selfish mentality that we put on top. Christ plus something will make my life better. And we see how quickly that something moves from a something to the only. The health, wealth, and prosperity gospel is a perfect example of this. Jesus takes the back seat to material good. He becomes a means to an end and not the end in and of itself. As opposed to what Joel Osteen or others would have you believe, we are not following a Jesus to live our perfect and our best life now. We know from our first Peter study that we are not guaranteed a rich, suffering-free life here on this earth. And that is okay. We are still blessed in this life, blessed to be filled by the Holy Spirit, blessed to have the scriptures written for us in our own language, blessed to be able to gather here together today on the Lord's Day to worship and serve the living God together, worshiping God through the reading of his word, through prayer, through preaching, and through singing. So as we prepare to continue in our time of worship by responding to God in song, remember why it is that we gather, and especially why we celebrate Jesus's birth at this time of year. We praise God that before the ages began, he had a plan for redemption. And though we are born as sinners into the line of Adam, There is still hope for us. There is salvation from that line of sin and from under the wrath of God. There is salvation that is physical, it is real, it is singular. There is salvation and it's from God. It's not from us or our own works, but it is from God and it is for all. We can be grafted in to that line. that true line under Jesus. So we praise Him today as we continue in song and in prayer. So join me now in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you so much again for your word, for that song that we have recorded here, and the response that Simeon gave to meeting Jesus at the temple on that day, taking Jesus, responding to you, being drawn to bless you and to praise you. and to sing out out of joy of his heart, being so excited to meet that salvation. That salvation that is not only for the nation of Israel, but it's for all of us here. That salvation that extends to this church here gathered We are so thankful that we can spend our time today singing your praise, reading these praises, and digging in and understanding the true and better sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf. That sacrifice that started that Christmas day when Jesus, you came down, giving up your rightful place and coming as a man. truly God and truly man, taking on that flesh, living that life that each one of us cannot live, and dying that death that each one of us deserves to die, taking that wrath that we so deserve. You took that in our place. Jesus, thank you so much for what you have done for us there. We thank you for that salvation, that singular salvation, and that it's not of anything that we do, but that it is only by God's grace extended to us through faith that the Holy Spirit has given us. We thank you that it is not something that we can earn of our own right, and that it's not something that we can lose likewise, but that it is only a free gift from you by your grace and your mercy. Jesus, thank you again for your life, your death, your resurrection, your ascension to glory, and we just continue to praise you and honor you and love you, and it's in your holy name that we pray, amen.