The Center of God’s Plans

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The day before Live Nativity started, my older two kids were up here with me in the afternoon, and I was getting some work done. They were finishing up some schoolwork, and we were about to leave, and Stella came sort of breathlessly into my office and said, I just got a call from Max. And so we all went to work.

Now, she said, they’re looking for cords for something for Live nativity. They’re looking for microphone cords. So we, the four of us, and then Junior showed up at some point, and it was the five of us, turned this building upside down looking for microphone cords.

Stella took us to places in this building that I did not know existed. I didn’t know that underneath the stairs that lead to the balconies back here, there’s not just a closet, there is a labyrinth, a maze that you wonder how far the spiral can possibly go back in there. And so we started in one of those stairwells, that was the first place we looked, and we saw nothing in, we’re looking for cords, and I don’t know, some sound equipment that if I try to name it, somebody’s just going to laugh at me because I don’t know what they’re actually called.

But we were looking for sound equipment and cords, and we look in there and all we see are these big black bags, and we thought that couldn’t possibly be it. So we are hitting every place in this building that it could possibly be. And you don’t realize how big this building is until you’re looking for something that you can’t find.

And so we’re looking for these items and you know she’s on the phone with Max again. I’ve got Rick who’s still recovering from COVID on the phone saying do you know where this could be? Y’all put it away last year.

I wouldn’t even hear. I shouldn’t be looking for it because I’m no help at all. Eventually, I don’t know who we got a hold of on the phone, but somebody said have you looked underneath that stairwell?

Well yeah, that was the first place we looked. They said, well, it would be in these big black bags. It may have been Junior who realized where they were because he showed up after we’d looked in there.

We tore this whole building apart looking for something that was right in front of us in the first place we went. And I’m sure that’s happened to you before. Maybe not with the cords for live nativity, but I’m sure it’s happened to you with something because it’s happened to me before.

And it’s always so frustrating those times where we’ve made the solution so much more complicated than it has to be, where we’ve overlooked something because it was so simple, it was right in front of us. And we went and tried to look for a more complicated solution, a harder to find solution, when it was right in front of us the whole time. Sometimes we overlook things because the answer seems so simple.

And a lot of people have searched hard to try to discover what God’s doing, and to try to understand what God’s doing, and to try to be a part of what God’s doing, and to try to get God to do what He said He’s going to do. And they’ve worked hard and they’ve searched hard trying to figure out what He was going to do. And they’ve missed what He’s actually doing when it’s right in front of Him.

Or right in front of them, excuse me. Because they’re looking for something more complicated. And tonight I want to take you through the last of one of these announcements of Jesus’ coming, of Jesus’ birth, in Luke chapter 2.

And now this probably came before the one with the wise men. But I just felt like the one with the wise men was more appropriate to a Sunday morning. God made announcements to people that he was fulfilling his promises, that he was bringing his plans all together.

He was working everything out and that they were going to get to see it. And there were a lot of people who heard this and missed it, but there were some who were paying attention and found what God was doing right in front of them. And that’s where we’re going to be in Luke chapter 2 tonight, starting in verse 22.

Hopefully you’ve already turned there. If you’re there with me, if you’d stand if you’re able to tonight. Luke chapter 2 verse 22 and we’re going to read through to verse 39.

It says, Now just a little aside to explain that. That means that the firstborn son was supposed to be dedicated to the Lord, was supposed to be set apart for the Lord. If you’re wondering, what does that mean?

Every male who opens the womb is holy to the Lord. It doesn’t mean it’s saying men are better than women. It’s saying the firstborn son was set apart to the Lord’s service.

All right, so they brought him to present him to the Lord. Verse 24, 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. And that tells us something about Mary and Joseph as well, because for this offering, they could offer a lamb, or if they couldn’t afford a lamb, they could offer a turtle dove or pigeons.

If they couldn’t afford that, they could offer flour, I believe it was. So we know that Mary and Joseph were not dirt poor, but they weren’t rich people either. They were just average people.

Verse 25 says, And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. And this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Spirit was upon him.

And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. So he came by the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought 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, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel. And Joseph and his mother marveled at those things which were spoken of him.

Then Simeon blessed him and said to Mary his mother, Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against. Yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. Now there was one, Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity, And this woman was a widow of about 84 years who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.

And just another little aside here to explain this. If this woman had gotten married at the earliest she legally could in their culture, and then had been married for seven years, and then had been a widow for 84 years, this woman was at a minimum 103 years old. And she was there in the temple serving God every day.

Don’t ever think you are past your time to serve God. If there is still breath in your lungs, God has a plan for you and something for you to do. As she was there, she did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.

And coming in that instant, she gave thanks to the Lord and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem. So when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth. All right, you may be seated.

So God had made promises to his people. He’d made promises to Israel. He’d made promises even to the Gentiles, even if they didn’t know it.

But in the book of Isaiah, as he’s promising that he’s going to send redemption to Israel, he said this redemption, this Messiah was also going to be a light to the Gentiles. So God had made promises for thousands of years that he was sending hope, that he was sending restoration, that he was sending someone to reconcile mankind to himself. He had made these promises.

And to some of these people in particular that we’ve just read about, He had made specific promises that they were going to see that hope come, that they were going to live to see the fulfillment of those promises. You know, we know that at some point Jesus is going to return. We don’t know.

It could be now. It could be 200 years from now. It could be a thousand.

We don’t know. We do not know the time. Anybody that tells you they know the date or the hour according to Jesus is lying to you.

All right. We know that that’s promised, but none of us have received a specific promise that we’re going to live to see it. They knew, everybody in that day knew, all the Jews knew that God was going to send a Messiah, but they had no idea when.

Now there were clues throughout the Old Testament that could have led them to win, but these people had received a specific word from God that they were going to get to see it. They knew that they were going to live to see the provision of this hope. So God had made these promises and he had announced plans through the prophets.

And these people who had come to the temple were seeking the fulfillment of it. Everybody who was at the temple was seeking something from God. Now, some of them might have been there for wrong reasons.

They were there hoping, you know, if I just go through the religious motions, God will bless my business. He’ll bless my flocks. You know, they were hoping for some kind of monetary blessing.

But others were there looking for a spiritual blessing. They were looking to connect with God. They were looking to experience the presence of God.

We know what each of the people mentioned in the story was there looking for from God because it tells us something about these people. They came seeking to know what God was doing. They came to experience what God was doing.

They came looking and expecting the fulfillment of God’s promises and what they were what they were looking for, whether they realized it at first or not, seems like Simeon and Anna realized it right away. Mary and Joseph didn’t quite understand. Whether people realized it or not, what they were looking for was Jesus.

As they’re looking for what is God doing? Let me tell you, everything God’s doing revolves around Jesus. When they’re looking for the fulfillment of God’s promises, His promises were fulfilled in Jesus.

When they’re looking for some kind of connection with God, they could have no better connection with God than Jesus. So what everybody was searching for from God, whether they realized it or not, the answer was right there in front of them. And so many of the people there in the temple that day missed it because they were looking for something more complicated.

They were looking for religious rituals. They were looking for things that they had to do. For many people, it never entered into their imagination that what God was doing and what God was providing was in this little baby, some 40 days old.

And we know he was about 40 days old because the period of uncleanness under the law, where Mary would have been considered ritually unclean, was 40 days. And it says the time of her purification had come. After childbirth, she now had to come and make this offering that would have been about 40 days.

So Jesus wasn’t very old at all. What these people were looking for, whether they realized it or not, was Jesus. Because look at some of the things that they came expecting, came seeking.

Mary was seeking purification under the law. Now for us, the idea that she would be unclean after childbirth, you know, we think, well, they clean everybody up, don’t they? Right?

I’ve seen newborn babies and they’re kind of slippery and icky, and I’m thankful that the nurses wipe them down before they come hand them to me. Right? I was just talking to Linda about this.

I’ve been the first one to get to hold all of my children, and I’m so thankful to God that they run a wet wipe over them before they bring them over because no, all right? I’m a little bit of a germaphobe. Okay, it has nothing to do with that kind of uncleanness.

It meant that for 40 days you are legally, you are ritually unclean. You couldn’t do certain things in the temple. You couldn’t do certain things in the community.

And so for 40 days she had to be set apart, and then after that she comes and makes the sacrifice and is ready to be part of the community again. She was looking for cleanliness, cleanliness under the law, to be able to come and make this sacrifice and then be able to rejoin the covenant community of God’s people, be among them, go to worship, do all the things that she’s supposed to do. She was looking to be made whole again in the eyes of the law.

Now, what we understand from the rest of the story is that none of us are ever completely clean in the eyes of the law. I was giving this example to my kids the other day. We were talking about just the Ten Commandments.

You know, the book of James says if you violate one part of the law, you violated the whole thing. And I was telling the kids, I can’t remember where I heard this example, but we think of God’s law and just say the Ten Commandments for the sake of simplicity. We think of it as ten individual plates.

And you know, I might have taken something that doesn’t belong to me, and so I broke plate number eight, but I’ve never murdered anybody. So plate number six is good. I’ve never committed adultery.

Plate number seven is good. You know, I go to church, which people often equate with the Sabbath. It’s not the same thing.

But, you know, we think all these plates are good because I’ve only done this one. And what I told the kids is the book of James tells us to view the law of God as one plate. So it’s not just that one of the plates is smashed and your other nine are in good shape.

You’ve got one plate that you’ve taken a hammer to, And now it’ll never be whole again. So you and I, if we’re looking to ever be righteous under the law, if we’re looking ever to be cleansed under God’s law and ever to be whole in the sight of God’s law, if we’re ever looking for that place where we do enough that God says, okay, now you’re acceptable to me, we will never get there on our own. Now Mary was following the demands of the law, but she was looking to be declared righteous under the law.

There’s only one way that could ever happen. There’s only one way that Mary could be completely righteous and innocent under the law, and she carried him into the temple with her. She didn’t realize it at the time, but the answer was right there in front of her.

And let me tell you, people say that sounds so narrow-minded to say he’s the only way, and I’m here to tell you it’s a much better way than trying to cross all the T’s and dot all the I’s and check all the boxes and hope you don’t miss a single thing your whole life. It’s so much better for a number of reasons just to realize we can’t ever cross all the T’s and dot all the I’s and check all the boxes and only he can. He’s much better at it than we are.

So Mary came to the temple that day looking to be declared righteous under the law and Jesus was the only one that could do that for her. And it says in verse 25 that Simeon was seeking the consolation of Israel. He was seeking for God’s people to be restored.

He was waiting. This idea of consolation is comfort, is for things to be made right. And he was waiting for that for Israel.

Some of your translations may have that word consolation in a capital letter because it’s a term that also refers to the Messiah. He’s not just waiting for consolation for Israel. He’s waiting for the consolation of Israel.

He’s waiting for the Messiah to come and restore God’s people. That could only happen in one person, Jesus Christ. Because as I talked about this morning, just doing good things in one area doesn’t erase the wrong that we’ve done. It doesn’t change that we’ve done wrong over here.

So to say we want Israel to be restored to God, we want them to start doing the right things and we want the relationship fixed by all the things that they’re going to do. If they kept the law perfectly from that point on, they’re only doing what the law demands. They don’t get extra credit.

There’s no way that they could restore themselves to a walk with God. And yet that’s exactly what Simeon was seeking. And God had told him, you’re not going to die until you see the consolation of Israel, until you see that one come who is going to restore God’s people into a relationship with him.

Anna was seeking to walk in God’s presence, seeking to walk with God in his presence. She was seeking a relationship. And this almost never happens for me.

Adrian Rogers was great at it, me not so much. So I love it when it happens. Everything alliterated that they were looking for.

Mary was looking for righteousness. Simeon was looking for restoration. And Anna was looking for a relationship.

It says that she was there day and night, prayer and fasting. She was spending time with God. Her whole life was dedicated to this idea of having a relationship with God.

She was looking to be able to walk with Him and know Him and have fellowship, have this genuine relationship with Him. And Jesus provided all of these things. All of these things that they were looking for.

All of these things that they were seeking after. All these things that they were working so hard to try to get. All these things that they were spending their lives on.

And in Simeon’s case saying, I’m hanging on to see this no matter how long it takes. If I have to be 250, God’s told me I get to stay here and wait for this. The answers were suddenly right in front of them.

Because Jesus is at the center of God’s promises and plan. He’s at the center of all of it. As a matter of fact, I’d say to you, if you’re trying to understand God’s will for your life, and Jesus is not at the center of your understanding of what that means, go back a step because you’ve missed something.

If you’re saying, well, I’m trying to understand what God’s doing here in my life. Let me tell you, an answer to a lot of that is He’s trying to make you more like Jesus. Christi and I, I won’t share too many details because it’s not my story to tell, but we were having a discussion the other day about why is this happening?

Why are we going through this? And she said, and I realized God had a plan to orchestrate this. And she walked out of my office and I thought, all right, Lord, thanks for that.

Because I’ve been whining to God a lot about something in particular here lately. Has nothing to do with any of you. But I don’t want you to think I’m praying about you.

Because there is a difference praying for you and praying about you. That’s a joke. You know it’s true.

There are people you pray for and people you pray about. I’ve been whining to God about a particular situation. And, you know, why haven’t you fixed this?

Why haven’t you changed this? Why am I still going through this? And I called Charlie later.

I said, he’s trying to make me more like Jesus. And apparently it’s taken the hard way to get there. If you’re trying to understand God’s plan for your life, if you’re trying to understand what God’s doing, if you’re trying to understand these promises that you read in Scripture and saying, well, why don’t I have this?

And why don’t I have that? And Jesus is not at the center of your understanding of God’s plans and promises. You need to back up a step because you’ve missed something.

He’s at the center of all of it. He’s at the center of all of it. And so much of what he’s doing is to make us more like Jesus Christ. But look again at the things that they were looking for, and it’s pretty clear that Jesus provides all of those things.

He is at the center of God’s plans. He is the answer to the things they were looking for. Where Mary was looking for righteousness under the law, only Jesus justifies us in God’s sight.

And as I started looking at some scripture, I realized that all three of these are borne out in 2 Corinthians 5. Verse 21 there says that God made him who had no sin to become sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Excuse me, I stumbled there just a little bit.

That we might become the righteousness of God in him. And I’ve quoted the first part of that verse a number of times in a number of sermons, that God made him who knew no sin to be made sin for us. And I’ve always kind of passed over that second part.

We’re not just given the righteousness of God in Christ. We become the righteousness of God in Christ. If you’re looking to be made righteous, if you’re looking to be made right with God, if you’re looking for that place where you can come and say, now God accepts me, it’s only in Jesus Christ. What Mary was looking for, God’s word said Jesus is the answer. Where Simeon was looking for restoration, where he was looking for this relationship between God and Israel to be fixed, where he was looking for Israel to be what God designed Israel to be, We see in Scripture that it’s only Jesus who transforms us. Because in that same chapter of 2 Corinthians, it says, if anyone is in Christ, he’s a new creation.

You talk about being restored. God does a ground-up renovation in us in Jesus Christ. You see, we can’t restore ourselves to what God designed us to be. We can’t restore ourselves to a right standing with God.

It takes Jesus Christ transforming us just like it did for Israel. And where Anna was looking for this relationship to be able to walk with God in His presence, Jesus brings us peace with God. Jesus brings us into a right relationship with God.

2 Corinthians 5 says, God has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ. He’s reconciled us. He’s brought this relationship where we were at one time the enemies of God, not because God is harsh, but because we are sinful, and we looked at God and his holiness and said, no, thank you, we’ll be over here. And we collectively shook our fists at God.

Jesus Christ takes this relationship where we are the enemies of God, and he remakes us as God’s sons and daughters, where we for the first time can have the relationship that we were created in the Garden of Eden to have with him. You look at all these things that they were looking for, all these things that God had told them to look for, all these things that God had talked to them about through the prophets, and even spoken to them directly about. We see Jesus, that little baby who was right there in front of them, was the fulfillment of all those things.

He was the answer to everything that they were looking for. And as I’ve told you several times already, if our understanding of God’s plans and promises does not have Jesus at the center of it, we’ve gotten something wrong. We’ve missed something.

Because He’s the answer to all of our spiritual needs. I suspect that anybody that shows up at church, unless we’re just doing it out of habit, or anybody who sits down to watch it online, and again, unless we’re just doing it out of habit, I would suspect, I would hope that we each come looking for something in our relationship with God. We need to be very clear that just coming to church and checking the boxes and doing good things Isn’t going to cut it the stuff we do isn’t going to provide the stuff that we need That’s pretty good.

I’ll write that down the stuff we do isn’t going to provide the stuff we need If you’re looking to grow closer to god, you’re only going to get there through jesus christ If you’re looking to be made holy If you want to be the person you’re supposed to be you’re only going to get there through jesus christ If you want a closer walk with him if you want that relationship If you want peace with God where you haven’t had any, you’re only going to get there through Jesus Christ. Not through religious rituals, not by coming to church, not by getting baptized, not by taking the Lord’s Supper, not giving money. All these are good things, but they don’t replace what only Jesus Christ can do for us because He’s at the center. He is the way that God the Father planned from eternity past to fulfill all of these things for us.

It’s not the religious rituals. It’s not the things we do. It’s not the things we try to earn.

We’ve got to trust in him. We need to be like Simeon and Anna, who were there at the temple going about their religious things, and then Jesus showed up and all that went out the window, and the focus became on him. Now, did they stop going to the temple?

Did they stop praying? I doubt it. But you notice what they did.

She was there fasting and praying day and night, and Jesus came in and it was all about the baby. And I’ve seen how some of y’all do this when Carly Jo walks in, or Charlie, or take your picture. I’ve seen how, especially the ladies, how you are with a baby.

Baby comes in, it’s all about the baby. Everything else goes out the window. That’s just a little glimpse of how we ought to be with Jesus.

Yeah, there’s all the rituals, there’s all the religious stuff, there’s all the good things we can do. Jesus comes into the picture, and all that takes back seat, because the focus is on Him. So I would just tell you tonight, whether you’re here in this room or you’re watching us online, if you’ve never trusted Jesus as your Savior, if you’re still trying to get into a relationship with God, you’re still trying to get peace with God through the stuff you do, stop and realize that you can only get there through Jesus Christ. He was born to live a sinless life, to die for us, to pay for our sins in full, and to rise again so that you and I could be forgiven.

Not just of the big sins, not just of the little sins, not just of a few of them, but that all of our sins could be forgiven. And we could stand righteous and whole and complete before the Father and enjoy the relationship with Him that we were created for. That’s why Jesus came into the world in the first place.

And so if you’ve never trusted him as your savior, it’s as simple as realizing you’ve sinned against him, sinned against God. Your sin has separated you from him and you need a savior because you can’t save yourself. And then believe that Jesus bled and died to pay for your sin and rose again to prove it.

And then ask God for that forgiveness that only he can provide and only through Jesus Christ.