Waiting for the Light

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Well, I was reminded this week of how bad I am at being Charla. My wife has been sick since Saturday of last week, I think. I actually can’t remember when this all started.

It feels like it’s been years. And during that time, four of the five kids were sick, and I was trying to take care of everybody. And I’m not complaining about having to take care of my family.

I’m just bad at trying to do things the way Charla would do them. Number one, she is a multitasker. She can take care of stuff for every person in the family at the same time.

And that is just not my spiritual gift. I am at my best when I can take situations one at a time, work through them in a systematic way like a math problem. But you might be surprised to know that three and five and one-year-olds, they don’t live in that world.

So everything, they need it now, it’s chaos. And so I am exhausted. And again, I’m not complaining.

I’m going somewhere with this. This has been my week trying to take care of everybody in the house. And I’m just, I’m not charla.

I was reminded of that. And it got frustrating. It got exhausting.

There were times it felt hopeless. And I know that sounds silly. But sometimes even in our little situations, it can feel hopeless because I would just look at the chaos going on around me and think, I don’t know how I’m supposed to be doing this.

And several of you contacted me through the week, can we do anything for you? And I appreciate that. Several of you, I told, I could absolutely use some help.

I just don’t know what that would be. I don’t know what to tell you. If I could think of something, I would let you know.

One of our ladies contacted me one morning last week, and we were having that same conversation where I was saying, I need some help, I just don’t know what that would be. Because number one, I didn’t want to invite anybody else into the house to get exposed to whatever the sickness was. And she said to me, as I was talking about how overwhelming it got at moments, she said to me, there is still a light at the end of the tunnel, and the light at the end of that tunnel is still Jesus.

And I needed to hear that in that moment. And yes, I know Jesus was not going to come and make the grilled cheese not burn or make the remote work so I didn’t have to run up the stairs and fix it for Charlie. But Jesus absolutely gave me the strength to make it through moment by moment and gave me the grace to not kill anybody in the process.

We all need that. As I thought about my own inadequacy and all the stuff that just piled on, it felt very dark and very hopeless. I know that’s so, so tiny compared to what so many are facing.

but I’ve talked to so many people inside our church and outside our church who are going through situations and circumstances at the moment. Right now, it feels like everybody’s just getting hammered. Sickness, bereavement.

I’ve lost count of how many people I’m acquainted with who have passed away in the last week. And I know for a lot of people around us, it feels like, at least in your circumstances, it is a dark time. It’s overwhelming.

It’s frustrating. You just want to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And in my, honestly, my tiny, piddly little circumstances, what was true of those is true of anything you may be going through today, that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and that light at the end of the tunnel is Jesus.

This morning, I want us to look at that very concept in Luke 2. As we move in a direction that’s a little bit more Christmassy, I kind of overshot Christmas in this message, because when we come to this part of Luke chapter 2, Jesus is already born. But I want to talk about one of the reactions to the birth of Jesus that sometimes we don’t pay attention to.

We talk about the shepherds. We talk about the wise men. We don’t always talk about what happened when Jesus was taken to be presented.

And I want us to see from the testimony of a man named Simeon that no matter what our circumstances are, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and the light at the end of the tunnel is still Jesus. So turn with me to Luke 2 if you haven’t already. We’ll get to see why Simeon saw Jesus as the light at the end of the tunnel, why he was so excited to see Jesus.

If you don’t have your Bibles, it’ll be on the screen for you. And once you turn there, if you would stand with me as we read together from God’s Word. Luke 2, and we’re going to start in verse 25 this morning.

It 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 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, 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. When Simeon blessed them 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.

And you may be seated. We see here from the testimony of Simeon that the light at the end of the tunnel is Jesus. Jesus was brought into the temple after He was born to be dedicated.

A sacrifice was going to be offered on His behalf as they did always in order to fulfill the law when a newborn came. They took Him to be dedicated, and this man happened to be in the temple because the Holy Spirit had led Him there and saw Jesus and immediately recognized Him as this light at the end of the tunnel. We see that in the first few verses here.

It says that He was waiting for the consolation of Israel. Now we can read over that and not necessarily know what it means. As a matter of fact, to us, if you hear the word consolation, you might think of a consolation prize, which is something we would say, well, I didn’t win first prize, but I guess I got something.

Jesus is not the consolation prize of Israel. That’s not how this word is being used here. This word consolation in verse 25 comes from the same Greek word.

It’s tied to the word that Jesus used in John 14 to describe the Holy Spirit as a comforter. This word and that word come from the same Greek word. And the idea here is that He is waiting for the ultimate comfort, for the ultimate encouragement that Israel has been waiting for all this time.

When He says the consolation, it’s not a consolation prize. It is the thing that Israel has been waiting for this entire time. The thing that was going to bring comfort that they needed.

It says in verse 25 that Simeon was a just and devout man. And being just and devout, being somebody who sought God and sought His will and sought to live according to His truth, Simeon never lost hope in God’s promises, even during times of silence, even during times of darkness. Now this time that Jesus was born into was a dark time for Israel.

They were waiting for a Messiah. They needed a Messiah because Israel had been kicked around by these nations around it for hundreds of years. They’d been invaded by the Babylonians, then the Persians, then the Greeks.

Now the Romans were in charge and they were sort of at their mercy. They would step in and persecute them when they needed to. At times they would even desecrate the temple.

Benjamin was asking me about Hanukkah yesterday because he saw the little gift cards at Sonic. And so I was trying to explain the story of Hanukkah and how that all kind of started with a Greek king laying waste to the temple in Jerusalem, slaughtering a pig on the altar as the biggest thing he could do to try to offend the Jews. They were at the mercy of these people and they just wanted somebody who was going to set them free.

They wanted somebody, this person that God had been promising for thousands of years. They were waiting. They were eager.

And yet for 400 years, God had not really said anything to them about it. Now the time between Malachi and Matthew we refer to a lot of times as the silent years. I don’t know that that’s the most accurate way to describe it.

We see from the fact that the Holy Spirit was leading Simeon that God was still speaking to people. There was a remnant in Israel that still heard the voice of God, but as far as God giving any kind of new general revelation to the nation of Israel as a whole, He had just kind of stopped talking to the nation of Israel. There were no prophets giving directions.

There were no prophets like we saw previously, Isaiah, Jeremiah. There were no more of those guys who were giving, here’s a message from God, here’s what you look for, here’s what you expect. And so for 400 years, they were just kind of waiting.

When’s he going to come? Is it going to be in our lifetime? Generation after generation after generation had passed through not knowing if they were going to live to see the hope that God had promised Israel.

We can’t even imagine that kind of waiting, I don’t think. I get frustrated if I pull up to Brahms and there are already cars in the drive-thru, right? I don’t want to have to wait that long.

And Charlie, if we take more than a heartbeat to do something, oh, it’s taking forever. That boy knows three times, right this minute, last year, and taking forever. Those are his three concepts of time.

We can’t even comprehend that kind of having to wait. And especially when God’s promised this and you know it’s coming, or at least you believe it’s coming, yet you’ve had to wait all this time. Think of the hopelessness of not knowing whether you’re ever going to see Israel’s Messiah.

Think of the hopelessness of not knowing whether you’re ever going to see things get better, whatever the situation may be. And I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these people began to wonder if God had forgotten. Now we know He didn’t.

I think if hard-pressed, They knew He didn’t. But sometimes we know that God has not forgotten us, and yet our feelings tell us He has, right? Am I the only one?

My feelings lie to me sometimes. Anybody else? I know what God has promised, but my feelings tell me something different.

And it was into this 400-year period of wondering, okay, is this still happening? Is God ever going to do this? This is taking forever.

How many generations have passed with no further word? Is this still the plan? It was into that world that Jesus was born.

and this idea of the consolation of Israel. It’s terminology that they use to describe the coming of the Messiah. And so when it says he was waiting for the consolation of Israel, it’s not just waiting like everybody else.

Well, we’re just here until it happens. He was looking forward with this anticipation. He knew it was coming.

Like when I get the little texts on my phone that say the Amazon package is on its way. Unless there’s a glitch, I know it’s coming today and I’m just waiting. I can’t wait for it to be there.

he was looking with that kind of anticipation for the coming of the Messiah. He knew that God was going to fulfill his promises. He knew that God was going to send this ultimate comfort to Israel.

And I think as a reward for his faithfulness, the Holy Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he would live long enough to witness the arrival of the Messiah. Verse 26 says he had been promised that he would not die until he saw the coming of Christ. Now we think from that wording and And the fact that later on he says, well, I can die a happy man now, basically, that he was old, and this was the end of his life, maybe, but we don’t know that for sure. He could have been a young man and just said, now, I’ve seen the coming of the Messiah.

You know, Lord, if you take me now, I’m good with that. But not only had the Holy Spirit told him, you will live long enough to see the Messiah, but the Holy Spirit led him to the right place at the right time. Verse 27 tells us that the Holy Spirit led him to the temple on that very day when Jesus was going to be presented.

See, God assured Simeon through all of this that there was an answer to all his seeking and all his searching. And that’s what we need to remember. Your concerns may be tiny like mine, like when I kind of whined about the last week.

Or you may be going through actual struggles and trials and difficult circumstances and moments where you wonder, is God paying attention? Does he care? Is there any hope to come out of this situation?

Because again, our feelings will tell us things that we know are not true. And we need to be reminded like Simeon, that if we’re seeking the Lord, there is going to be an answer to all that seeking. It may not be the answer that we’re looking for.

Now, Simeon in this case got the answer he was looking for. I haven’t always gotten the answer I hoped I would get, but there’s an answer to all of our seeking and searching. Jesus was the answer to everything that Israel needed and everything Israel expected.

Now, he was not everything Israel expected. And that’s why many of them turned on him and rejected him. He didn’t come the way they expected.

He didn’t do things quite like they expected. But as far as their expectations that God was going to send a Messiah, God was going to fulfill these promises, Jesus was the answer to everything that they were looking for, whether they recognized it or not. And we see from this this morning that Jesus brings us hope.

there’s a couple things that Jesus does is this light at the end of the tunnel and the first of them is that he brings us hope when we look at verses 27 through 32 we start to see this Simeon saw Jesus and he said in verse 29 Lord now you are letting your servant depart in peace I don’t think that means I’m dying I don’t think this is Sanford and son him clutching his chest and saying I’m coming to see you I’m coming to join you Elizabeth right? He’s not dying right at this moment. This is the way we would say, I can die a happy man.

This is all I’ve wanted out of life. He says, Lord, you’re now letting your servant depart in peace. Once he had seen Jesus, there was nothing else he needed.

There was nothing else he required. And he said, you’re letting your servant depart in peace according to your word. This was an acknowledgement from Simeon that God always keeps his promises.

It does not always come in the form we expect. It does not always come in the timing that we expect, but God always keeps His promises. And he goes on in verses 30 and 31 to say, For my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared before the face of all peoples.

He talks about this salvation that God has provided, this deliverance, this rescue. And I don’t pretend that Simeon understood everything about how this salvation was going to work. He just knew that God had promised a Savior, and now God was sending a Savior.

But he said, my eyes have seen your salvation, because his salvation was not in a concept, it was not in a theology. His salvation was in a person. Just like for us, our salvation is not in a set of doctrinal beliefs as important as they are.

Our salvation is in a person, Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ alone. He said, my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples. At this point, God has done all the work necessary to prepare and to send the gift of salvation into the world.

It wasn’t something that you and I did. It wasn’t something that mankind got together and figured out and worked out. It was something that was the plan of God from first to last. It’s something that was God’s plan A.

He created us knowing He was going to have to redeem us, knowing He was going to have to send His Son to the cross, and his son went willingly. I don’t ever want to hear again this talk about God the Father being a child abuser for sending his son. The son came willingly.

The son was in on the plan. And he came and did it anyway. And this terminology here that he used when he says you’ve prepared, this salvation which you have prepared, that word for prepared in Greek is the same that is used when it’s talking about preparing a banquet.

If you look at Matthew chapter 22 where it talks about the parable of the wedding feast and the king preparing a banquet and inviting the people to come in from the highways and the byways to bring people in to celebrate the wedding feast of his son. The preparation work is the same word that he uses here. The preparation that he’s prepared for our salvation.

God has done all the work and he invites, it says before, the face of all peoples and he invites us to come into that salvation. He invites us to step in and to receive it. A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles in verse 32.

This is how he’s describing Jesus. A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel. So he’s saying that Jesus brings to the Gentiles, which is another way of saying all the nations of the world.

That word that’s translated Gentiles is ethnos. Take it as ethnic group. Every nation on the face of this earth.

Every group of people on the face of this earth. The gospel did not just belong to the people in Israel. It did not just belong to those who were gathered at the temple.

He was revealing this light to all the nations of the world. And Jesus was bringing all nations of the world the knowledge of God. Because they didn’t understand who God was.

As we talked about a few weeks ago with Romans chapter 1, what they knew of God, they rejected. And yet Jesus came and just turned the lights on full blast. To show anybody who was willing to hear it, willing to see it in every nation, what God is really like, to reveal the light of God’s person, God’s character to all the nations of the world. And he reveals the fullness of God’s glory to Israel.

Because they had seen the light of God, they had seen the light of God’s truth, and yet there were still some things that they were missing. And so here from Jesus Christ, they were getting the fullness of God’s glory revealed to them. Both of these phrases describe Jesus bringing salvation to human beings.

People who by our very nature, we’re not right with God, and we can’t make ourselves right with God. We can’t just turn the lights on for ourselves when it comes to understanding who God is. Jesus came so that the Jewish people would be able to fully comprehend who this God was that they’d worshipped all this time, and so that the lights would be turned on for the other nations of the world as well.

And thank God that He did that, because that meant that the hope that had been promise to Israel is available to you and me as well. Jesus brings hope because we live in a world where we often feel when we get into bad circumstances, when we get into struggles, we often feel like we’ve been forgotten by God, even when we know that’s not the case. But Jesus Christ is the ultimate proof that God does remember and does care.

I don’t care what your feelings tell you today, that God doesn’t care, that God has forgotten you, that God doesn’t take notice. Let me tell you this, God the Father did not send His Son to endure what He did on the cross for you, just to turn around and forget about you. In addition to everything else that the cross accomplished for our salvation, Jesus Christ and His coming is the ultimate proof that you and I ever need that God remembers us and God cares.

So if you get in a situation where your feelings start to tell you, God has forgotten me, God doesn’t care, look at the cross. Look at the fact that Jesus came. That’s where our hope lies, not in how our feelings tell us to feel.

But He also brings hope because you and I are alienated from God. We are separated from God because of our sin. And there is not a thing that you and I can do to fix that.

We can only be made right with God one way, and that’s through Jesus Christ. He came and did all the work. He came and suffered everything that was necessary for us to be forgiven. And now because Jesus Christ has come, we have the hope of knowing that we can be right with God when there was no other way.

That’s why Simeon talks about seeing this salvation. So Jesus brings hope, but something else He did in being this light was He brought clarity. And clarity is not always a fun thing, but it’s something we have to pay attention to.

Sometimes we don’t always like what we see when we get clarity. In verses 33-35, Simeon talks about the clarity that Jesus was going to bring. the light that he was going to shine on the hearts of the people around him.

He says in verse 34, this child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel. Some people were going to stumble because of Jesus Christ. Some people were going to be offended by Jesus Christ. A lot of times the Bible will use the word stumbling, and it means what we mean by the word offense. Some people were going to look at Jesus and be offended by him, and reject him, and walk away.

Others who they looked at in their religious society and said, no, they’re garbage. Jesus would elevate them to being right with God. Simeon’s saying there are going to be some changes in what goes on in Israel and where people stand with God or where people realize they stand with God.

Jesus is coming for the rising and falling of many in Israel. Jesus’ presence was going to clarify whose hearts were really inclined toward God, whose hearts were sensitive toward God, and whose hearts were really in rebellion to Him. And if you’ve been here on Sunday nights for our study of Mark, we’ve seen that you have really.

. . Oh, outwardly they look like moral religious people like the Pharisees, but honestly they don’t care about God and His Word.

They care about their rules and their laws, and their hearts were in rebellion against God. Outwardly they looked good and moral and religious, but inwardly they were as far from God as they could be. And yet Jesus met sinners in the streets and called them to repentance.

And even though they recognized they had no right to ask God’s forgiveness, they repented anyway, and they were right with God. It says in verse 34 that He would be a sign which will be spoken against. Some of His own people would turn on Him and reject Him. You see, Jesus Christ today still clarifies how we really view God.

He clarifies where we really stand with God. We see this sometimes in public things in our country. By and large, people have no problem with you talking about God or even praying to God.

So when you start talking about Jesus Christ, they lose their minds. That’s why some of our chaplains, I don’t know if it’s still going on, but some of our military chaplains and police chaplains have gotten in trouble not for praying to God. Everybody’s okay with that because most people have some concept of God.

But when they start praying in the name of Jesus Christ, there have been people that have been fired and demoted and people lose their mind. You can pray to God at city council meetings. in some parts of the country people lose their minds if you pray to Jesus Christ. It’s because most people by and large are okay with the idea of some kind of relationship with God, but it’s the idea that we have to come through Jesus Christ that is offensive to our flesh.

Because having to come to God through Jesus Christ tells us that we are sinners and we can’t get there on our own. And by the way, this isn’t some kooky idea I cooked up. Jesus said that people would be offended for His sake.

The Apostle Paul said that the cross would be a stumbling block. It would be offensive. The message of the cross is offensive.

And in their day, there were people who were okay with having a relationship with God. But the idea of coming through Jesus Christ, that’s another story. And so it clarified how we really view God.

He says in verse 35 that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. The presence of Jesus revealed the thoughts of men’s hearts. And it comes down to this.

Are we willing to submit to His will and be reconciled to Him in the way that He says is the way we go? The way He says it has to be done by acknowledging our sin, by acknowledging how we fall short of His holiness and seeking forgiveness that we are not good enough to earn or deserve that somebody else had to pay for. Are we willing to do that?

My pastor growing up said Christianity and the Hell’s Angels are the only two groups you have to admit to being bad before you can get in. Think about that for a second. It’s true.

But are we willing to humble ourselves and repent before God and say, yes, I am a sinner. I do need this salvation. I do need this forgiveness.

I can’t earn it or deserve it. I have to come to you metaphorically on my hands and knees, admitting my sin and trusting in Christ to save me because I can’t do it. Are we willing to come the way he says, or do we want a relationship with God on our own terms, demanding that he let us into his presence because we said so?

because of what we can do, because of what we think we earned or deserved. And I submit to you that’s why so many people, especially the Pharisees, but also the other religious leaders, the political leaders of his day, that’s why so many people were offended by Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ means we can’t be right with God on our own. Him coming, if we acknowledge who He says He is and what He says He came to do, then we’re admitting we will never be good enough to come to God on our own.

And there’s something in our flesh that says, oh, but not me. I’m not that bad. So Jesus clarifies whether we are willing to come the way God says or if we just want to demand our own way in.

The only way, the only way out of the spiritual darkness is to come to the Father through the Son. The only way out of the darkness is through the Son. Jesus Christ came as this little baby that Simeon met in the temple, and he lived a perfect sinless life that you and I never could.

And he was able to do that because he was God in human flesh. And he went to the cross as a perfect sacrifice with no sin of his own to pay for. And he paid for my sin and yours when he was nailed to that cross and he shed his blood and he died.

He paid for what you and I could never pay for. And then he rose again three days later to prove it. And now he offers us forgiveness.

He offers us salvation. He offers us this hope that Simeon looked forward to. This light at the end of the tunnel.

but only if we acknowledge that we’ve sinned and we need Him as our Savior, that we’ve disobeyed God and need forgiveness that we can get only through Him. And this morning, if you understand that you’ve sinned against God and you’re separated from Him because of that, and you understand that Jesus Christ dying on the cross is the only reason you can be forgiven, and you believe that He did that and rose again, then this morning you can ask God for the forgiveness that He offers. And you’ll have it.

Not because I say so, not because Central Baptist Church says so, but because God promised it in His Word. God not only promised it in His Word after Jesus did it, but as Simeon pointed out, God was promising it in His Word for thousands of years before it ever happened. And you can have that forgiveness and that salvation this morning.