Decoration Or Foundation?

Well, I want you to imagine walking into a beautifully decorated Christmas house.

You could certainly use this nice, beautifully decorated Christmas house.

I know if you're like me, every time you turn the corner and walk in the doors, you're amazed by the beauty, even of the 15 -foot trees.

But they are beautiful. You cannot take that away. But imagine that, if you will, whether it's this one or your own home.

Imagine that there's a tree covered in lights, stockings on the mantel, music playing, gifts stacked high.

Everything looks perfect. But as you walk closer, you notice something strange.

The tree has no trunk. It's just branches tied together.

The decorations are there, yes, but there's no center holding it up. It might look festive for a moment, but eventually it will collapse.

Because decorations can't replace the foundation. And that's what happens when

Christmas is celebrated without Christ. Lights, gifts, food, traditions, family gatherings, they're all good things.

Nothing sinful about them. But they were meant to point to something greater.

When Jesus is removed, the season may still look joyful on the outside, but it loses its meaning and stability on the inside.

Jesus is not an add -on to Christmas. He is the center of it.

He is the reason we give, because God gave first. He is the reason for joy, because He brings salvation.

He is the reason for peace, because He reconciles us to God. Without Christ, Christmas becomes decoration without foundation.

With Christ, everything just makes more sense. And so this season, I encourage you, we don't just celebrate around Jesus.

We celebrate because of Jesus. Amen. Well, we see here in Luke 2, a very beautiful and very instructive text that goes right along with the theme of what

I just read for you. For we see all these events listed. We see all the narrative descriptions.

Ms. Toots has read some of this for us with our Advent Every Week about what has gone on.

And yes, this was real people, real places, real events that actually happened in history.

But they're not just lights or decorations all tied together with no foundation.

There is a foundation, and at the center of it is a baby. How appropriate that the

Spirit led Hannah to sing about that sweet little baby this morning to remind us of all these things.

And if you remember, we looked last week about the fact that the baby in the manger was no ordinary baby out of John 8.

He's the light of the world. He's the Savior. He's Yahweh. He's the Lord. And so we're going to look at the center of Christmas again this morning with that baby.

Here we find ourselves that now when the, verse 21, when the eight days were fulfilled so that they could circumcise him, his name was called

Jesus. Notice this, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

So notice already here in just one verse, we have obedience on behalf of the parents.

Obedience on behalf of Mary and Joseph. Jesus fulfills all the law and commandments.

Remember when questioned, he says, look, I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

And his parents, Mary and Joseph, played a huge role in ensuring that Jesus would be fully obedient to the law and having him circumcised here.

But notice here, the obedience and calling him the name that they were instructed to call him

Jesus. Verse 22, when the days for their cleansing, uh, with the days for their cleansing, according to the law of Moses were fulfilled, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the

Lord. Now, nothing about this was out of the ordinary, uh, little boys and Jewish families would do this at the proper time.

And if you want to, you can go back and look in Leviticus 12, where this is outlined and what they were supposed to do.

Very short chapter in Leviticus, I believe there's only about eight verses in the chapter, but you see the outline for why they're doing what they're doing here.

This wasn't a mistake. This wasn't something they woke up that morning and said, Hey, let's carry

Jesus on down there to the temple. It'll be good for him. No, this was an act of worship. This was an act of obedience to God.

And so they carry him down there and they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord as it is written in the law of the

Lord. And here you go. Every firstborn male, and this is a direct quotation of Exodus here, but you also find this in Leviticus.

Every firstborn male that opens the womb should be called holy or separated to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice according to what was said in law of the

Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. Now this verse in 24 here when it says a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons, this, this is harder.

I may usually write these cross -references down in larger print. I'm having to read them out of the notes in my

Bible and it's like six point font. And so if you see me squinting, there's a reason for it this morning.

There's a direct quotation here out of Leviticus 5 and Leviticus 12. So the reason that Mary and Joseph brought a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons is it's allowed for in the law of Moses that if you were of modest means or poor or something along those lines and could not bring a gift of higher value, there was an exception made.

Now while we are not held to the law in New Testament times in the sense of we're not required to tithe 10%, we're not required to tithe portions of land and all these different things, we are told to give as we've been blessed.

We're also told in Romans 12 that our entire body and everything that we are is a living sacrifice. But we see the same principles carried over.

There were exceptions made for those who had lesser means. So in our day, in our, in the

New Testament church, you may find some that are able to give more, some that are able to maybe have more time or more money or more resources.

You may have some that have less money, but maybe they have more time to give. There's a whole range of ways we give and obey and serve and worship the

Lord. And here for them, when they came, they brought this pair of turtle doves and two young pigeons because that was what they were able to do in obedience to the law.

And so you see all this acts of worship, acts of obedience on behalf of Mary and Joseph.

And then they get there. And now behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, verse 25, whose name was

Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, waiting for the comfort or consolation of Israel and the

Holy Spirit was upon him. Now, we don't read anything else about this

Simeon. He's actually on my list of people I want to talk to in heaven. You think about all the people you'd want to see, obviously, you know,

Jesus is number one. And, you know, we'll probably get there and realize that our lists are frivolous, that Jesus is all we need and we don't care about seeing anybody else for thousands of years.

But if we ever get around to the time where Jesus says, okay, now y 'all mingle amongst yourselves, most of us may go to Paul, may go to different people.

I want to go talk to these people that aren't mentioned as much. I want to know their story, because we're going to see here in a few moments, he recites something that he was told either directly by an angel or by God through God's some fashion.

And so he's told, you'll notice here in verse 26, it had been revealed to him, it says, by the

Holy Spirit, that he would not see death before he had seen the

Lord's Christ. And what that's saying there, the Lord's, the master's

Messiah, the Lord's Messiah. So this man had been promised that his physical death would not come until he had physically seen the

Messiah in flesh and blood. Can you even imagine for a moment living in such a time when the

Messiah is actually walking or at this point, maybe crawling on the planet, maybe he hadn't gotten to the point of walking yet, but imagine out of all the sea of humanity, the

Holy Spirit would tell you, you go on and live your life because you will not see the grave until you have seen your salvation and your

Messiah with your own eyes. Now I know Jesus himself says, more blessed are we that have not seen, but still believe.

And this is true. But if you're like me, you can't help for a moment, but thinking, what would it be like holding that baby?

I mean, I've obviously held Hannah, I've held other babies. I love youngins. Youngins are just, they have the joy that so many of us lose sometimes when we get older in some cases.

And I think we can all learn a lot from the young ones around us. But to hold

Jesus himself, what a privilege, what a blessing. But here's this

Simeon. And I want you to notice, he comes on the scene here and he was one that was waiting for the comfort or consolation of Israel.

Drop down to verse 38, at this very moment, she, this is Anna, the prophetess, she begins giving thanks to God, continuing to speak of him to all those who were what?

Waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. You can turn, not now, but you can look later, when you go in and look at Jesus' burial, when

Joseph of Amarathea shows up, it says the same thing about him, only slightly different that he was waiting for the kingdom of God.

So you think about hymns that we sing, like come thou great expected Jesus and things along them lines and how we have in our hymns that we sing this expectation of Messiah coming.

Imagine living in it, because these people, not all of them got it, but some of them did. Imagine being one of the ones that got it, that recognized

Daniel's 70 weeks and the 490 years and all these things that were right in the, in the cusp of ending and knowing that this is right around the time when

Messiah is supposed to come. And imagine being one that's told you're not going to see death until you see him.

Imagine being married that's told what to name the Messiah and that you're the one that's going to give birth to him. Imagine being a lot of these people like Anna and Joseph, these other people waiting, expectantly wanting to see the salvation come and then to see it happen.

Now granted, this is, we've covered this in Galatians and other places and other

Christmas sermons we've done. And so we're not going to rehash this now, but suffice it to say, you know,

Israel had a long history of having Kings, Saul, David, Solomon, other ones.

Many in this day, mistakenly, and we've covered some of this last week with the earthly mindedness of these

Jews, we're looking for a King to come rescue them from political rule. And many of them made this mistake, even though the disciples themselves said, is this now the time you're going to set up your kingdom?

They were thinking earthly and Jesus is trying to teach them. He's trying to show them in scripture.

Even Jesus himself says, if you understand scripture correctly, you'll understand why I'm actually here. It's not to save you from some political leader, from some evil word world ruler or some poverty or any of these things, all this social gospel nonsense that, you know,

Jesus has come to save you from poverty or save you from these things. No, Jesus came to save you from your worst enemy, which is yourself.

Save you from your sins. It's your sins that send you to hell, not a political ruler, not your social status, your economic status, or any of those things.

You can have all the money in the world and spend eternity in hell and have the eternal judgment for your sins.

He came to save you from your sins. He came to righteously redeem us and bring in the kingdom that is his to give that has no end.

And this is the kingdom. This is the consolation. This is the comfort that Simeon was looking for.

This word comfort means it's the hope that God would come and rescue and bring comfort to his people.

And there is no mistake here, my friends, that both Simeon speak saying this, but also that inspired scripture.

Luke himself would pin these words that this man was righteous and devout and that he was waiting for the comfort or consolation of Israel.

That's because his actions here in concert with the baby he had gone to see. It centers around Jesus because it's messianic.

Now I'm going to read for you a couple of verses out of Isaiah. Some direct messianic prophecies directly related to this notion of the comfort of God's people.

Isaiah 40 verse 1 says, Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Isaiah 49, 13 says,

Shout for joy, O heavens, rejoice, O earth. Break forth into joyful shouting,

O mountains. For Yahweh the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted.

Isaiah 51, 3 says, Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion. He will comfort all her waste places and her wildernesses.

He will make like Eden, or excuse me, her wilderness. He will make like Eden, her desert, like the garden of the

Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her thanksgiving and sound of a melody.

My friends, this joy, this shouting, this thanksgiving, this melody, for a time, people may express this if circumstances, or politics, or job situations, or things go their way, quote unquote.

But why do you think we say so much about, oh you see, all these celebrities, all these wealthy people, all these things that you see on TV, or in front of people, and they're propped up as, this is what you want to be.

And if you catch them at the right time, or if they're honest in an interview, they'll tell you my life is empty. Because just like that tree we talked about at the beginning that had all the decorations, and all the limbs tied together, but had no trunk at the center.

If you don't have Jesus at the center of your life, I don't care what's on the outside, it's vain and empty, and it will get you nowhere.

You will have no true joy, and many of the Jews living in this day missed it. They were so focused on their earthly circumstances, they missed the fact that when he's talking here in Isaiah 51, and he's saying the

Lord's going to comfort you, the Lord's going to bring you into a state where your desert will be like the garden of the

Lord, that you'll have joy and gladness found there, thanksgiving and sounds of melody.

There's no better time than when you're saved, when you're brought and your sins are forgiven, that this occurs.

That's true comfort. There's no greater comfort in your life than to have your sins forgiven, to be saved by the grace and mercy of God through your repentance and faith.

And my friends, I hope you don't ever lose the joy of your salvation throughout your life. Because it's a very depressing time indeed, but it can be restored through repentance, obedience, not that your salvation or justification is in question, but we reside in sinful humanness.

We have flesh that can rob us of our joy. Sin in your life can rob you of your joy.

Other people at times can rob you of your joy, and yes, don't get too arrogant. You yourself can rob others of their joy sometimes.

We've all done it. But we need to find joy in our hearts, joy at the center of our lives, not build on our own foundation, not build on anything that we've done, but what on Christ is done.

That is the true messianic fulfillment of all these prophecies, that the

Lord has come to bring comfort, he's come to bring joy, he's come to bring salvation to the afflicted, to his people.

And he's not talking about affliction and physical ailments or in political ailments or circumstantial ailments.

He's talking about bringing you comfort and salvation from the thing that afflicts you the most, and that's your sin.

It goes on and says in Isaiah 57, 18, I have seen his ways, but I will heal him.

I will lead him and pay him and his mourners in full with comfort.

So notice here another prophecy, the fact that it's seen his ways, I will heal him.

We think of Isaiah 53 when it talks about by his stripes we are healed or by his wounds we are healed.

The wounds of Christ, the stripes of Christ, all that he endured was for our healing.

Have you ever seen a Christian walking this planet that is 100 % rid of sin in their body, whether that's their own sin or pain or affliction?

No. If anything, and in fact we're told in New Testament scripture, if you're going to serve Christ expect to suffer.

So it can't mean that, it's the healing of your souls, it's the healing of your being, it's the healing of your standing with God, which is why

Romans 5 talks about therefore we have justification with Christ, and it's this grace of his in which we stand justified.

It's the center that holds everything up, it's not just decoration, it's a foundation upon what you're building.

You think about Matthew when he talks about the two types of houses, one built on the rock, one built on the sand.

We've all used this illustration, the one on the rock holds when the storm comes, the one on the sand washes away.

There's only two types of people in this world. Yes, we see variety of ethnicities and economic levels and job statuses and all these different levels of diversity, but when you break it down, there's only two types of people, saved, unsaved, righteous, lost.

Those that build the tree of their life without a trunk at the center, and others either have no trunk or they've built it with a trunk that will not stand.

We also see here in light of the comfort that Simeon was speaking about, in the light of the comfort that Simeon was looking forward to,

Isaiah 61 verse 1 and 2, it says the spirit of the Lord God weighs upon me because the

Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted, the humble.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to captives and freedom to prisoners.

My friends, once again, I stand in awe. You ran me long enough, you'll know

I'll say this so many times, there's nothing just more beautiful to me than the consistency and the harmony of inspired scripture that reaches from Genesis to Revelation.

It's not telling more than one story. It's not telling disjointed stories. It's telling one story, the story of redemption that's found in Jesus Christ.

So it says the spirit of the Lord has anointed me to bring good news and what do we think about when we think good news?

We'll be going back there either next week or the week after when we go back to Galatians.

The whole point is Paul is talking about the freedom in Christ, the freedom for the afflicted, the freedom for the brokenhearted, the release of captives, the freedom to prisoners.

Romans 6 talks about this, slaves of sin, slaves of righteousness. You're either in bondage of sin or you've been set free.

We looked at this last week, remember? If the Son set you free, you're what? Free indeed.

Notice the consistency and the harmony here. Verse 2 of Isaiah 61 says, to proclaim the favorable year of the

Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn.

Yes, indeed, we are comforted by the foundation of Christ. Moving on here in Luke chapter 2 verse 27, it says, he came, this is

Simeon, he came in the spirit. Now this wasn't some otherworldly fantastical thing.

This is no different than when Galatians 5 talks about being yielded to the spirit. Ephesians talks about this.

To be yielded, to be under the control of the spirit, to be in the spirit means you are yielded to the spirit's control.

You are yielded in obedience to the word of God. And so Simeon came in the spirit, under direction of the spirit of God, and notice that Trinitarian language here.

You've got the spirit of God directing Simeon to go see the Son of God, the incarnated one.

Christmas is the best time of year. There's a reason for it, right? He comes, when the parents brought in the child

Jesus, notice there's no absence here of Mary and Joseph. They play an important role. They bring in the child

Jesus to carry out for him the custom of the law, then he took him into his arms and blessed God and said, now notice what

Simeon says here. And notice, we said earlier, what a blessing it would be to see the

Messiah in flesh and blood. And now we've gone a step further. This same Simeon takes the salvation, the comfort, the

Messiah, the blessed servant of Isaiah, whatever title you want to fill in the blank with,

Simeon takes him into his arms, into his arms, and blesses

God and says, now master, you are releasing your slave in peace or your bond servant in peace.

Now this is sort of a to the side here. We can't prove this from Scripture.

This is just speculation. This is just completely Andy's opinion. But since we don't know a lot about Simeon, since we do know from Scripture he was told he wouldn't see death until he saw his

Messiah, my speculation and my opinion just wonders. Like I said, I don't know this for fact, which is why

I want to talk to Simeon one day. I almost wonder when he talks about being released in peace, if maybe his life had gone a little longer than maybe otherwise would have.

And maybe he had a lot of physical ailments. Maybe there was a lot of trouble in his life and he was looking forward because a lot of the

Jews, and you see Paul echoing this in the New Testament, to be absent from the body is present from the

Lord, which is far better. Maybe Simeon longed for it, but he knew it wouldn't come because he hadn't yet seen the

Messiah. So he says, now I've seen the Messiah, I've held the Messiah in my hands, and I can be released from this.

I can know that peace has come. I could be completely wrong about that.

It's very possible, but just the things I think about sometimes. He says, you are releasing your servant in peace.

Notice though, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in the presence of all peoples.

The salvation of God, the good news of Christ, the good news of the gospel is not limited by race or ethnicity.

With the Greek word ethnos, the ethnics, the nations, it's for all of them.

No matter where you find yourself on this globe, no matter where you find yourself in your economic status or your race or your background or your age, your gender, whatever it is, boy, girl, old, young, it matters not.

Every single human being that repents and puts their full faith and trust in Jesus Christ will find him to be a perfect savior, period.

Because he says here, he quotes Isaiah chapter nine. We've read this already in previous sermons, that this salvation, this one will be a light for revelation to the

Gentiles. Now, Jews wouldn't like this part. No, no, no, he's ours. No, you don't understand your

Old Testament. He's there, yes, for the Jews, but he's a right of revelation for the Gentiles as well and for the glory of your people

Israel. And notice here, his father and mother were marveling at the things that were being said about him.

My friends, it wasn't that Mary and Joseph didn't believe what they were told about Jesus.

This isn't what this is saying. It isn't that, oh, well, they had to see these things. Is he really the

Messiah? I don't know. I mean, I don't know what the angel said he was. No, think about this. You can know something is coming.

Let's say you have some big event or some really cool thing you're looking forward to. You know it's coming.

There's no question. Yes, you believe it, but you know how when you're in the moment, that's why we talk about being present in this world.

When you're in that moment, you're actually experiencing it. It's greater confirmation like, yes, this is everything

I thought it would be. That's what's being said here. His father and mother are marveling at the things that were being said about him.

They know who he is. They know what they've been told about him, and they said, wow, look at what's going on.

Look at what the Lord's doing. I just cannot believe it. This is wonderful, but then as we begin to draw to a close here,

Simeon has all this positivity to say for sure, but there's also a level of negative or warning, if you will, here, but it's also messianic in nature.

Verse 34, Simeon blessed them, meaning he blessed Mary and Joseph, and he says to Mary, his mother, behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel and for a sign to be opposed.

Notice he says this child is appointed. Notice also he says, for the fall and the rise of many in Israel, my friends, you either stand and rise or you will fall in judgment based on how you handle

Christ. If Christ is at the center of your life, if Christ has saved you, you will certainly rise.

He says he'll be assigned to be opposed. This word opposed here means to speak against, to contradict, to decline, to obey or to dispute.

Now it'd be a whole sermon for another day, but suffice it to say, has not the name of Jesus at this time and all the way down to our time been a name that people speak against?

They contradict, they decline to obey, and they dispute? I'd say so.

And he tells his mother he will be assigned to be opposed.

And notice he says a sword will pierce through your own soul as well, that the thoughts from many hearts will be revealed.

Now, he says this, his father and mother are sitting there marveling, and Simon blesses them, but he's speaking to Mary.

Now I don't know if Simeon by the power of spirit knew this internally, which is why he did it this way, or if he was just simply directed by the spirit to say it to Mary because the spirit knows.

But apparently Joseph's not on the scene at the time of Jesus' crucifixion. He's MIA. He could have already died at this point.

I don't know. He probably already died, there are a whole number of things here, but he's saying this to Mary as his mother, you're going to have your own soul pierced through.

Think about it. You're not just Jesus' mother. All of you mothers in the crowd, imagine having to stand and watch your own flesh and blood be crucified right in front of you.

It's not just that, but this is Mary's savior. Mary's not the savior. She's watching her savior be crucified.

You don't think, and I don't want to dwell on this long because I don't want to cause anybody any unnecessary grief if this has happened to you, but if you ever hear about someone talking about losing a child, they talk about it, they may not use these exact words, but it's literally like they've been pierced through the soul.

There's no mistake why he tells Mary you're going to feel this way, because in a very real way, she's going to watch her own flesh and blood be murdered in front of her.

And all of the thoughts from many hearts being revealed, well, that goes without saying, we see it all throughout the

New Testament. But then we get down here, the prophetess

Anna comes on the scene. She's advanced in years, verse 36, having lived with her husband. Verse 37, as a widow to the age of 84, older lady here, she never left the temple serving night and day with fasting and prayers.

And at the very moment she came up to her Simeons holding this child, she began giving thanks to God and continued to speak of him to all those who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.

In the midst of all that Simeon tells her about how there's going to be this piercing through of the soul, there still is the backdrop, still is the foundation, the redemption, the comfort of Israel.

This child is appointed, he's at the center of it all. And he's there, this is more messianic prophecies when he talks about the rise and fall.

Isaiah 49, 6 speaks of the servant coming to raise up the tribes of Jacob.

Now Isaiah 25, this is some beautiful scripture here. Isaiah 25, verse 8 and 9, it says,

Indeed, while following the way of your judgment, O Lord, we have hoped for you eagerly. Your name, the memory of you is the desire of our souls.

At night, my song longs for you. And also it said that he will swallow up death for all time.

The Lord will wipe away tears from all faces. This is Old Testament, y 'all. Wipe away tears from all faces.

He will remove the reproach of his people from all the earth. The Lord has spoken, it will be said in that day, behold, this is our

God in whom we have hoped for. Remember the scripture Ms. Toots read for us about how his name will be called

Emmanuel, meaning God with us. This is our God, the one we've hoped for, the one who would save us.

This is the Lord in whom we have hoped, let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.

Which brings us back to the beginning here. Remember what we talked about?

The tree beautifully decorated, lights, gifts, but nothing at the center.

Do you have decoration without foundation? Do you decorate your life with lights, gifts, ornaments on the outside, but there's nothing to hold it up on the inside?

The world wants to dress you up and make you look perfect on the outside.

Boy, don't they look good. Boy, don't they have it all together. But as you no doubt know, and many of us have probably engaged in this, it's easy to put on a mask, isn't it?

Jesus completely transforms you on the inside. And his light shines forth out of you to lost souls who need a savior.