[0:00] Luke chapter 2 at verse 25. Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
[0:17] 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 seven depart in peace according to your word.
[0:42] 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 glory to your people Israel.
[0:57] Well, as you know, the birth of royal children meets with intense media interest and reporting. Don't have to go very far back recently for the most recent birth of a royal child, just to remember the flurry of activity amongst the media, different kinds, in order to present the news of that latest royal birth.
[1:22] And royal children continue to be a source of interest to the media as their life develops, their first day in school or kindergarten or whatever.
[1:34] There's always that intense interest following them. Well, here is a royal birth, the birth of the Prince of Peace, the birth of the Son of God in our nature, the birth of Jesus Christ.
[1:49] And there is little attention given to it in the world of the time. It is the birth in history.
[2:00] It is the birth in the history of the world from beginning to end. It is the news amongst all the different types of news and the different elements of news in the whole span of history in the world.
[2:17] This is the news. It is the news that the Savior has been born according to the promise of God, given generations, millennia indeed, before the event itself.
[2:32] And indeed, although it's not reported much amongst human beings, yet at the time this birth was so significant that the reporters of it are actually no less than angels.
[2:45] As you find in the previous passages, the birth of the Lord, the shepherds and the angels, just before where we began reading, verse 21, all of the verses before that, where the angels came and revealed to the shepherds that the Lord was actually going to be born in the city of David, a saviour, that he was born, who is Christ the Lord.
[3:13] The angels, no less, were the reporters of that great news. And in verses 8 and 13, you find that while little is made of it, that the stage amongst human beings of the time, there's a celebration in heaven itself over this great event.
[3:32] Because you see there in verses 8 and 13, the same region, the angels appeared, the angel of the Lord appeared, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.
[3:44] And the angel said to them, Fear not, I bring you good news of great joy that shall be for all people. And verse 13, And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, At that moment, the choir of heaven appeared, and sang out this praise over this amazing event, of the birth of the saviour.
[4:12] Now we come to the passage that we're looking at this evening, and you can see it's actually got a couple of Old Testament requirements behind what you find happening here from verse 22 onwards.
[4:24] Jesus having been circumcised, as you find at verse 21. The background is, firstly, Leviticus chapter 12, and verses 1 to 5, where you actually find an account there of how a woman that would actually have given birth, especially a birth of a son, would actually be regarded as ceremonially unclean, just unclean ceremonially, as the Lord himself had set that as a ritual for Israel to follow.
[4:56] She was seven days unclean, and then a further 33 days, she was not allowed to come near a holy place such as a sanctuary, so for over a month, she was not to go into a place where worship was held, such as the temple or the tabernacle before it.
[5:13] So when you come to this point, Jesus is over a month old. When they bring him here to be presented to the Lord, and that's the second Old Testament requirement from Exodus chapter 13, where we find that the first male child, the first child is to be dedicated to the Lord, or presented to the Lord, as an indication for one thing, that the whole of the issues of every family belong to God, and just similar to the first fruits of the ground, so the first fruit of the womb is to be presented to the Lord, as an indication of belonging to him in a particular way.
[5:57] And so that's what brought Mary and Joseph with the child, Jesus, now over a month old, to the temple. That's what actually led to this meeting with Simeon.
[6:08] When they come into the temple, and meet with Simeon, as we read there, Simeon took the child up in his arms, and then came out with this wonderful outburst of praise to God, which I personally, is one of my favorite passages in the whole Bible, where you find Simeon with the infant Jesus, with God in his arm, God in the flesh, God in our nature, actually taken up in his arms.
[6:34] And these wonderful words that he says, having been promised by God that he would not die, till he had seen the Lord's Christ, the Lord's anointed, the Messiah. Now he's seeing him, and he utters these wonderful words, Now Lord, you're letting your seven depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation.
[6:56] He's looking, he's looking down at this little child in his arms, and he's really saying to God, Now Lord, I can go in peace, because I'm now looking at your salvation. I'm looking at this infant child, and this Lord is your salvation.
[7:11] This is the one who was promised of old, and now he's arrived. This is your salvation, in the anointed of the Lord and the Messiah. I'm going to take this passage over two weeks, God willing, and we'll look next week at the second part of it, the words of Simeon.
[7:27] But I want to look tonight at what we're told here of, the kind of man that Simeon was. So I think the two things are very closely related together. In many ways, it's the kind of man that he was, that really led him to this great outburst of praise, where he came to see the Lord's Christ, and took him up in his arms.
[7:49] It's the kind of man that he was, that left him in the position of waiting for this to happen, and when it happened of coming out with this wonderful praise, or song, if you like, of praise to God.
[8:02] The two things we're going to look at tonight in verses 25 and 26. First of all, we read there that Simeon lived for God's approval. Simeon lived for God's approval.
[8:14] That was the purpose, that was the aim, that was really the thrust of his life. He lived for God's approval. And the second thing that we can look at this evening is that Simeon longed for Christ's arrival.
[8:29] Simeon lived for God's approval, and Simeon longed for Christ's arrival, the arrival of the Messiah. Here you find a description of him here in verse 25, as someone who lived for God's approval.
[8:43] 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.
[8:55] What a description. It's not a very long biography. It's actually just one verse, just a few words, but there's two very important words in it that describe the kind of person that Simeon was, as someone who lived for God's approval.
[9:09] And the two words especially are the word righteous, and then the word devout. He was righteous and he was devout. And from that righteousness and devoutness, he was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit, which really gives us the key to this man's life, the Holy Spirit was upon him.
[9:31] Well, what do these words mean? How is it that this man is significant as a righteous and devout man? What do these words indicate? What are we going to take from these for ourselves?
[9:42] How are we to apply that? To the kind of people that we ourselves should be, like Simeon, living for God's approval. Well, take the word righteous first of all.
[9:54] He was a righteous man. Righteous is a word that's always used in relation to God's own standard for life, for human life.
[10:06] God is righteous. God requires of us the kind of life that actually fits with, or corresponds to his own righteousness. To be righteous means to have that standard applied to your life, or to seek to live out in your life that standard of living, which in fact God himself approves of, to meet with God's approval.
[10:30] Now that, of course, is impossible for us, except as we are found in Christ. Except as Christ himself covers us in the presence of God, and except as we have the righteousness of Christ judicially, in our justification, and the Holy Spirit in our lives, to lead us onwards into a life of holiness, which again is a life which seeks to fit in with God's own standard expressed in the scriptures.
[10:57] This is the kind of man that Simeon was. And when he says he was a righteous man, that he lived to meet with God's standard, or sought to meet with, or match up with God's standard, that doesn't mean he was a legalistic man.
[11:12] That doesn't mean that he sought God's approval by doing his best to keep the law of God. Something like Saul of Tarsus did before the Lord met him and changed him around, and turned him into one of the great Christians of all time.
[11:27] He lived by the kind of life that he thought was pleasing to God, earning God's approval as he thought, until he came to see how worthless that life was.
[11:38] Simeon wasn't like that. He was a man who was righteous in the sense of not a self-produced achievement, not a self-produced righteousness, but one who depended on God, who lived by the word of God, because obviously he valued the promise of God so much in regard to the coming Messiah, that he lived for this every day.
[12:01] He lived by his promise every day. He looked every day to the coming of Jesus Christ, to the coming of the Lord's anointed. That's why you find the word righteous in the Bible, is used like this, always connected with the word grace.
[12:18] There's other words as well, but the word grace especially is always connected with the word righteous, and being righteous in relationship with God. And as you know, grace is God described in his freeness of favor toward us in Jesus Christ, the freeness and the fullness of that favor as it comes to us through the gospel, that grace freely given.
[12:46] And we receive it by faith. We receive what grace offers and what grace has produced by faith. Take, for example, Noah. If we go back in the Bible to Noah's time, when you go back to Genesis and chapter 6, you find Noah described there in verses 8 and 9 of chapter 6 of Genesis in these terms.
[13:12] Remember, this is a time of massive ungodliness in the world of the time, and Noah is the exception. The whole world is just being ripened, as it were, ripening itself for judgment, which is going to come in the flood when God's displeasure, God's wrath is revealed in the flood that comes upon the world.
[13:32] But this is what it says. The Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things.
[13:42] When he saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground, for I am sorry that I have made them.
[14:01] But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Then you have a break, which doesn't really help, a break in the way that the translation here in English has it, where you find verse 9 and this title, this little title beforehand, but it's not like that, of course, in the original text.
[14:22] It just flows right through there. But if you read it from verse 8 straight into verse 9, without looking at the gap, this is what you find. But Noah found favor. That's the word grace. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.
[14:39] Noah walked with God. How was it that Noah came to walk with God as an exception to the life of human beings in his generation?
[14:50] Because he found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Because the Lord visited him with His grace. Because the Lord set His love upon him. Because the Lord actually saw him in His grace as someone to favor.
[15:02] Someone who would actually come to be a deliverer, in the sense of delivering his own family from the flood of the time through the ark.
[15:13] You see, it's grace, the favor of the Lord, the undeserved favor of the Lord, as it comes to rest upon our lives, that leads us then, and enables us then, we're fully opened up in the New Testament, of course.
[15:29] It's then that you come to be able to actually walk with God, and come to be approved of by God. So the word grace tells us that righteousness is something you receive.
[15:45] You don't produce it yourself. You can't produce it yourself. All that I can produce myself in keeping with yourself to is self-righteousness. And that self-righteousness is offensive to God.
[15:56] But the righteousness that's in Jesus, produced by, provided by, the grace, the favor of God, well, that righteousness you receive with himself.
[16:09] It comes with Christ. It's made over to us when you come to have him and know him as your Savior. But, of course, as we see, that really meets with God's approval.
[16:22] And, again, if you go to chapter 7 of Genesis, it begins there, and the Lord said to Noah, Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you, or you alone, are righteous before me in this generation.
[16:38] In other words, the righteousness that Noah had through the grace of God, God took note of, God approved of. That's the same with Simeon. He was a righteous man. God approved of him.
[16:50] He had this righteousness through the grace of God. But then, you see, there's a very important element that we also need to mention. This righteousness is a public thing.
[17:03] It's not confined to the personal, private intimacy of Simeon with God. Noah was known for this.
[17:16] So was Simeon. In public life, he was known as a righteous man. His righteousness was not something he kept to himself. It wasn't something that he thought was just worthy of being used privately for his own enjoyment, for his own benefit.
[17:33] Simeon was known in public as a righteous man. Everybody who knew Simeon, they maybe didn't approve of his lifestyle. I'm sure there were some people, maybe even many, who didn't approve of just how righteously he lived, how close to God he was.
[17:50] But nevertheless, they knew him as a righteous man, as a man of God, as a man who walked with God. And so that dimension, that public dimension, follows into righteousness as you and I would be righteous before God.
[18:07] The righteousness that God gives you, the righteousness you have through the grace of God, the righteousness that you have in Christ and with you being in Christ.
[18:19] It's a righteousness that has to be known, that makes itself known, that shows itself so that you and I also come despite all the defects of our lives, of mine, as much as anyone.
[18:33] But I hope it's true that people can still see that we are a people who are known as righteous, who don't fall in with the ways of the world, who shun evil, who speak up against sin, and who actually seek to honor Christ in our way of life.
[18:53] But he's righteous, but he's also, he's righteous, but he's also devout, this is the second word. I don't want to spend too much time on them, but the second word is also very closely related to that.
[19:03] Simeon was a righteous man and devout. Now devout is, a word which very literally in Greek means to hold on to something well.
[19:19] He had things well held, you could say, about Simeon in his life. He held on very well and very carefully and with great detail the things of his godliness were well held.
[19:33] He didn't actually let them slip through his fingers, if you like. He was concerned to hold on to the things of God, the things that honored God, the things that actually were to do with God's own reputation, if you like.
[19:47] He held it very careful. In other words, as he lived this holy life, this devout life, he didn't neglect the small print, if you like, of the way in which God had specified how he was to live.
[20:02] He didn't just major on some, he didn't just focus on certain major items in his life and then, well, say, the other bits, they're not really worth, they're not really all that important to me.
[20:15] I don't need to think too carefully about being in the temple and going to worship or actually being with God's people and prayer and reflection and self-assessment and self-examination.
[20:29] I don't need to be too fussy about these things. I just need to go to the temple. I need to mix with God's people. I need to join in with the worship and the services and the ritual of the temple and that's it.
[20:40] I'll be okay. No, he wasn't that kind of man. He held well to the detail of a godly life. You know what it's like when you get some flat pack furniture or something like that that you need to assemble and put together.
[20:55] If you're anything like me, you don't actually, let's just leave it personally to me sometimes or very often, in fact, I will think, oh, I've done this before.
[21:05] It's similar to the last one I did so the instructions in there sometimes they're not very full anyway but you just leave it aside and you start trying to put the thing together and of course when the box in which it came is then thrown out, the instructions sometimes end up thrown out with them and then you realize halfway through the project, I actually don't know where this bit goes and this doesn't look right so you've lost the instruction, the details are gone and then you've got a problem.
[21:36] Well, in spiritual terms, Simeon was not like that. He didn't throw away the small print of God's instructions. He wasn't just concerned with the big things.
[21:49] He was concerned in every detail of his life to hold on to them for God, to be true to God and that's the challenge for ourselves tonight, isn't it, as well.
[21:59] He didn't neglect prayer or reflection or self-assessment as we said and in some ways I think you could say that being devout is really foundational to being righteous in a public way because being devout is more to do in a sense with his private life between himself and God and that devoutness that he was committed to showed itself in his righteous life.
[22:29] And that's how it always is. You and I will not have a righteous life publicly unless we have a devout life privately. Let's hold on to the small detail.
[22:40] Let's really hold fast as this word means to hold well to God's specifications for our lives. And then in doing so seek by his grace to live in a public way righteously and honorably for God.
[22:59] So there's Simeon. He lived for God's approval. He lived for God's approval as a righteous man and also as a devout man. But secondly he lived or longed for Christ's arrival.
[23:14] As he lived for God's approval at the same time he was longing for Christ's arrival. And you can see what's told you there at the second half of verse 25.
[23:25] This man was righteous and devout. What was he doing? He was waiting for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit was upon him. Now take that word waiting because each of these words is really full of meaning and packed full of significance for us.
[23:42] Here he is a righteous man a devout man but what's he doing? How is he expressing that righteousness and that devotion to God? Well one way not the only way but one way that's emphasized is that he was waiting waiting for something.
[23:58] He was looking forward to something. And that something of course was the appearance of the Savior the Messiah. Waiting for the consolation of Israel we'll see what that means in a minute.
[24:11] But when you look at this word waiting it's very important in its theological significance too as well as practically because if you go to chapter 12 for example you'll find the same word used there in chapter 12 and at verse 36.
[24:28] This is where you find the teaching of Jesus with regard to being watchful with regard to his own coming again especially and his servants as they need to maintain their watchfulness and be ready for you know not he says at what hour the Son of Man is coming.
[24:49] Well in verse 36 he says that this is what it's like it's like he says stay dressed for action be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks.
[25:05] And then he goes on to think about falling asleep and the importance of not falling asleep spiritually of course arises from that. The word that he's using here is the same word that's describing Simeon.
[25:17] These people as an illustration that Jesus has given they're waiting for the master to come home from the wedding feast. They're alert. They're not actually sleeping or not actually bothered about when he'll arrive.
[25:31] They're not going to bed themselves until he comes until they show that they've been loyal to him that they've watched the place. This is what Simeon was doing. He was waiting for. He had a positive expectation and eagerness towards this event.
[25:47] And when you go to Titus for example Paul uses this word again with regard to the coming of Jesus again where he talks about the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men teaching us certain things.
[26:05] And then he says waiting for the blessed hope the appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Remarkable words itself describing Jesus in terms of his divinity.
[26:18] Great God and Savior Jesus Christ. But it's the word waiting for anticipating being an eager expectation of something.
[26:30] That's how it is with the promises of God. this is where I find myself coming so far short on a daily basis. I don't find myself I don't know about you but I don't find myself as I would desire if you allow this personal reference again.
[26:46] I don't find myself every morning that I wake up coming to think as I come to read the Bible or coming to pray or whatever. I'm not filled with a need for expectancy.
[26:58] I'm not filled with a thought I wonder if this is the day of Christ's return. I wonder if God will lay a special blessing on my soul today. There's much more of a lethargic all too often a lethargic spirit and they're going through the motions and just following the ritual of reading and of prayer which is so possible for us and even that is good in a sense but here's Simeon as a challenge to us and really something to hold before ourselves.
[27:27] this man is waiting. He is really eagerly expecting God to act and his prayers fit in with that and that's for ourselves such an important thing in terms of the promises of God.
[27:42] This is just one promise that's mentioned here the promise of the coming of Christ and here is Simeon eagerly expecting that and when you think of how the Bible presents the coming of Christ again to us.
[27:58] His first coming is what Simeon was eagerly expecting but of course all the way through especially in Paul's writings you'll find the second coming of Christ the coming of Christ at the end of the world.
[28:11] How does he present that theologically and even in practical experience terms to us? Well Paul was excited about it. Paul was eagerly expectant as he thought about the coming of Christ.
[28:26] And you know the Bible describes that in terms of an excitement of a bride expecting and waiting for the bridegroom to appear with the longing with the expectancy with the excitement as to the coming of the bridegroom.
[28:46] That's his church pictured as the bride looking forward to the bridegroom's arrival so that she will go with him to the marriage supper of the Lamb.
[29:00] Let's work on that. Let's work towards and pray for a greater sense of excitement towards God's blessings in our lives towards God's return and the coming of Christ again because that's really all built into this word waiting as it's used in its breadth of meaning in the New Testament.
[29:22] But secondly he was waiting for something in particular. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel. There's an interesting word consolation of Israel. What does that mean? Well it means consolation.
[29:33] You know what that means. It means something to do with peace something to do with comfort consolation. That's actually a word that's very closely related to the word comfort for the Holy Spirit.
[29:45] But here it's the consolation of Israel and of course that still means Jesus. He was waiting for the Messiah but he's described in this part of the verse as the consolation of Israel.
[29:56] By Simeon's time all the verses all the passages of the Old Testament such as Isaiah 11 and these great passages anticipating prophesying the coming of the Messiah they all are brought together if you like by in Simeon's time so that they're described the content of these promises in the Old Testament are summarized if you like in this word consolation the consolation of Israel.
[30:25] What a great description for Jesus. That's what he was waiting for. That's what he was eagerly anticipating.
[30:36] That's what he was excited about the fact that God had revealed to him he would not die until he had actually seen for himself the coming of the consolation of Israel the one who was to be Israel's comforter and saviour.
[30:53] That word is so precious. In fact again if you go back to Noah there's something quite remarkable there too about how Noah's father Lamech spoke about the birth of the son in Genesis 5 and verse 26 where you find that in the respect of Noah's birth you find there Lamech actually saying that this son that was to be born to them sorry it's Genesis chapter 5 and verse 26 where you find the account of Methuselah followed by Lamech and he fathered a son and called his name Noah saying out of the ground that the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief or comfort from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.
[31:51] That goes back to the curse of God in Genesis 3 16 17 God cursed the ground for man's sake on account of man's sin. There is Noah's father Lamech saying this one Noah whose name means consolation or peace shall be a comfort to us in the midst of this toil of this trauma that sin has brought about Noah is born and you see there is a connection between what Noah was to be in his generation and what Jesus was in the much wider sense.
[32:28] Noah was the means by which he and his family were preserved from the flood to begin if you like all over again to populate the new world after the flood.
[32:41] Noah is the deliverer in that sense from the flood of God's wrath and in Jesus he is the one who lifts the curse of sin from off our lives and brings in forgiveness.
[32:56] Noah was God's means by which the curse was lifted after the flood was over and things then settled with Noah and his family. So that's itself a type or an image of the much greater deliverance that Jesus brings.
[33:14] The consolation of Israel. In our world is crying out for peace. Conflict exists throughout our world so many places.
[33:29] Our whole nation knows all too well what conflict means. Violence casting off authority. You know what it's been like in France in these last few weeks.
[33:44] Violence on the streets, people living in fear. Our world desperately needs peace. You know for many people it would be very naive to suggest well that peace is in this person.
[33:59] And it's the gospel of Christ that brings peace. And people will accuse us of saying yeah but it's a religion that causes all the turmoil and all the war. No it's not religion that causes certainly not the Christian religion.
[34:10] Maybe there are defects from the Christian religion or departures from the Christian religion or misuse of the Christian religion of the Christian faith that brings such trauma and even war at times in the history of the world.
[34:25] We accept that. But if you accept the word of Christ and Christ as the consolation of Israel and live a life dedicated to peace, peace with one another, peace even with those around us of the world.
[34:39] Well in Christ there's lasting peace. Peace with God, peace in human relationships. That's not naivety, that's reality. spiritual reality and we have to keep that vision of peace that you have in Jesus in a world that's beset with, blighted with turmoil and lack of peace.
[35:09] Take my yoke upon you, said Jesus in Matthew 11, and learn of me. come unto me and I will give you rest.
[35:19] That's not just for individuals. If only those who govern us would realize that these words are just as suitable for human society, for nations as they are for individuals.
[35:34] Because he is the consolation. It's in him we find our peace. You don't find peace as you have peace in Christ anywhere else. The peace of God.
[35:47] The peace that grace has provided. The consolation of Israel. And that's what we look to in our troubles as well, isn't it?
[35:57] Where do you go when you have your own problems, when you have troubles, when you have conditions and difficulties to contend with, when unexpected things happen that crush your heart, when you receive news that you didn't expect and would never want to have in your experience?
[36:15] Where do you go? Where do you find consolation? You tend to look in yourself like I do. You tend to look to other people for their support and that's great, that's good, that's valuable.
[36:26] We have to be that to each other. But there's only one who is the consolation for people. The consolation of Israel, that's Jesus. Jesus Christ.
[36:39] The peace of God. And finally, the Holy Spirit was upon him. Here is Simeon, he longed for Christ's arrival, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
[36:51] That's really, in many ways, that's the key to his life, isn't it? Because the Bible only knows of two conditions. The condition of the flesh, and the condition of the Spirit.
[37:03] Where you have the flesh, you have enmity against God, you have a throwing off of the law of God, of the authority of God. You have a resistance to that, you have an enmity to that, that's what Romans tells us, that the carnal mind, as the old translation has it, the mind of the flesh, is enmity against God.
[37:24] It is not subject to the law of God, neither can be. Whereas the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. That's the mind that Simeon knew.
[37:37] that's what made the difference in his life. That's the key to understanding how he was a righteous and devout man. How he was waiting eagerly for God's promise to be fulfilled.
[37:50] That's the force of the now in verse 29, as we'll see God willing next time. Lord, now you're letting your servant depart in peace. You've fulfilled your promise, Lord.
[38:03] I've waited for this all my life. And now it's come to pass. The Holy Spirit, as we saw last time in the confrontation with the devil in chapter 4, the Holy Spirit features so much in Luke's teaching.
[38:19] And here as well in this passage, you find Simeon spoken of as the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.
[38:36] Is there a similar now in your own life tonight as I must look for it in mine as well? The kind of now you find in Newton's famous hymn, I once was blind, but now I see.
[38:56] I once was lost, but now I'm found. And that now is the most important now that you and I will ever know.
[39:09] It's the now of Jesus, the now of Christ's arrival into our life, the now of life replacing death.
[39:21] Let's pray. Lord, help us, we pray, to look to your promises each and every day we live and to anticipate them eagerly, our own expectation of them by faith and hope.
[39:36] Help us, we pray, to live by your promises, by the truth of your word, in all that it promises us for our daily lives. Help us, Lord, we pray, to glean them each day for ourselves.
[39:48] And enable us also, we pray, to look forward to that great promise being fulfilled of your coming again. For we know that this will be the crowning moment for your people, for your redeemed, when you will take them afterwards into your glory to be with you forever.
[40:06] Grant that we may all appear amongst them, O Lord. We pray this for Jesus' sake. Amen. Well, we'll bring our service to a conclusion now this evening, singing in Psalm 43, the three verses at the end of Psalm 43.
[40:23] That's on page 54. We'll sing to the tune old, 100th. Psalm 43, on page 54, at verse 3, O send your light forth and your truth, let them direct me in your grace, and bring me to your holy hill, into your sacred dwelling place.
[40:43] Psalm 43, these final three verses to God's praise. Amen. O send your light forth and your truth, let them direct me in your grace, and bring me to your holy hill, into your sacred dwelling grace.
[41:27] When to God's altar I will go, to God my joy and my delight, and I will praise you with the heart.
[41:55] O God, you are my God of might. Why are you downcast so my soul?
[42:14] Why are you so disturbed in me? Trust God, for I will praise him yet.
[42:32] My Savior and my God is he. I'll go to the door to my right this evening after the benediction.
[42:47] And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you now and evermore. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[42:57] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.