Good morning, everyone. Today, as Debbie mentioned, is the last Sunday of the year.
It's the last Sunday of the decade, the end of this 10-year period.
And as we start a new year, we're often thinking about New Year's resolutions.
You know, I want to be reading the Bible more. I want to get healthy. I want to lose weight. I want to get a new job.
But before we can get to our New Year's resolutions, I believe it's important for us to end the year well.
Not only that, but let's end this decade well.
I'm not sure for you, but the last 10 years has brought a number of different joys and pains for us.
I've lost a number of family members.
But there's also been significant joys.
In the last 10 years for us, I finished full-time work.
I went and became a full-time student at Moore College.
I started at St. Paul's. I left St. Paul's.
I worked somewhere and then I came back to St. Paul's.
We have had three children in 10 years.
Much has happened in that period of time.
Now, as we start looking at a new year and a new decade,
we can be thinking about all those things we want to achieve.
But we actually need to deal with this year first.
And all the baggage that it brings.
There's no point setting your sights really high on a new year
if you're dragging 10 years worth of baggage and pain and hurt and sin behind you.
Thinking that everything will change just because we've got a new calendar
doesn't really make any sense.
And thinking that we'll just have a better relationship with God
because I'm going to try harder for a January run
doesn't necessarily make sense either.
We need to be dealing with the baggage that we have at this point
to be able to go forward growing and following Jesus.
In a different time, an era was marked.
When Jesus was born, it has changed everything in our world.
So much so that our entire calendars function around when he was born.
But when Jesus was born, it's not just a matter of time being changed,
but of salvation.
God became man.
And this world will never be the same again.
And so today, as we head to the end of the year and the end of the decade,
we're going to see how two people respond when they meet this baby Jesus.
These two prophets, they're also going to challenge how we come before Jesus
and how he is preparing us for the next 10 years.
We meet these two characters, Anna and Simeon, and they're at the temple.
Jesus' parents had taken him to the temple to obey the law.
Please have your Bibles open with me.
We're in Luke chapter 2, finishing our series, looking at the infancy narrative.
This is the end of the stories about Jesus as a baby.
He's eight days old at this point, and we're in verse 22 of chapter 2.
When the time came for the purification rites required by the law of Moses,
Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.
As it is written in the law of the Lord,
every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord
and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the law of the Lord,
a pair of doves or two young pigeons.
The law stated that there were purification ceremonies
that needed to happen after birth.
And here they come and they offer birds to be sacrificed for their corruption and sin.
After birth, Mary would have been ritually unclean.
But the focus is not on Mary here, but it is on Jesus.
And yet it seems strange that Jesus would need to be purified.
He was born without blemish or spot.
He doesn't need the death of birds to keep him in relationship with God.
He has no sin that needs to be forgiven.
And he's been with God for eternity.
And yet here, just like when Jesus is baptized,
he is identifying with us.
And it's a reminder of how contagious sin is.
We catch it from our mother and father in our birth.
Jesus here, even at the age of eight days old,
is directing us to God's grace.
The pollutions that we all come into the world with
are going to be washed away because of the birth of Jesus,
through the grace of God.
And as they come into this temple to do this ceremony,
they speak to two people, Anna the prophetess and Simeon.
Neither of these people have official roles.
They're not the Pharisee.
They're not the Sadducee.
They're not the high priest in the temple.
They're both described as old.
And culturally, that means that they're well-respected, reliable witnesses.
And there's a certain completeness that comes from having
both a male and a female witness to the fulfillment of Jesus.
And so we're going to briefly look at Anna,
who's at the end of the passage,
and then come back and spend some more time on Simeon.
Verse 36.
There was also a prophet, Anna,
the daughter of Penuel of the tribe of Asher.
She was very old.
She had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage.
And then was a widow until she was 84.
Now, it's not exactly clear whether Anna was 84 years old
or whether she had been a widow for 84 years.
But what is clear is this woman was a faithful follower of God.
Verse 37.
She never left the temple,
but worshipped night and day,
fasting and praying.
And she has finally seen what she has been fasting and praying for.
Coming up to them at that very moment,
verse 38,
she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child
to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
The redemption of Jerusalem.
This is what she's been looking forward to.
And she makes this public expression of gratitude.
Gratitude.
This is a wonderful picture of an old and frail woman
who has been patiently waiting for the Lord.
And she meets Jesus.
And she goes off to all who are like her,
looking for God to act.
I think she is a wonderful challenge to us.
She was fasting and praying in the temple,
waiting to see God act.
Do we have that same kind of patience and persistence with God?
Fasting is a very helpful spiritual practice.
I've fasted before.
But what it helps someone to do is to focus on God
and focus on your dependence on God.
It's a reminder that God is the one who sustains and feeds.
It gives you more time,
because you're not doing things like preparing food and cleaning up.
It gives you more time to read the Bible,
more time to pray.
When you feel hungry, you pray.
And it's a wonderful discipline to do.
Let me know if you'd like to find out more
about the spiritual discipline of fasting.
And so Anna had been praying and fasting.
And Luke says she never left the temple.
Now, I'm not necessarily going to encourage you
to come in here.
You need to sit down in the front where Abby is.
You need to be fasting and praying every day of the week.
We don't need to go to a holy place anymore to do that.
But at this time, that's what Anna is doing.
She's been fasting and praying.
And finally, after 84 years, God has answered her prayer.
Now, I'm not sure what you're praying for.
I'm not sure what God is putting on your heart to be praying for.
But Anna is an encouragement for us to do two things.
Firstly, to pray and keep praying,
even when it's hard, even when our hearts give way.
But also, that God does answer our prayers.
It might not be in our timing.
But God does answer our prayers.
It might not be a yes.
It could be a yes.
It could be a no.
It could be a wait.
And Anna certainly waited 84 years.
But now she has seen Jesus.
She has seen the redemption of Jerusalem.
And what a huge prayer that is to ask.
I want to see your redemption in this country.
And she has gotten to see it.
But even then, to wait another 30 odd years to see his crucifixion and resurrection.
And even now, we are waiting to see Jesus return.
So let me encourage you to pray like Anna.
Pray with dependence on God brought about by fasting.
And be saturated in God's Word as you do it.
So that's Anna.
What a wonderful encouragement to pray and to be dependent on God.
And the second character we meet is a gentleman called Simeon.
Verse 25.
Now, there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon,
who was righteous and devout.
He was waiting for the consolation of Israel.
And the Holy Spirit was on him.
It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit,
that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Messiah.
Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts.
It's really interesting here that in these three verses,
it's mentioned three times that Simeon either has the Holy Spirit on him,
or is moved by the Holy Spirit.
This is in marked contrast to the entire Old Testament.
The Holy Spirit came on people sparingly.
But now, something has changed.
Jesus has been born, and God is pouring out his Holy Spirit just as he promised to do.
Not only is God with us, Emmanuel, in Jesus,
but he is dwelling inside people in the Holy Spirit,
in numbers that we just had not seen before.
And Simeon, like Anna, is waiting on God.
Waiting because he'd been promised that he would see God's Messiah.
Simeon, he's waiting for this Messiah.
He's waiting for God's chosen one.
Because faith in Jesus, it's the fulfillment of all of his hopes and expectations of his people.
And there's this beautiful moment when Joseph and Mary bring Jesus in,
and Simeon sees the baby Jesus.
He meets him, and he sings the last of these songs in the infancy narratives.
There's a number of songs all throughout these first two chapters.
This is the last of the songs, the shortest of them,
but it's still quite lovely.
Verse 28.
Simeon took him, that is Jesus, in his arms,
and praised God, saying,
Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of all nations,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and the glory of your people Israel.
That's this lovely song.
I kind of feel like I should be singing these songs,
as we've been going through them.
But you can write a melody for me for next year.
But Simeon's emphasis is on God's timing.
Now I can die.
Now you may dismiss your servant in peace.
Now, because everything has changed.
Now a new era has begun.
Now, God, your story of salvation,
I can see it unfolding.
Simeon, he's a trusting servant,
and God is a faithful master.
And Simeon can say,
God, look, I'm ready to die now.
I hand myself over to you,
because I've seen your goodness,
I have seen your salvation for my people,
and for all of the world.
And then Simeon, full of the Holy Spirit,
prophesies about the work of Jesus.
Verse 34.
Can you imagine being Mary at this point,
hearing this?
Her little eight-day-old baby
was going to cause people to rise and to fall,
to cause a sword to pierce her heart,
her soul.
Simeon is saying that Jesus is going to be
a tool of division.
He would cause division amongst people,
two different types of division.
He would divide those who follow him
and those who don't,
and he would divide people's hearts
so that their hearts would be revealed.
Jesus is going to come and divide people
into those who follow and don't follow,
and for those who follow,
their very hearts are going to be divided
and revealed.
When we are confronted by Jesus,
we can't remain neutral.
We can't have no opinion of him.
He will either confront our need for God
and lead us to faith in him,
or we will push against Jesus
and reject him.
Simeon's prophecy points to Jesus' dividing nature.
He will split families,
some believing, some not,
brother against brother,
sister against mother,
because you can't remain neutral to Jesus.
He pierces to the very heart
and reveals what is within.
And when we are confronted with who we are,
we can admit our fault
and our need for God,
or we can flee.
Simeon says that Jesus has come
so that the thoughts of many hearts
would be revealed
and a sword would pierce Mary's soul too.
Now,
the heart in the ancient world,
that was the place where the thoughts
and the feelings and the desires
and the attitudes dwelt.
You know,
it's fairly similar for us.
We might think things,
but we feel things.
This is the location of our heart.
Maybe we might even say in our gut,
a little further down.
But in the ancient world,
it was the heart
where the thoughts
and the feelings
and the attitudes,
the hidden things,
were.
And the Bible as a whole
presents Jesus
as the Word of God
and the Word is like a sword.
So a little later in Hebrews,
it says that the Word of God is,
again, like a sword,
sharper than any double-edged sword.
It penetrates even to dividing
soul and spirit,
joint and marrow,
and it judges the thoughts
and attitudes of the heart.
Jesus is going to function
like a double-edged sword.
It's interesting that
in Simeon's prophecy,
he uses this idea of a sword
piercing to the heart.
Now, in the ancient world,
in the Roman world in particular,
there were two types of main swords
that they used.
They used a sword called the makara
and the gladius.
The makara was a single-bladed
hacking weapon.
I have the Chinese version here
because, you know,
props are always good.
So this is the Chinese dao.
So this,
similar type of weapon
to the makara,
it's a good hacking weapon, okay?
You know, think about a rider
on the top of a horse
hacking down.
You don't need both sides
to be sharp.
It has a single focus.
And the other was the gladius.
The gladius was a double-edged weapon.
So this is the Chinese jen.
The gladius was shorter,
but also double-edged.
These weapons are used
not for hacking,
these are used for piercing.
This tool was a much more
delicate weapon.
You don't hack
because you'll break the blade.
You try and pierce armor
and go between the ribs
to get to organs.
That's the function
of a double-edged weapon.
That's what it does.
It's designed to pierce.
So there's a nice little
weapon lesson.
Jesus, as the word of God,
is the double-edged sword.
He's not a hacking tool.
He comes to penetrate
to our inmost being.
He gets through
all of our defenses
that we have made.
The feelings of security
in our job,
our feelings of happiness
in life that we have made,
the idea that we're
good people generally
and God should love me
and God should bless me.
He cuts through
all of that to the heart
and He judges our thoughts
and our attitudes.
Have you ever had that moment
sitting in church
or maybe reading the Bible
at home thinking,
He's talking to me right now.
He's talking to me.
Why is He picking on me
out of all these people?
When that happens,
when we feel like
the preacher
or the Bible reading
is targeting us,
that is the word of God.
That is Jesus Himself
piercing our defenses,
cutting between them all
and getting to our very soul.
Simeon is prophesying
that Jesus would come
and He would cut people
to the heart.
He would divide
their very thoughts
and feelings
and attitudes
and souls
and when that mess
is revealed,
people will be divided.
I think our hearts
can be like this plastic bottle.
I've got lots of props
today actually.
I think our hearts
can be like this plastic bottle.
There's a little bit of oil
and mainly food dye in there.
But I think this is
what our hearts are like.
All throughout the last decade
in particular,
it's been filled
with all kinds of things.
Sin,
resentment,
anger,
sexual temptation,
lust,
frustration,
frustration and pain
because I didn't get the job,
anger because I can't afford
the house I want,
lust is damaging
my relationships
with other people.
And as we look
into the new year
and to the new decade,
we have a heart like this.
And one of my favorite
new sayings is
new year,
new me.
Have you heard this saying?
New year,
new me.
And we think,
oh, it's a new year.
It'll be a new me.
But we are carrying
a heart that is like this.
And what we do
is we just think,
oh, I'm just going to try
really hard
at the start of the year.
I'm going to give it
a good shake.
And this year's going
to be totally different.
Everything's going
to be totally different.
Look,
I've tried really hard
all throughout January
and it's
still the exact same.
And we wonder
why when it comes
to February,
nothing has changed.
What we need
is
a puncture wound.
What we need
is a sword
to pierce us.
I don't know.
I don't want to damage
one of my swords
but I do have
a Stanley knife.
What we actually need
is a sword
to come in.
Let's not make
too much mess.
We need a sword
to come in
and
get the gunk out.
We actually need
it
to be released.
Otherwise,
we're just going
to keep pretending
that everything
is fine.
We're going
to keep pretending
that we've got
this rotten heart
but we're going
to ignore it
and we're going
to think,
I can go into
this new year
and everything
will change
and I'm going
to be the best
Christian next year.
We need that
sword of Jesus.
Miami,
you're looking
very stressed there.
We need that
sword of Jesus
to pierce
our hearts
and let the gunk,
let the horrible
sin out.
Jesus comes
to pierce us.
He is sharper
than any
double-edged sword.
He comes
to divide
our hearts
and our thoughts
and our attitudes.
Without that
sword piercing us,
we could trick
ourselves into
thinking that
everything was fine
but we actually
need this
so it reveals
who we are
but let me tell
you what,
this is not fun.
You know,
stabbing that bottle,
you know,
if that bottle
could scream,
it probably would have.
A little while ago
I had some sin
pointed out to me
and it was like
a stab wound
straight between
the ribs.
It was really
painful
being confronted
with what
had been
a hidden sin.
A sin that
had been
filling up
within me
for years.
And I very much
wanted to keep
this sin hidden.
It wasn't until
it was pointed out
and lanced
like a boil,
like a stab wound
into a plastic bottle
filled with food
colouring,
did the gunk
start pouring out
the secretiveness,
the evasiveness.
But it took
that initial
stab wound
and confrontation
with what was
inside.
I need Jesus
to keep piercing
my soul,
getting between
my ribs,
my armour
that I set up
to pretend
that I'm actually
a good guy
so that I can
be made
more like Jesus.
God's work
when it
pierces
causes a
response.
You can't
stay indifferent
to Jesus
at that moment.
You will either
fall on your
knees and
repent
for what is
coming out
or you're
going to
slap sticky
tape on it.
You're going
to build
bandages
around yourself.
You're going
to build
walls
to try
and protect
yourself.
But we
don't need
to protect
ourselves
because we
have a
God who
has died
to protect
us.
As we
come to
the end
of the
decade,
the 2010s
are closing
out,
it is important
to take a
moment and
stop,
to spend
some time
doing business
with God
and seeing
what our
hearts are
like and not
just assuming
that everything
will be fine.
There's no
point going
into the 2020s
with a
heart full
of arrogance
and sin
and sexual
immorality
and selfishness.
Book some
time over
the next
couple of
days to
do some
business with
God.
It's likely
that a lot
of us have
time before
Sydney kicks
back in.
I want to
congratulate you
all on
remembering what
day it was
to come to
church today.
It's often
hard between
Christmas and
New Year's to
remember what
day it is.
But it's
likely that we've
got a little
bit of time.
Go and spend
some time
with God.
Ask him,
God,
pierce my
soul.
Let me
know how
I need to
change.
Ask for
help from
a friend.
If you
invite a
friend,
they will
tell you.
Ask God
and ask
your friend,
God,
what is the
one biggest
sin that I
need to
confront to
leave in
this decade
before I
start 2020?
take a
look at
your sin,
own it
and acknowledge
that it's
yours and
that Jesus
came to
get rid of
it so
that we
could have
peace,
trusting in
him and
peace with
him because
he loves us
and he died
for us.
Let me pray
for us.
with
peace
of
him
too