Read a novel, an adventure novel by the author. Clive Cussler, Anybody? Few of you. All right. I'm not the only one.

I'm a sucker for his books. They get me every time I'll read one and it feels like, have I read this one before? And I realize, no, I have not. Just they kind of. There's always some, like, villain, super villain trying to, like, take over the world in some form or another.

Every single time. It's always the same kind of concept. But there's adventurers, you know, that are running these different projects for the government or this or that. And he starts out his books by telling you about some story that took place maybe hundreds or maybe thousands of years ago, maybe just a few decades ago. But it'll tell us some story that had happened, and then just jumps forward to today.

And you're like, what was that all about? And then later on in the book, you're like, oh, I kind of get it. Well, for a couple weeks, I've kind of been doing that. It doesn't help that I've read a couple of his books recently. But I'm looking through the scripture.

And that's what her scripture series has been about, is this whole thing where it's all connected to Jesus. It's all about Jesus through the whole scripture, like, all of it. We see Christ in all of it. And that's what our logo, our picture on the wall, which is kind of the background of the whole series, is. All those little lines are connected between that shows the connections from one book of the Bible to another, from one chapter to another, where the Bible is referencing itself, Even though it's 66 books written by over 40 authors, or at least 40 authors over a period of 1500 years.

The Holy Spirit of God is behind all of it, and he was weaving it all together. And so what we're doing is we're looking through the whole thing, seeing how all of it is pointing to Christ. The whole scripture, from front to the end, is pointing us to the person and work of Jesus Christ. And so as we're looking at that, I'm trying to connect the dots for you through scripture. This isn't comprehensive.

This is 52 weeks in this series. Or 50 weeks. I forget. What did I say? Yeah, 52 weeks in nine different units.

We're trying to, like, you know, cover just the basics a little bit. We can't cover everything, but I'm trying to get you this kind of basic foundation to show that the scripture is all pointing us to Jesus Christ. And so we're going to be looking in Luke chapter two. Today. It is the week of Christmas.

It's coming up this week. And so we're looking, of course, at the life and birth of Jesus Christ. But I want to set the stage today and go back 1250 years before Christ was born. 1250 years before Christ, we are going back to the country of Egypt. And in Egypt we have the Hebrew people, the Jewish people are slaves to the Egyptians.

So this is the stage that we're looking at here. This is the time setting we're looking at. God had talked to a man named Abraham and said, you're going to have offspring. There's going to be. It's going to start with one, then there's going to be 12 of you, then 70 of you, and then thousands of you.

Million maybe or more. And they're going to be in Egypt for over 400 years, 430 years, as it were. And they're going to be enslaved there. And as slaves, it's not going to go great, as it always is the case. And in any type of slavery at any time period, nobody enjoys it.

It's never good, you know, But God said, this is going to happen. But don't worry, it's not forever that I will bring an end to that time period and that time will come to an end. And then after that is over, I'm going to bring them to a place not just of freedom, but I'm going to bring them to a special land. A land, and we talked about this quite a bit last week, a land flowing with milk and honey as it was described. And so what God is saying is, I'm going to bring this into fruition in my timing.

It won't be ever on your timing. Have you ever noticed that there's times when you pray for something? You're like, God, I really love for this to happen. He's like, cool, I'll get to that when it's my time. Now, that's not like, say, me as a man and as a husband, where my wife is like, hey, are you ever gonna, like, I don't know, finish that car project you were working on?

It's like, I'll get to it. You know, like, I'll get to it at some point. You don't have to remind me every six months that it's still not finished. You know, Are you ever gonna finish your little home renovation thing where there's, like, just two pieces of trim that need to be nailed down? It's like, yeah, but then I've gotta find my nail gun.

Cause heaven forbid I should have to tack nails in by hand. That's too much work. So I've gotta go and find where use my nail gun the last time to shoot, trim nails. And of course, I'm not done yet. You know, God says I'm gonna do this when I do it.

You know, like when it's his timing, when it fits his plan, it'll come to fruition. And I'd love to sit down with you and talk about all the things that that had to do with the timing of Jesus birth. Not just that immediate time frame, but the time in history. I'm not going to get into all that either. Perhaps that's something we could talk about in our discussion group that happens after church, also known as like Sunday school.

We do that in the classroom at the end of the hall. And you're always welcome to come to that. You're invited to be part of that because it's an opportunity for us to kind of talk about some of the things that is like, hey, you might have missed this part in the message or why did you talk about that? Or I didn't understand why you said it. Sometimes I do a practice run through of the sermon.

It never sounds like it, like on Sunday morning. Never sounds like what my practice run through was. But Emma was here while I was doing that. I was trying that out last night and she's like raising her hand. I'm like, yes.

You know, and it's like, okay, I need to be clearer on that. So basically what I'm trying to tell you is I'm trying to preach where a nine year old can understand it. And that way I'm sure all of you guys have gotten it. Like if a 9 year old gets it 100% sure you guys get it, right? Like you're smarter than a nine year old, right?

Remember that TV show, are you smarter than a fifth grader? Like most of us found out, no. Which wasn't fair. They just learned those things like we learned them a long time ago, some of you guys. A long, long time ago.

Yeah, you're welcome.

So God brings them. He's preparing to bring the Hebrew people out of bondage, out of slavery in Egypt. And so he talks to this man named Moses. Now I cut a few jokes about like, you know, how long it's been, you know, number of trips around the sun that we've made. Moses is 80 years old at this point and he's just one of the young guys in the Scripture, as far as what we'll look at today that people that God used for a certain purpose.

So don't ever check out and say, well, I did my time well. I'm kind of beyond my prime. I'm beyond the age that God can use me. No. Moses is 80 years old when he finally gets his marching orders from God.

Like, he had tried that 40 years before. All that ended up was, like, him dodging a murder trial. You know, like he killed a guy. He's like, God's like, that's not what I wanted you to do. That was the wrong thing.

Forty years later, Moses is finally ready. So God sends Moses to the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and says, I want you to let my people go. And Moses is telling them this. And Pharaoh says, no, that's not going to happen. He says, okay, fine.

God's going to send a plague. Now, the first nine plagues, they did a couple different things. One of the things they did was they made sure that all of the gods that they worshiped in Egypt were shown to be false. No hope in them. So many times people put their hope in things in this world, we put our trust in different things, that there is no hope in those things.

There's no basis in reality. It's just things that we look at and we say, oh, well, this is the answer. But God is saying, there's no hope in that. There's no truth there. And so God is dismantling our idols one thing at a time.

So many times you run into a problem, you run into some situation where you're like, okay, well, why isn't anything working my way? Like, why does everything seem to be falling apart in my life? Maybe God's trying to dismantle your idols. He's trying to knock down the things that you worship, the things that you hold dear, and say, no, I want you to realize that you need to put your trust in me. So God begins doing two things with Egypt.

He One, dismantles their idols, their gods that they are worshiping. The next thing that he does is he's just simply punishing Egypt for what they've done to his people. He strips the land of its produce. He slaughters many of their animals through some of these things. And some of them just pretty much make life miserable, like bugs and frogs and all this stuff.

It's like, oh, my goodness, it's crazy. The tenth plague. Though Pharaoh, his heart keeps getting hard. He won't listen to God and Pharaoh, finally, there's going to be this tenth Plague. And God is saying, like, this is the one where you will let my people go.

Now on this plague, he says, you need.

There's going to be a destroying angel, an avenging angel of God that's going to come through and slaughter the firstborn of every human and animal that's alive at that point. But he tells them, he's like, if you want to redeem your child from being slaughtered, you can slaughter a lamb, take its blood, and mark the doorposts of your home. Now, I tried to make a picture for this, and Amy kind of got one mocked up for me, but I didn't put it on the screen. I'm going to describe it to you. We usually have this image in our head of the top of a door frame and the sides and.

And that we think they just kind of made like three marks on it, top and two sides. But what if. Just. What if the way they made the marks was a little cross in the top corner of each corner of the doorpost, not knowing yet what that would point to later on in life.

God said when the destroying angel would see the blood on their doors, that he would pass over that house and their firstborns would be protected.

I believe also if the Egyptians had had faith in God and done the same thing, that their households would have been saved. On that night, God led them out of Egypt. They were led out after that had happened. Pharaoh told them, okay, you can go now. After this tenth plague, after the destruction of the firstborn sons, they could leave.

Now, the Israelites, after that, they had a law that God had given them that he said, if you. Every year, if you have. Or whenever you have a firstborn, what you have to do is make a payment for him. In other words, he says, all the firstborns belong to me, but you can redeem him from me with a payment. Now, God wasn't putting them to death.

He was actually going to have them serve in a priestly role. In other words, all of the firstborn sons belong to God to serve in a priestly type role. But if you wanted to keep your son in the home as your son, like working in your business or whatever it might be, you can bring five shekels of silver to the house of God and redeem your son, and he would belong to you. What you would do is you would show up, you would find a priest, the priest would take the child in his arms, he would say a blessing over him, and then say, would you like him to stay here, or do you want to redeem him and he would redeem him. If you want to bring your child home, there's one notable incident where somebody offered the kid to God, and that was Hannah, and she offered up her son Samuel.

Well, anyway, this is what the tradition of the Hebrew people is during that time. Now we're going to fast forward a little bit. We got one more scenario. Oh, we got a hand raised. Have it.

No idea. But it's weird about that because I don't think inflation actually changed over time. Like five. It was always five shekels, you know, so it was silver. So, I mean, it just kind of held its value.

We only have inflation today in a crazy amount. But I actually did not look that up. I looked up so many things. I didn't look that one up. So let's come to Sunday school, class.

We'll figure it out there. I'll bring my computer and we'll dig into it. So about 500 years later, about 550ish years before Jesus Christ was born, there was a time where the Israelites had enjoyed their time in the land that God had brought them into, the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey. But they also had a long period of time where they were totally disobedient to God. And he sent them prophets who said, I'm going to remove you from the land.

You're going to be taken from the land. You're going to be taken out by a neighboring empire. For the kingdom of Israel is split into the north and the south. The northern tribes, it was called Ten Tribes. They were taken over by the Assyrian empire, and then later the southern kingdom was taken over by the Babylonian empire that had succeeded Assyria.

And they were taken out. They were moved to a foreign land. And yet in the midst of all that turmoil, God still sent his prophets to speak to them for a period of time. Now, one of those men was a man named Jeremiah. We've got a book in the Bible with his name on it.

But there's another book that's in what's called the Apocrypha, which is like the Catholic Bible has all these books. The one that the Protestants use doesn't include them, but they're still a valuable book. Even though we don't count them as scripture per se. They're valuable books. And there's one called Baruch B A R U C H is in your sermon companion guide, by the way.

If you don't have one of these, there's some on a little table in the back row underneath the offering basket. Please Grab one. They're yours for the keeping. They go along with every sermon in this series. So Baruch, he had this quote, this thing that he said that he told the people of Israel that if they would kind of.

I'm paraphrasing here, but if they would get their spiritual act together, then God would bring the consolation of Jerusalem. Now, at the time when he says this, he's in another land. Jerusalem has been destroyed. And he's saying, God will redeem Jerusalem. He'll restore it.

The thing that they hold most valuable in their life, or at least should have held most valuable in their life, God will redeem and restore. I want to read our Scripture today. It's about 15 verses in Luke chapter 22, starting in verse 25. If you'll follow along with me. Now, there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon who is righteous and devout.

He was looking for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's anointed one or the Lord's Christ or Messiah. So Simeon, directed by the Holy Spirit, came into the temple courts. And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what was customary according to the law, Simeon took him in his arms and blessed God, saying, now, according to your word, sovereign Lord, permit your servant to depart in peace. In other words, he said, God, I'm ready to go.

Verse 30. My eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for the revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel. So the child's father and mother were amazed at what was said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, listen carefully. This child is destined to be the cause of the falling and of the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be rejected.

Indeed, as a result of him, the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed and a sword will pierce your own soul as well. There was also a prophetess named Anna, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. She was very old, having been married to her husband for seven years until his death. She had lived as a widow since then for 84 years. By the way, I want to cover this real quick right here because it doesn't fit anywhere else.

Some of your translations might say she lived as a widow until she was 84. Some say she lived as a widow for 84 years. After that, she was either 84 years old or about 105. So I said earlier, Moses was a young guy, right? Like, he was 80 years old when God calls him.

This lady is still ministering a very solid type of ministry. Did you notice what she's doing? She's in the temple every day. She's praying, she's fasting. She's giving up meals, not as a hunger strike against God, but giving up meals as a way of saying, lord, I want to weaken my flesh so that you will strengthen my spirit.

She's doing this regularly. She's doing this. This is her religion. This is her devotion, is saying, lord, I want to be devoted to you so that I can know what you are doing in this world, so that I can hear, so that I can sense within my soul what you are doing in this world. And so she was there in the temple, fasting and praying day and night.

Folks, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, and instead of fighting on my knees in prayer, knowing that God might have awakened me with a burden for someone else, I fight tossing and turning, trying to go back to sleep, when it might be God trying to get ahold of me to pray for someone. And so I've been trying to learn from this as I studied it this week, because I've had some sleepless nights for a period of a couple hours. I'm like, okay, God, if you've got me awake, just show me who it is to pray for. And God has brought people to my heart and to my mind to pray for them. And I don't know why, and I still don't know why, but when God speaks to you to pray for somebody, you better be interceding for them.

I had somebody that came to this church one time. He attends another church. He came with a friend of his that attends here sometimes, and he called me and texted me this morning. I don't know which he did first. I think he called me first.

I didn't. My phone didn't. Like, I didn't hear the ringer. So he. He texted it to me.

But he just gave me a word of encouragement, and I told him, brother, you don't know how much I needed that today. The specific things that he said, he said there was something within me. He said, no, God is the one that told me to say this to you. I said, that's exactly right. God knew what I needed.

And he used you to speak those words to me. And so, brother, I thank you for that. You never know when God has you awakened in the middle of the night or some Moment of just this lucid moment throughout the day where it's very clear you're supposed to do something that. But so often we get so caught up into our own programming, our own schedule, our own, like, social media apps on our phone, looking at mindless videos or whatever it is that we're doing, and we ignore that God is calling us to intercede for other people, to pray for them. This woman, Anna, did not let her age get in the way of being at the temple, of saying, no, I can't make.

Hurts for me to get up and get over there. She knew that that, for her was the most important thing. You know, what I see in her and. And what I see in Simeon is these things. Boy, I'm preaching, and I haven't even gotten to the part where I'm supposed to preach yet.

I see in them these things where they're like. They had this, like, importance on their lives. They organized their lives and oriented them around the importance of being at. We might call it church. It was the temple.

They were at the place of the house of worship, and it was important for them to be there. It was important for them to be in that place. And, folks, I think we need to recognize that today. We. I was just looking at a thing earlier.

Like, I don't know why I got caught up into this. So here I go, folding up my glasses and going on this, like, excursion. Remind me when I ask you, what did I say all that for? We were at this verse, okay? Like, I need you guys to help me with that.

Does anybody want to guess what the average church attendance is by different ages of weeks per month for the oldest of generations? How many weeks per month do people. How many services per month do people attend a service at a church? Anybody want to guess? We got a two.

We've got a four. We're talking older than boomers. Like, the elder generation, they're called. No, older. You're.

Sorry, sorry. Boomer. No, older than you. Elder generation. Like, older than that, even.

They're called the elders. 1.4 times per month is the average of people that actually do attend service. That's the average boomers. You're not far behind. It's like 1.5.

You know who's got the most frequent church attendance of generations today?

I'll give you. Yeah, the second. The second group is the millennials, which I'm ashamed to admit I fall in that group. Some of them are quite embarrassing. I don't know what to say about those guys anyway.

Like, I never got a Trophy for just attending. That was the ones that were a few years younger than me, but that was technically my generation. I don't care. It was our parents that gave those trophies to us. So it's not our fault, you know.

But then there's the generation that's a little bit younger than that, called Gen Z. Gen Z has the highest average church attendance. Wow. In fact, the people that are coming to Christ the most of any generation right now is the Gen Z ers. And specifically young men within that age group are the ones that are attending the most. They're the ones that are showing up at college revival services.

I'm not talking like protests and things out on the quad of a campus, but I'm talking in some room where a church group goes in and says, we want to have a service here for you guys. And the ones that are showing up on college campuses, especially this specific year, like from the fall, like September on, have been the freshman males. This generation that's coming into college right now, they are the ones to watch out for. They are the ones to look for because they're the ones that are going back to. And there's an argument about like, traditional versus whatever we live in now, values and all that.

And whatever people mean by traditional or not. When I use the word traditional, I'll define it for you. Traditional values of actually like loving Christ, serving him, allowing him to be lord of your life. That's what I mean by traditional values in that sense. And they are the ones embracing those traditional values.

These young men are looking to date and marry women who espouse those values. They're tired of looking at all the women that are gung ho for voting, for people who are about abortions and transgenderism and all that stuff. And they're looking for women who are. Who are serious about their holiness. They're looking for women that they can marry and stay married to for the rest of their lives because they've looked at what the world offers and the amount of people that their marriages end in divorce.

And they say, you know what? I don't want anything to do with that. I'll wait to get married until I can find a girl that's going to stay with me and love me and not run around on me and all this stuff. And I want to be a good man that provides for her, that has kids with her and takes care of his kids and stays in the home with them. That is what is happening in this generation.

And if you can't tell, it excites me So I love you guys. I want to see more of these people here because there's something going on. These are the reasons that we talk about. Like I announced earlier, we're going to have some father and daughter events and some mother and son events because we want to see parents investing in their children in that younger generation in such a way that the family is built up as a solid unit and that people would worship Christ together, they would attend church, they would go out into their community and share the gospel. I feel like I could probably just stop right now, like I preached, but there's some stuff I really want to say and get to.

But, boy, was that fun. Thanks for listening to me. What verse are we on? Let's say that 38. At that moment, she came up to them and began to give thanks to God and to speak about the child to all who are waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.

So when Joseph and Mary had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth, and the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom and the favor of God was upon him. So we started out looking at like 12, 50 years before Christ and then 550 years before Christ. And now in about the year Jesus, by the way, wasn't really born at like 0 or 1, he was actually probably born, we think, between 4 and 6 BC before Christ, which is weird because it's called BC, but he was born in the BC he was born before Christ anyway. All right, it's weird, but the guy that set that calendar at zero got it wrong a little bit because he didn't have all the information. He lived in like the year 600, and he missed it by like four to six years.

So we'll forgive him a little bit of grace, you know, and maybe we don't know everything either. We think we're so high and mighty from our perch today. But there's some people that lived a long time ago that had a lot of wisdom that we've forgotten these days. So in about the year 44 to 6 B.C. the time when Jesus was born.

Let's just make it simple. When Jesus was born, whatever year that was, there was somebody that was paying attention. There was somebody that was paying attention to the signs of the times, culturally and spiritually. By the way, that's what I was just doing, that whole, like little off the cuff thing that I did for five minutes there. Whatever it was there.

That is what I'm talking about this man doing that he was looking at what was going on across the spectrum of the people of Israel. And he was looking at what they were doing, and he was looking at what God was doing. And he was ready for it. Are you ready for a revival in our land? Like a return of people coming back to God?

We've been living in crazy land for like a few years now, like a couple decades at least. It's been absolutely insane for a little while in this country. And people are returning to Christ. They're digging into their faith and they're saying, everything that I've looked at isn't real. Like all the stuff that we're shown on TV is unreal, including reality tv.

Like, real TV is not real. It's just as scripted as anything else. And so they're looking at all this stuff, they're looking at the news and like, I think I insulted my sister's boyfriend. We call him her old man because they're like 21 years apart. And so it's a good joke.

But her old man, I might have insulted him. The other day they were down for a visit and I said something about how much I hate news media and all that stuff. And Amy reminded me later that he only spent 20 years working for companies like CNN and all that when he lived up in New Jersey and New York. I'm like, maybe I should text him and say, sorry about that. I don't know.

But that's how I feel. I'm like, sorry, Eric, but I don't trust these things because they have a track record of lying to us. And I don't like being lied to. And so this generation today is kind of going along with it. They're looking at the lies that are spread all the time.

And they say, you know what? I'm tired of that. I'm looking for something real. We need to be aware of that. There was a group and you can see them.

They're in 1st Chronicles 12:32. It's just a little two line mention. They're one of the tribes of Israel called Issachar. That was the name of like their forefather was Issachar, one of Jacob's 12 sons. And Issachar, the men of Issachar, at least some of them, it just says that they were known for being aware of the times, discerning the times, paying attention to that as a group.

They decided, we're going to be the guys that pay attention to what God is doing and what his people are doing for good or for bad. And we're going to call them on account of that we're going to call them to follow God and to serve him. So Simeon, I believe, had the spirit of the men of Issachar living in him. He had that spirit of discerning the times. And it also says, if you're paying attention to the scripture, that he was filled with the Holy Spirit, that this old guy Simeon was full of the spirit of God, and he's in tune with him.

He's listening to what's happening. Now, he might not have been the only one, because we see Anna was doing the same thing. And there was a group of people that she spoke to, the scripture says, that were also looking for the consolation of Israel. So they knew of other people that were along the same lines as them. And they were saying, like, we're going to gather a group of people who are ready for this.

Simeon is listening to the spirit of God, and he's going to the temple all the time. He's paying attention to what's happening. He knows what's been going on. He knows what. Like, he may have even been there at the time.

If you remember, a few weeks back, we talked about Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, and how Zechariah was going to the temple to burn incense. Like, well, he was going to serve as a priest, and he got chosen by lot to serve incense on one day, the only day of his life, he would be allowed to do that one time. If you get chosen, you only get chosen once. And it was that moment that God sent the angel Gabriel to speak to him and to tell him that he and his wife would bear a son again. The scripture says they were old.

It doesn't say how old they are. They were old. And he's like, you're going to have a kid. How many of you guys that are like, you know, have, like, grandkids and great grandkids are like, I don't want to bear another child. Like, ladies, anybody, anybody want.

Nobody. Like, you're not looking for that, right? But they were. They never had that joy, and they got that joy. But it wasn't just that they would have a child.

It's that they were going to have a child that was going to proclaim the coming Messiah and lay out the path for him, be the forerunner for him to get the things prepared.

It's very possible that Simeon had been at the temple since he was going there every day. It's possible he had even been there the day that Zechariah came out unable to speak. Now I'm reading Into it. I don't know. I'm just imagining right now maybe he did.

But for sure, even if he wasn't there that very day, about 18 months before this happens, he might have been. He might have been there like right after it or within days of it and heard people talking about it, as people do like to gossip, even in churches today is amazing. I wouldn't have thought that that would still be going on. God talks a lot about it in the Bible, like, don't gossip. And we still do.

So Simeon heard somehow or another, whether he was there firsthand or whether he was there shortly after he heard the story of Zechariah and the prophecy of his son, John the Baptist. And so for about a year and a half until Christ is born and presented there at the temple. And Simeon is paying attention to everything going on. He knows that God is at work. It's like right now, I've told you of the revival of sorts is going on with the Gen Z kids.

And you're like, I don't see it. You might not, but be aware of it. Like, I'm not making this up. There's people that get paid full time to do research on these things. And overwhelmingly this is the trend that they are seeing.

And I believe it will only keep growing over time. It takes our prayers, it takes our sincerity of heart to want it to happen. And it takes us creating a welcome place within our congregations for people to come and explore their faith as they're coming back to faith or coming to faith for the first time ever. And so Simeon, he's looking for this. And it's interesting that he was ready for it at any moment.

Like, you might pray for revival for a long time. And we wonder why does God take so long to bring it? Like, revival doesn't depend on us, by the way. Like, I can't, I can't just. I mean, it does depend in some way, but I can't make it happen.

I can humble my heart, confess my sins, and invite God into that space in my life, but until God brings revival with it through his Holy Spirit, I can't force it to happen. And so what I can do is be ready for it at any moment, say, okay, Lord, whenever you bring the spark of revival to your people, I'm here for that. And so, like a watchman on the walls is looking out far ranging, like eyes looking out onto the distant horizon to see it coming. That's what Simeon is doing. And he's looking for what was called the consolation of Israel, the Hope of Israel.

And as he's looking at this, he. He sees this couple come up, Joseph and Mary, and they have a baby. Now, remember when we talked about how they would have the redemption of the firstborn, and they would bring him to the house of God, they would bring this firstborn child, and they would find a priest, hand him over to the priest, the priest would say a blessing over him and then say, would you like to redeem him or would you like him to stay here? Simeon takes the job of a priest. He's not a priest, by the way.

The early church thought he was, because it looks like by what he's doing, it looks like he's a priest, but nothing in the scripture says he is. And Luke is very specific about, like this. This lady named Anna says, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher, which, by the way, Asher was one of those tribes they thought were the lost tribes, the 10 lost tribes of Israel that had been taken away in the exile and never really returned. And we always think, oh, well, they were gone forever. But the truth is, God had brought some of them back to the nation.

And she is of a tribe that was supposedly lost, but is there. That brings me hope for those that are in my family, in my extended network of people that I know. And I say they're not following Christ. They maybe were, and then they left him. But the truth of the matter is, nobody is fully lost until the judgment day comes.

So we continue praying that God would continue bringing them back into the fold. Now, the guy, Simeon, he takes the baby. He takes them from Joseph and Mary. He takes Jesus. Can you imagine the fear that they would have?

Like, Mary as his mother, like, she's like, okay, I know this is of God. I have a special responsibility not to lose this kid. They'll have that happen about a dozen years later, too, when he stays at the temple and they're headed home. You know, like, this is a bad, like, sign for her. Like, this is scary for her.

She's like, somebody's just taking Jesus. Stole Jesus right out of my hands. But the man, of course, he's old. He can't run faster than them. So she's not that worried, you know, like, where are you going to go, dude?

And so he holds the child up like a priest would have done at the presentation of the firstborn. He blesses him. He adds a couple words for Mary and Joseph on the side about what their experience would be raising this child. And then without question or request, for five shekels, he Hands the child back. Now, this is interesting to me.

Joseph, first of all, it would have been a little bit interesting. He would have shown up probably a bit like, you know, his job is to find a priest and be like, this is my firstborn son, except for Joseph. Like, this is her firstborn son. Joseph didn't have much of a part in, you know, bringing him to life. You know what I'm saying?

So it's like, this is her firstborn. And Guy's like, are you the dad? Like, I'm going to play the role. You know, like, you wouldn't believe me if I told you who his father is. So let's just leave it at this.

Can we move on? You know, he never gets the chance. He's probably been rehearsing it in his mind. Like, what is he going to say when he finds the priest to hand the child to? And instead, God puts this man filled with the spirit of God who's been reading the Times, looking for the hope of the Jews.

And he brings him, or he grabs the child, blesses him and hands him back. Now, why this is interesting to me and why I'm telling you about it is that all those years back in Egypt when the firstborn sons were redeemed by the blood of the lamb on the doorposts, they had to slaughter a lamb, take its blood, paint it with a hyssop branch on the post of the door, and that would redeem their firstborn sons of that generation. But every generation after that had to be redeemed with the five shekels of silver. But in this case, this son does not need to be redeemed. He's born of a woman, but not of the man.

He's not from the line of Adam. He's the holy Son of God. He has no need of redemption because he does not live with the curse of. Of sin upon his life. That comes down from father to son, father to next generation on down.

He does not need to be redeemed, but he himself will be our redemption. You see, I think so many times at Christmas we love the Christmas story because we look at Jesus as this, like, sweet little baby. I'm sure he wasn't still wrapped in cloths. Like, they probably found some proper garments, whatever. That was like a onesie, you know, or something, I don't know, first century onesie.

And they find he's cute, he's adorable. Even his diapers don't stink that much, you know, and all this stuff like, you know, we just love that baby Jesus, wise Men coming to visit him, maybe right away, maybe within two years. We're not sure. There's arguments about that. Whatever it all is, we love that picture of Jesus.

I think we like it so much because we can just hold him. We can just take him in our arms. Oh, sweet Jesus.

We don't like the version of Jesus that Simeon warns us about. See, he says, you'll either rise or fall on Jesus. You're either going to be lifted up or lowered down. Based on what you do with Jesus. You see Jesus as a baby.

We take care of him, sing him to sleep, whatever it is. We sing songs about him. We'll probably sing some on Wednesday night at the Christmas Eve service. Silent night, Holy night, all these things. We love it.

We love the spirit of that. The mood of that is beautiful. The imagery is fantastic. But what we don't like so much is the grown up Jesus, where Simeon says, the thoughts of every heart will be laid bare.

Can you imagine if everything that you thought about was, like, known to everyone around you?

I mean, I mean, like, whatever it is, like, maybe you were critical of the way somebody dressed or presented themselves. Can you imagine if they said, why would you think that about me? You're like, huh, guys, gals, you look at members of the opposite sex, anything, your mind goes from there. Can you imagine if they said, excuse me?

What? Oh, I know, it's just I'm the only person out there, right? Seriously, Come on, you guys, you've been there. Can you imagine the browser history on your Internet browser? How much different it might be if it was printed every day and it was tacked up to your house?

These are the websites you looked at. I'm not just talking about those dirty ones. I mean, I'm talking about the needless shopping that you do. The needless just looking over the lifestyles of these people who don't even have real lives. But they're all over Instagram and you're like, I wish I could look like her.

Or, I wish I had. The stuff he's got, it's all fake. Like, they get paid just to do that stuff. Look at him without the makeup, without all the surgeries and all that stuff. Or without their million subscribers on YouTube that helps the guy to buy those vehicles that he.

Sorry. That's what I get into.

All these things, the thoughts of our hearts, the motives within us, if they were laid plainly out, transparent before others, we would probably think about different things. We would dwell on different things.

Even happens in our communication with one another. Somebody texts you Lay something heavy on you. And you're like, oh, man, I'll pray for you. And inside you're like, really? Why did you bother me with that?

I was trying to watch my stupid show. Oh, I know. It's just me, right?

Jesus, the adult Jesus, lays bare what's in our soul. And we will either fall or rise based on how we receive Jesus Christ.

We don't get the chance to receive Jesus like Simeon did and actually take him in our arms, but we do get the chance for Jesus to live in our hearts. And as he does that, he lays bare the thoughts that we have. And thank God he doesn't share them with everybody around us. He's not that much into gossiping, but what he does do is he sends us his Holy Spirit. By the way, some of you guys, you might have received Jesus Christ, and to some measure, you have the spirit of God because we're promised the presence of God with us when we receive Christ as our Savior when we are born again.

But some of you have not sought the indwelling presence of the Spirit of God like Simeon and Anna had, like Elizabeth, the mother of John had. You haven't sought the indwelling presence of the Spirit of God dwelling so richly and deeply in your lives that you, just like you couldn't imagine a day without him. You don't have the presence of the Spirit of God in there. So when I talk about things that are laid bare, you're like, why haven't I ever felt conviction on those things? Like, I think maybe as a person, maybe I shouldn't do some of that, but I haven't really felt God bringing a sense of conviction on my life over these things.

Because you haven't allowed his spirit to dwell in you, to, like, show you how to live, to command you each and every day. You haven't awakened every morning and said, lord, just guide me and direct me. Use me as your servant. And because of this, you're suffering for it. Oh, we're thankful to gather at Christmas time, hopefully with family or friends or whoever it might be.

And we'll cook a meal and we'll open presents and we'll do all these different things. We'll maybe sing Christmas carols and all this stuff. Candlelight service on Christmas Eve at 6 o' clock here at the church. It won't be online, so you gotta be here. It's kind of hard to have a camera when you got a black background and no lights on.

Nothing is visible. So, you know, you could listen online, I guess, if we did it, but we won't.

It's fun to have all that stuff, drive around, look at Christmas lights, good times.

But Jesus grows up and he calls us to follow him, to live for him, to serve Him.

Like those Christmas gifts that are under the tree that one day soon we'll unwrap. Jesus unwraps us and lays bare what is in our lives.

Christmas.

Christmas is a season of gifts and fun and celebration. We've been talking about the Advent season. And what Advent means is the expectancy of the coming of Jesus Christ. People like Simeon had expected his coming at that day. We are told by scripture that Jesus, though he ascended into heaven after he had risen again on Easter, that he had ascended into heaven 40 days later.

But one day he will return. And when he returns, he brings his judgment with him. The judgment is based on how we lived, whether we received Christ or rejected him. And as Simeon said, we will either rise or fall on that confession of our faith. But to the extent that we have, the presence of the Spirit of God in our lives will show how much we will enjoy our eternity with Him.

If you've had the Spirit of God in your life and you dwell, you just richly desire the presence of God with you, you'll love heaven because you will be with the presence of God. 24 7. Actually, there won't be any more time. In fact, there was something I wanted to share with you. There's two kinds of time in the Greek mind and language.

One is called Kairos time with a king, and one is Kronos time with a ch. Chronos time is like chronological time. It's what we have on our watches. It's what we pay attention to as the minutes tick by while the pastor keeps preaching, trying to remember all the things he really wanted to say. That's chronology.

That's Chronos time. That's what time it is. It's 11:02 right now. That's Kronos Kairos time. K A I R O S is the season in which we are in.

And that's the kind of time that we need to be paying attention to. What kairos is it? What season is it? The season is Advent. It's a season of expectancy, looking for the return of the.

Of the Messiah. Because one day he will come back, not as a baby, but as the conquering king who will judge both the living and the dead. And our eternity is based on whether we took him into our lives now and allowed him to. To save us now, or whether we have rejected him throughout our lives. You'll love it in heaven.

You'll love it so much more if you have dwelt richly with God here on this earth every day of your life that you can. Good times and bad. It's the only way to live.

I'm going to leave everything else that I wanted to say alone and leave it with that. I want you to celebrate more than you've ever celebrated. I want you to celebrate in a special way this year. However, that special way is for you. The thing that I want you to know and to see is that we receive Christ as a baby, and we receive him also, grown up, as the Son of God, as the Messiah, the One who paid the price so that we don't have to pay for our lives anymore.

Just like the redeemed in Egypt. He redeems all of us. We're redeemed by the blood of Christ.