Sermon Tone Analysis

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So far in our Advent series, we started off with establishing the deity of Christ by examining his claim to be the “I AM.”
This was controversial and pushed some of the Jewish leaders of the time over the edge to utter rejection of him, but His existence as the God-man is essential to our redemption.
Last week Pastor Steve took walked us through the name Emmanuel, God with us.
It truly is wonderful to know that in the incarnation, Christ has assured our union with God.
In this, he examined a couple of the messianic prophecies that we see in the Old Testament concerning Christ, of which there are many.
One could spend a lifetime studying in detail the prophecies of the coming of Jesus and their New Testament fulfillments.
All in all, there are said to be well over 300 prophetic references to Christ, depending upon how you count a few minor details.
One of the major themes in the Advent is the fulfilment of prophecy and God keeping His promises.
We have the glorious blessing of being able to look back at nearly 2000 years of church history and seeing God’s faithfulness on display throughout the centuries; and not just that, but more importantly, we have the ability to examine the scriptures in both the Old and New covenants.
We see with somewhat of a birdseye view in that we can see a promise of God in the Old, and immediately cross reference its completion or fulfillment later on in scripture.
Especially concerning the coming of Christ, this is of tremendous value to our firmness of faith.
But what is oftentimes lost in our thinking are all the people who lived between the promise and the fulfilment.
The faithful ones knew and believed that all the promises of God would be fulfilled, because God is a faithful God, but between the close of the old testament scriptures and where we pick up in the New Testament, what is called the inter-testamental period of about 400 years, many had lost their zeal of expectancy for the promised coming of a redeemer.
Just as sometimes we feel relatively alone in our faithfulness to God, certainly by the time the first century A.D. rolled around, the faithful, expectant remnant were feeling a bit alone.
Among that believing remnant recorded in scripture, we find an old couple named Zachariah and Elizabeth.
Along with them, we obviously have Mary and her espoused husband Joseph.
Also, we read of some lowly shepherds who were eager to follow the announcement of the messiah’s birth.
Here in , we find two more of that believing remnant.
Later in the chapter we read of a faithful older lady named Anna.
Our passage today records the account of one of the faithful believing remnant of Israel.
Simeon was a man who certainly believed the promises he read in the Tanach, the Hebrew old testament, but he also was privileged to have a special promise concerning the messiah made directly to him.
Judging by the references in the text, he, too, was an older man at this point.
He had waited his entire life looking for the consolation of Israel.
And while, for the most part, God had been silent concerning revelation, He made a special promise to Simeon that we want to examine today.
Simeon was promised by God that before he died, he would see the Lord’s Christ - The Messiah - The Anointed one of God.
The Messiah was expected to be a redeemer, a leader, a human figure descending from the line of David, to be called the Son of God, and much more.
No matter what Simeon had in mind when he was promised he would see the Messiah with his own eyes, he had no doubt when he saw Jesus, even if just as an infant, that this was the promise of God in fulfillment.
He knew the Consolation of Israel had arrived.
He knew that this was the Messiah - The Annointed - The Christ.
As we look at this passage, i want to see this theme:
Let us worship our Savior, the Messiah, for God has kept His promise.
To examine the text, I want to see three facets.
The Predicted Coming of Christ
The Proclaimed Glory of Christ
The Prophesied Authority of Christ.
1.
The Predicted Coming of Christ - 25-26
“There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon.”
All that we know about this man is given to us in this passage.
He evidently was from Jerusalem.
He shares his name with one of the sons of Jacob, the tribe that was named after him, and also with The Apostle Peter who’s surname was Simon (same name, different spelling.)
The name means “The Lord has heard.”
That will become significant as we read on.
“This man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel.”
From this short biographical sketch, we find that Simeon was faithful, a devout follower of God, but more than just being religiously devoted, The Holy spirit records that he was, indeed, righteous.
From this description, we find that he was not just one who was merely a Jew outwardly, as Paul described, but rather Simeon was a Jew after the kind of Father Abraham - who was made righteous by faith.
And we see that faith played out in that he was “waiting for the consolation of Israel.”
This is the word “Paraklesis” of which the same root is used later to describe the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives as the comforter.
Simeon was a man who loved God, and also loved his fellow Israelite.
He earnestly desired for the comfort of his people to come.
The Old Testament is full of references of God comforting his people through the coming one, and in the writing of the Rabbis, they often described the Messiah as one who would be the “Menachem” which means comforter.
That Simeon’s name means “God has heard” is significant, for no doubt Simeon was not just waiting for the comfort of Israel, but he was most certainly pleading with the Lord.
When thinking of his situation, I can imagine that Psalms like were often on Simeon’s lips of prayer.
Well, The idea that “The Lord has Heard” came true for Simeon.
Not only was he familiar with the many many promises of a coming comforter to his people, but in verse 26, we read of a special gift of revelation that God gave to Simeon.
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.
We are not told how he recieved that revelation, other than the fact that it came from the Holy Spirit himself.
Imagine having that weight in the background of your thoughts.
Was it a long time from the revelation to the fulfillment?
Was there excitement, fear, doubt?
Were there days where Simeon felt he was nearing the end of his life and thought, perhaps i just dreamt that whole thing up.
Perhaps I will just die with the thousands who have gone before me without seeing the Messiah.
On the other hand, I’m sure there were many days where Simeon lived in a state of joyous expectation, knowing that in this miraculous revelation from God there was a promise that the messiah was coming soon.
In reality, Simeon is a type of the entire lot of believing Israelites.
All had been promised that God’s would come to comfort His people, and all the believing ones were waiting with joyous expectation.
But in Simeon’s case, He knew it could’t be long.
And here is where we encounter our name for Jesus, which is Christ.
The word here is Christos in the Greek.
That word is used to translate the Hebrew equivalent Moshiach.
In both languages, the name means the annointed one.
In the Old Testament, it was used to refer in a small sense to Kings, to Priests, and to Prophets.
In the sense here, however, we are referring to not just a prophet, a priest, or a king, but we find in our Savior the Prophet, Priest, and King, as the book of Hebrews shows us.
And What Simeon was waiting for, the comforting of Israel, God’s people, was exactly what our Savior brought.
In , we read a description of the comforting of Israel that Jesus would later quote about himself.
Later in Luke’s Gospel, when Jesus would come into the Synagogue on the Sabbath and read that very passage, he would then sit down and say “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
In this passage we see that he is the annointed one, (root word Moshiach).
He brings good news, binds up the broken, proclaims liberty, opens prison, proclaims the Lord’s favor, his vengance against sin, and finally, he comforts all who mourn.
This is our Savior, the messiah, the annointed one, the Christ.
This is who Simeon had been promised to see before his death.
Later, after jesus Ascension, Peter would cite and concerning Christ.
Peter had been the one when Jesus asked, Who do you say that I am, he responded “you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
God had always promised the coming of the redeemer - the Messiah.
And on the cusp of the fulfillment, Simeon had been given this extra reminder.
This extra prophecy.
This little boost to his expectation.
An expectation of not just good times for Israel, but expectation of the Messiah himself.
2. The Proclaimed Glory of Christ - 27-32
We don’t know the time that passed between the revelation to Simeon and the transpiring of this account, but we can fill our imagination with some of the anticipation of waiting.
In his commentary on Luke, R.C. Sproul puts it this way.
When I think of Simeon, I think of this old saint, who spent his days in the temple.
He would come into the temple each morning.
He would look around and the priest in the temple would say, ‘What are you doing, Simeon?
What are you looking for?’
Simeon would say, ‘Well, I just came today to check and see if the Messiah was here.’
He would be disappointed day after day after day.
But God had told him that he would see the Messiah and he had waited and waited, and gone time after time after time, presumably, to the temple, yet every time that he went, looking for the Messiah, the Messiah was nowhere to be seen.
The promise was not fulfilled.
And then finally, that one day Simeon came to the temple with a special urge.
He sensed the Holy Spirit drawing him to that place one more time in particular.
I can imagine the scene.
Here comes Old Simeon, finding his normal place in the temple.
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