A Timeless Encounter: Simeon and Anna's Christmas Revelation - Garrett Worner - 3TC Podcast - 12/29/2024

Pastor Garrett recounts the biblical narrative, emphasizing the significance of Simeon and Anna's recognition of Jesus. Garrett recaps the Christmas story from Zechariah's encounter with an angel to the shepherds' visit, highlighting Simeon and Anna's devoutness and faithfulness. Simeon, guided by the Holy Spirit, recognized Jesus as the Messiah, while Anna, a widow devoted to worship, also identified Him. 

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Transcript

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Welcome to the three timbers podcast. We hope this will encourage and uplift you today. Well, we're getting through it, right? We had Christmas when we were still on the Christmas season. Don't get me wrong. But how was Christmas day? How was everybody's Christmas Day Good? Did Santa bring everything you wanted? Yeah, good, good. We had a great Christmas at our house. It was wonderful. Well, it wasn't wonderful for Kenya. Kea and I was throwing up all day, but the rest of us had a great time. That was wonderful. But my mom came over, Sabine came over. We opened presents, we watched, we watched a Christmas story about 652 times. So that was good. And then we we separated that with a little bit of christmas vacation, right? And then at the end of the night, Lauren and I actually watched red one. Now that is not a recommendation to anybody. It is a written our movie, I know, but it was actually quite, oh well, that was awesome. I love 13. Obviously, it was awesome. No, it was because we, I was not going to be one of the people that bought Netflix for just two football games. I just couldn't bring myself to do that. So when you watch Christmas story all day long. It was wonderful just because that's what Christmas is. Now to me, it's just family. I just love it. I love it. But this morning, I wanted to focus on a particular part of the Christmas story. Now this is not a part of the Christmas story that usually makes it into the Christmas programs, so maybe a little bit obscure to some people. Actually, my brother Dirks in the congregation tonight, plus an audience. That's awesome. Dirk, if you remember this pastor, if you met or pastor growing up that Christmas or the Sunday after Christmas, every single year, would dress up and he would do a monolog on stage. You remember that at all? Mom may remember it. So we're actually going to be discussing because I was thinking about this this week. I was like, man, nobody really like, knows the story a lot. Yeah, I'm I'm day booking this right now, so we'll find out who this is in a little bit. But before we get things going, let's pray nice, Lord Father, I just thank you for being here today. I thank you that you are in our midst, Lord, and that we can be in yours to worship You, Lord, God, just get me out of the way. Lord, get me in my sinful nature out of the way. Just use me as your mouthpiece, God. And just let this message just stir so it's your name. We pray, amen. But before we begin, guys, I think it's a good idea that we're going to actually recap the whole Christmas story here real quick. Okay, so we are going to start back at Zechariah. So I know a lot of times that we don't start at Zechariah, do we when we're talking about the Christmas story, but that's what we're talking about. This morning, Zechariah was in the temple. It was his time to serve. He's in the temple, and he's praying, and an angel shows up, and in the story, guys, I want you to see if you can catch this thing. You're going to hear this a couple of times to see if you can catch the thing. Alright? So an angel shows up, tells him that his wife is pregnant with a boy, and this boy is going to prepare the way for the Messiah. Zachariah is like, what you talking about? Willis like, hey, you know what? Why don't you just keep quiet for a few months? And so Zachariah loses the ability to speak. Now, three months later, a teenage girl named Mary is visited by the same angel, and she's engaged to his daddy named Joseph, except this time, the angel says that she is pregnant and she is going to have a son, the son of God, and she's supposed to name her Jesus. And she tells Joe, who probably doesn't believe her, because I doubt I don't believe her anyway. But Joe's like, you know what? Guess what, Mary, I don't want to think that to happen to you, so I'm going to devote to divorce you quietly. But an angel shows up to him too, and tells a man and Joseph, don't divorce her. That kid that she has that is going to be the Son of God and you are going to be his heavenly or his earthly dad. I mean, that's amazing, right? Can you imagine getting that thing in his Well, a few months later, Mary goes to visit her cousin, a woman named Elizabeth, who's married to that new priest, Zechariah that we just heard about, hasn't been able to talk now. Zechariah has been here for about six months at this time, but when Elizabeth sees Mary, her baby starts jumping inside of her because he knows that it's the Messiah. That ladies need. Elizabeth, at this time, is so excited that she sings a song and tells Mary how blessed she is. And finally, after months, Mary's like, Thank you, God, somebody finally believes me. And so she sings a song too about Jesus and who he will be. So after our next little visit, Mary goes home, and Elizabeth gives birth to her baby boy, and they need to name him. So Zechariah is like, hey, guess what? We're going to name him, John. He has to write it down on a tablet, and when he does that, his tongue is released and he's able to speak. And what is the first thing Zechariah does? He sings a song and prays to God. Zechariah is so excited. He sings a song of prophecy about Jesus and His son's role as John the Baptist. And then I know they don't call him that. Yeah, that comes later. But back in Nazareth, there's at home. The Romans, they decided, hey, Julius Caesar is like, you know what? We need more money, guys. We're going to do a census. We got to count everybody. Make sure we're getting our money from everybody. So every single man needs to go to their hometown with their family. So I can count you all up so I can squeeze some more money out of there. So Mary and Joseph pick up, act up her stuff, and they take this journey from Nazareth all the way up north to Bethlehem, this little tiny village south of Jerusalem. Now if you guys don't know the topography of this area, it is mountainous. It's hilly. There's a lot. I mean, there's nine months pregnant, and she's gotta do this, and she still makes it to Bethlehem before the baby comes. But because of the census, everybody is all packed up, and there is no room for her and Joseph to stay, so they have to go and settle in in a stable. And that night, she gives birth in the name of Jesus. And the same night, the shepherds are out and about watching their sheep, and an angel just shows up, telling him that the Messiah is born in Bethlehem. And then, and this is kind of cool, because this is one of the only times this happens. The whole multitude of angels show up, and what do they do? They sing a song of praise to God and Jesus, and they tell the shepherds. They say, hey, go see this game. You gotta go. And the shepherds go and they find the baby Jesus, and they worship him, and they don't stop there. They'll do they guys. Then they go out and they're just winking people up running down the streets, because you gotta imagine the excitement they have, yelling and screaming that the Messiah is here, the anointed one is born. Now tonight, you guys have probably known the story, considering almost every single person in this room knows this story up to this point. But here's a little piece we're going to focus on. And it's not the Wiseman that happens later. It's not about Aaron killing all the babies that happens later. It's not about Mary and Joseph going to Egypt that happens later. Now this is just a couple days. It's actually eight days after the birth of Jesus, and then 40 days after the birth of Jesus. So if you read in your Bibles, open it up to the Gospel of Luke chapter two. We'll be Gospel of Luke chapter two, and we'll read verses 21 through 38 and I think I did get that 21 through 38 but that's what we'll get to this morning. While you guys are looking it up, I'm just going to start reading here so you get the gist. So on the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived, when the time came for the purification rights required by the law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took Him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it was 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. Now there was, there was a man in Jerusalem called Simmons who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him and 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 when the parents brought in the child, Jesus, to do for him what the custom of the law required. Simon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, Sovereign Lord, as you have. Promised you may now dismiss your servant feast, 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, the child, father and mother marveled at what was said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, this child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed and a sword. A sword will pierce your soul too. There's also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Penuel of the tribe of Asher. She was old. She had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was 84 she never left the temple, but worship, night and day, fasting and praying coming up to them at the very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. So there's two people that are skipped a lot. That's who we're talking about this morning, Simeon and Anna. But there are probably a couple of the people that we can really, really see how important they are, because they tell us how we can see Jesus, and when we do see Jesus, how we should respond afterwards, see if both of these people reacted just a little bit different, because they're different people, obviously, but both of them had three things in common. First of all, they're devout. Did you guys catch up in the Scripture? They're devout. Big church word. We hear it all the time. Devout is simply guys, somebody's devoted or faithful, right? That's why it gets this religious connotation to it. But devout is usually thought to be someone who is faithful to God. Both of these people were faithful to God. First, you gotta look at Simeon. Simeon Look how he described. He's good. He's godly. He's waiting for the time when God would take away Israel's sorrow he was waiting for the Messiah. Just think about that, guys. Just think for a second what that would mean. I mean, right now today, we believe Jesus is coming back, right and I mean, would you describe yourself as someone who is waiting for Jesus to come back, right? We all are. Verse 26 says how Simeon was told he would not die until he saw the Christ. Now, legend says, Listen, speculation, scholars, right? They get together. They try to go up with numbers. Some scholars said that Sunday, it might have been 113 years old. It doesn't matter how old the dude was, here's the but he was waiting a long time. Can you imagine waiting? But he waited, and not impatiently, but faithfully. He believed what the Holy Spirit told him, and so he waited, in a devout way for the Christ. And then there's Anna. All we know about Anna is that she's married for a few years, and then she was widowed for 84 so she was probably close to 100 Some scholars say about 84 doesn't matter. Again, she waited a long time. But guys, I want you to see this. I want you to see the reason why Luke pointed out why she was a widow for so long. Because, don't forget, this is context. This is over 2000 years ago, totally different time period. And back then, if you were a widow, this could mean some really bad news for you. Now we're talking bell curve. Obviously, there's differences on both sides. We're talking about the majority here, though, cuz you guys gotta remember 2000 years ago, in the ancient years, usually women didn't work. Usually, again, the bell curve. And usually when they did get jobs, they were not good. They were awful jobs to have. So often times again, widows were poor. They couldn't own property most of the time. So unless they have family, they have no place to live, either would they. And even more poignant is that a lot of times they were exploited by the law, read all the prophets. People were taking care of the unfortunate all the time, including the widows. So if a woman became a widow early on in life, like Anna, they would have remarried really quickly. It's my point. They would have gotten it done, found another husband, but she didn't. And in a culture like that, for Anna. She would already be considered to be pious and righteous and faithful, because she was faithful to her husband even after his death, and she took on this life of widow and possibly poverty, we don't know, but she remained faithful to her husband rather than getting remarried to simply not worried about money. Don't read into this, guys. This is about Anna. This is about the widows back 2000 years ago, nothing to do with you know, if your husband passes, or if you come with a little word, they should move on. That's not what I'm saying here. Just we're looking at Anna here. I just don't want anybody to get the wrong message. So she's already considered to be a faithful and devout person. Then at verse 37 after her husband died, she never left the temple to worship God, fasting and praying every day for 84 years. That's faithfulness, isn't it? 84 years. Can you imagine going to church every single day for 84 years. That is the definition of our being devout. But part of the reason that these two people saw Jesus right away, guys that saw him was because they were willing to do the waiting for him. They were faithful to God. They were way more faithful than the multitudes that would come to the temple daily just to go through their minimum religious requirements, right, worshiping God with only their heads, the ones that would just go into routine go through the motions like once a week for an hour just to check it off the list. And this makes me think, this makes me think a lot like, Am I doing that? Am I just coming to church once a week, going through the motions just so I can check that box? Yep, God, we're good. Or am I doing everything in my being to get to know God, with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, with my whole being. It's an interesting Hebrew word. It's Yana, and that's not just knowing with your brain. It's knowing with every single part a true relationship with God. So I was asking myself this question this week. I was asking you guys too, do you think you're developing I don't know. You think you're faithful again? These are things I was asking myself. So I want to ask you guys this. Do you think that you've given everything, you have given your all to Jesus? It's an important question. This isn't a guilt thing, guys. This isn't a point in fingers kind of thing. This isn't that we truly need to ask ourselves daily, are we truly knowing God daily? It's because Cynthia and Anna were so devout and so faithful that they were able to recognize Jesus. So we need to make sure that we can recognize them, too, don't we? Because you guys have noticed this. Nobody at any time in the temple went up to sing in and say, Hey, you see that little baby over there? Go check em out. That's the Messiah. Did they? Nobody did that. Nobody at all. You guys gotta remember babies were being brought to the temple daily. Jesus was probably not the only baby in the temple that day. That was one of the things that they did all the time. We also gotta remember that Mary and Joseph were just a carpenter and his wife bringing the baby into the temple. Were there anything special? Was there a renaissance halo over their head? No, not at all. They were poor. We know they were poor guys because they brought two dogs or pigeons, the minimum that they didn't bring because they were poor. For all intents and purposes, and there's two poor people with a new baby, nothing more. But both Simon and Anna recognize Jesus right away. Look at singing. He was led by the Holy Spirit to the temple. God told him to go to the temple, but it doesn't say why to go to the temple, does it, or who to look for? Cynthia just sees a baby, and he knows, he knows. He knows so well that he just walks right up to him. It's like, Hey, kids, can I hold your baby? Everybody? Like, sure, super old dude, you I'll give him. He was just so sure. He walked up as he knew it was the Messiah. How do I do guys? How well do you recognize Jesus? Would you recognize him today? Do. Do you see him around you daily? We all have to be trained to see God around us. Guys, it's so important to you. So I ask you, how are you training? How are you training? Are you training through His Word? Are you training by spending time with them daily? How would you recognize him? If he was right there, would you see him? So what happens next? What do they do after they recognize Jesus? What do they do? They get the most natural thing to do, the most natural they worship, if you guys were paying attention to the recap I got did earlier, did you guys notice what the main thing was going through there at all? What they what we what do they do we have? What does Zachariah do? Saying, What did the Mary do? Saying, What did Elizabeth do? Saying, What did the angels do? Saying, you guys, I know that worship is not just singing, but especially in the Jewish culture. If something amazing happened like this, if you say, boom, god, yes, worshiping in song and as prayer that Simeon does here, this is his song to God, and it's considered by many to be the fifth song of the Christmas story. So send me a worship Jesus, because He recognizes who the baby is. And it says Anna did the same thing, even though we don't know what she said. We don't know what she said at all, but it simply says that she thanked God. So when you guys see God, when you recognize him around you, one of the things that I think about all the time is like, when we're on the mountains, we bring the kids out, especially when we're out to campus last summer, and we're up in the mountains, and I just felt just, oh, God, this is you. This is amazing. What's your reaction? How do you worship Him? Do you change your life for him? Do you sing him songs of praise, Simeon and Anna worship Jesus. And part of that worship was telling everyone around them they knew God. They worshiped God, and they told God about that in city and song, you can see in verse 32 he recognizes that Christ is the Messiah, the Savior of God's people. Was not just for God's people. That's so exciting for you and me, right? Unless we have the Jewish people here today. He was to save the world, all people, including its Gentiles. But can you think for a second, how about shattering that be for the Jewish people? I mean, they were God's chosen people, right? They're His chosen people, only the Israelite, only the Jewish population, and God, they had a covenant together. They're the only ones bowing these really weird, holy set aside rules so people would know that they were yahwehs. They were the only ones that seen that God was talking to, and it's just them, that's it. And then God flips the belief system, flips a run on their heads that and don't get me wrong. I mean, he'd been saying it for 1000s of years before this he was going to do it. It wasn't like, it was like, it was a big surprise. They knew what they were reading their scriptures. They knew the sign was coming. But this was what happened that day, that Christmas Day is when he flips the system on its head, and send me if he sees it right away. He knows it. He knows that Jesus is a salvation for everybody, a light for everybody. A man. Look at her, she paints God and goes out immediately and starts to tell people about Jesus. She speaks to everybody that's waiting for God. Jesus, go on. She can't stop it. Now, most of these people, like we're accustomed to, probably didn't listen to you loud today. I mean, well, first of all, you gotta it's gonna be hard to hear, isn't it? Jesus is 40 days old. He's an infant. He's not done any miracles. He's not done any teaching. There's no scripture to back up like there's no New Testament right now, right? All these people would have to go with all that they would have to go on is the story of Mary and Joseph telling this unbelievable tale about how he was born. No proof. But that to that side, Anna and Simeon. Now, they went out and told everybody they could about Jesus. They let him know. They let everybody they couldn't know that his salvation had come. So think about this, guys. What about your life? Of tells people about Jesus. And just because I'm up here, this is questions I've been asking myself this week too. I just want to put it out there for you. What, what in our lives tells us, tells people about Jesus? Is it our actions? What do our actions tell others about Jesus. What do our words? Tell other people about Jesus. Do our daily actions? Show people Jesus when you meet them. Do your words? Tell people about Jesus. Do you see how Jesus came to save all people? Do you want other people to know this? It's tough, isn't it? Cuz I'm thinking this whole week, how many people have I gone and preached you Right? Or even talked about in just simple conversation about my love for this man, something I gotta work on. This reaction that Simeon and Anna shared. It's one that we can all strive for today. They were faithful. They were devout, right? They were waiting for God. They knew God, so when they did show up, they're able to recognize God, and when they recognized Him, they worshiped Him, and then they went out and told everybody. And I think this is a story, guys, that we can use all year long, all year long, not just Christmas, not just Christmas, but Christmas is an amazing time of year, isn't it? It's great. I love it. I love it. Sometimes it gets too commercialized, but when we focus on the reason it's such a beautiful time of year, and wouldn't it be amazing if we could take all these stories from the birth of Jesus, this whole thing, from Zechariah, all the way who you do all this story, and we put it to use daily, so we could do the things that Anna and Simeon did by knowing God, by worshiping Him and by telling others about it wouldn't be wonderful if we started to practice the things that we hear and sing about at Christmas time, And now that that season's ending, wouldn't it be wonderful if we would take that Christmas with us all the way through the New Year, all the way through and into the following year, just all year long. And when we're thinking about these two people, would it just be amazing that just affected us so much? Because when I was thinking about it this week, I actually I've probably done those on the radio a million times. I love this song, but Henry whitesworth Longfellow had a poem called I heard the bells on Christmas Day. This song is beautiful. Have you ever listened to the words I heard the bells on Christmas Day? They're all familiar, carols, play and wild and sweet the words repeat of peace on earth, good will to them. And in despair, I bow my head, there's no peace on earth, they say, for hate is strong and knocks the song of peace on earth, good will to them, yet peels the bells more loud and deep God is not dead, Nor does he sleep. The wrong shall fail. The right prevail with peace on earth, good will to men. That made me think about what would actually happen if all the people who talked about peace on earth during December actually started to practice it, and what would happen if the people who practice it recruited others to practice it. Just think about how different a world would be. And what would happen if all people who talked about good will to them suddenly began to be the good to people around them, and what if those people recruited people to do the same thing? I was just thinking how different our world would be. We're going to be wonderful if all of us here at three tempers church, everybody here online, and all those listening, everybody took the message of Christmas and made it a permanent part of your lives, something that you would practice all year long, and wouldn't be something if we would take the message of Christmas everywhere we went. Now, guys, I know it's not fashionable today. I did it. I did the whole separation of church in the state, blah, blah, blah, can't have God in the workplace. Can't have God in the on the courts, they can't handle center field in the football game. That's for sure. We're not supposed to pray in schools, are we? We're not supposed to talk about that. For many of us, it's just. Hard to do. Can't you're going to get scared. Don't know enough, but I really believe that if people have been truly touched by this message, this Christmas message, the message that Anna and Cindy and heard, that they would have no choice but to reflect and just show Jesus everywhere they go. You know, rules and regulations, they're always going to be there, guys. But God is so much bigger than rules and regulations. And I want to give you a little bit of hope there. Let's just look how God's moving in Edmonton, over six years, guys, we've been praying for God to let us into the elementary schools. So, you know, doing a good news club. For those of you who don't know what a good news club, that's amazing. It's an hour and a half after school where kids get the gospel. They get to sing, they gain they get to interact with other people within it's just such a great thing to see, to see kids after school worshiping and praising Jesus, and that's what we were praying for this last fall, we're finally allowed into Mannington elementary school, our very first good news club. We had two kids show up. We now have over 40 kids registered for good news club, right? That's right. How about this one little triple on top of it? Because of that, the news is spreading now the principal of anchor point has been met with. Starting in March, there will be a good news club at anchor point. Not only that, we will be meeting with the principal of heritage elementary school to possibly start a good news club at Heritage in the fall. That means guys, that if we have over 40 people registered, kids registered at all four schools, we have over 100 kids weekly on a Tuesday afternoon in a public school, praising and worshiping God. That's how God works when people are faithful. So wouldn't be wonderful if we can take this all year long. Sorry, I just I keep not thinking about that. It seems the world is trying to go on a soapbox here for a second. Have you noticed this? The world keeps trying to take away our worship, right? Like Wednesday nights. Remember only Wednesday nights with sacred, right? How about Sunday mornings? Remember when Sunday mornings were sacred and it's being innovated by the world with sports and activities and everything else, versus Wednesdays and Sunday mornings and guys like, fine. You want to take that away. I'm going to open up a Tuesday afternoon at school. Wow, it's just Holy Spirit showers. That's God working in banks of Nebraska finishing up here guys. Howard Thurman wrote, when the song of the angels is still, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, then the real work of Christmas begins to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to visit the prisoners, to rebuild the nation, to bring peace among brothers and sisters, to make music In the heart that is the real work of Christmas. This next couple of weeks, we take down a Christmas tree. We take down the decorations, boxing it all up again. But guys, please have those songs, that music, that music, still linger with you throughout the year. So this morning, may the songs of peace and good will forever be in our hearts, and may our homes be filled with the fragrances, the sounds and excitement of Christmas forever. And let us all take its message with us throughout the New Year, so that all the world might be touched by it as we have all experienced. Let's pray, Lord God, thank you for your Christmas message. God, it is so powerful. It is so amazing. It is your true love, sending your son, sending yourself down to live as one of us, and taking our place where we rightfully deserve to be on that cross, Lord. And you turn away from us, and you said, No, I got it. All you have to do is follow me with your whole being, Lord, God, I ask that we all hear every single person in this room, every single person online would just accept that and know it and love it and live it throughout the rest of the year, God, let us take our message with you everywhere so we can know you, that we can worship you, and that we can tell everybody we need about you. We ask all of these things in Your Son's name. Amen. Thank you for joining. Us for more information about three timbers, church ministries and services. Visit three timbers.org. We would love for you to join us in person. You.