I'm going to be reading today out of Isaiah 25 verses 6 through 9 if you would like to follow along on the table Bibles that is page 586. On this mountain the Lord of Hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well aged wine, of rich food full of morrow, of aged wine well refined, and he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations, he will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken, it will be said on that day, "Behold, this is our God, we have waited for him that he might save us, this is the Lord, we have waited for him, let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation." This is God's word, and it's true, and it's given out of his love, you may be seated. Amen, thank you Stacey, good morning, great to be with all of you today again, if I haven't met you my name is Aaron, and it's such a pleasure serving with you guys, with Colbert here at Miss Yoghit, Colbert is serving with one of our partner churches in Acts 29, Redemption Parker, up in Parker, and their pastor Mark Oshman has ministered here many times, a lot of you guys have been here for that, so Colbert wanted to return the favor today, so he and Kelly are up there, and we're thrilled with that, we love Redemption Parker, love all the gods doing up there, and so you guys get me today, yes, they're breathless with anticipation, but I'm excited because we get to continue our study in Luke together today, it's my favorite gospel, Colbert did a great job starting us off last week, and today we're going to jump forward past the Christmas narratives because we did the Christmas narratives last Advent season, and so we're going to jump ahead a little bit to chapter two and verse 22, so if you want to turn there we're going to be in Luke two verse 22, and we're going to be also, if you like to mark your Bible and stuff, we're going to be in James chapter one a bit this morning as well, those two places. So let's just remember what Luke is doing here, Luke is doing an investigation as Colbert showed us last week, that was so good, he's compiling all of these stories together, he's compiling the different events in the life of Christ to help Theophilus have certainty in his faith, right, you might remember right at the beginning he's like I'm telling you these things so that you may have certainty in what we believe, and by extension us too that we would have confidence, that we would have certainty in what we believe, and so Luke talked to the eyewitnesses of these events in the Gospels, and you know one thing that Colbert mentioned briefly last week that I think is so cool is it's likely that Luke interviewed Mary herself when he wrote this letter, there's just a lot of details that it would be difficult, hard to come by if you weren't talking right to Mary, right, like the most famous, well one of the most famous verses in the Christmas story, right, it says at the end of the account of the shepherd that says Mary treasured all these things up in her heart, remember that from Christmas, right, how do we know that, well we asked Mary, right, that's how we knew that, treasured all these things in her heart, and you know the encounters she had with the angels, and some of the other stories with Elizabeth seem to have come from an eyewitness from her, and today by the way I think, I don't know for sure, but I think that today's story came from Mary as well, and the reason I think that is because moms love it so much when people love their kids, right, that moms love that more than anything else when people have a kind word or celebrate what their kids do, and that's what happens in our story today, so let's read starting at verse 25 of Luke chapter 2, now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him, and it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ, and he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the customs of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel, and his father and mother marveled at what was said about him. So this is the story, Simeon throughout church history, this man has been known as the God receiver throughout church tradition, and there's you know the classical, there was classical music and art all written about this moment with Simeon, he's known as the God receiver, and this righteous old man is led by the Spirit to the temple, and he offers a prophecy. He offers a prophecy, a hymn of all that the Messiah will do, and all that he will mean to the people. And this is the last hymn by the way in the Christmas narrative, we have Mary's song, if you're a fine arts major like myself you know that that's called the Magnificat, right? Mary's song, anyone? Thank you. Okay, then we have Elizabeth and Zechariah's song, the Benedictus, right? And after that Zechariah's song, then we have the angel's song which was glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace could will, right? Then we have Linus's, no, no, sorry we don't have my son. Now then today is the last one, it's called the, in Latin it's called the Nuke Dimitis, or now let us depart, let me depart from when Simeon says there in verse 29, now you are letting your servant depart in peace. Basically saying in our, in our common day here like now I can die in peace, I have seen the Messiah, may have heard someone say that, they got it from, from this biblical text. I remember someone wrote a book a few years ago when the, the Red Sox finally won the World Series in 2004, I don't know if you guys remember that, that's a long time ago now. Red Sox finally won the World Series, it had been like 80 years, right? Title of the book. Now I can die in peace, a story of the 2004 Red Sox, right? That's what it's called. And so that's what Simeon is saying here, now I can depart in peace. A lot of prophecies are being fulfilled in this moment. Some of them Simeon is saying and some of them are about him. In fact in the book of Joel, I think we have this up here, Joel chapter 2, has that great text that in, when the spirit comes, it shall come to pass that I will pour out my spirit and all flesh, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions. And so the Jews in the temple that day and Mary Joseph, they knew this text, they knew the prophecies of when the new covenant arrives, when the Messiah arrives, one of the signs of that is going to be old men are going to be running into the temple with dreams and visions. Time has come today, right? Here it is. There is Simeon and it's such a great prophecy for us in the new covenant. This is a sign of Jesus' coming, those kinds of visions and dreams. And for the original audience that Luke wrote this for, Luke wants to show them and us, Luke wants to show the activity of the Holy Spirit, that God was blessing the birth of his son and the life of Christ in a special way. Throughout all of the birth and infancy narratives of Jesus, all the Christmas story that we've heard a hundred times, Luke wants to show us the special events that were happening throughout that time, out of the ordinary activities like, let's think together, angels, right? With the shepherds, there were some wise men from the east, what did they see? A star, come on, we're failing Christmas here people. See, they saw a star and they came from far away, there was a magnificent sign in the heavens, right? Prophets show up and have a prophecy for the baby and fulfillment of the Old Testament. Luke is showing us that all of those special things are happening when Jesus arrives. Because remember, Luke's purpose, what did Colbert say so many times last week, Luke's purpose for us is that we would have certainty in our faith and the people, the original audience would have certainty in what they believe in. So he's showing them that there's sort of some non-normal signs here, non-normal things are happening. And so Simeon, in his song, and the new kdomitus is echoing the OT prophecies, the Old Testament prophecies that at a lot of points, he's sort of bringing forward a lot of stuff from the Old Testament to right now as he holds the baby Jesus up in the temple and you know how proud Mary was at that moment, right? He was holding the baby Jesus and he was bringing out all of this truth from the Old Testament. Let's look at some of them together. Isaiah 52 and verse 10 is verse 30 where it says that when Simeon says, "We will see the salvation of the Lord," there it is, "the Lord has buried his holy arm and the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God." Isaiah 42, 6, that Jesus would be a light to the Gentiles that the Messiah was not just going to be for the Jewish people, but be for all people, Jews and Gentiles. And in fact, this may have been one of the first times that that actually clicked for Mary and Joseph was right here with Simeon that they were starting to see the fullness of what Jesus was going to be as that prophecy is fulfilled. Isaiah 42, 6, that he would be a light to the Gentiles. The Holy Spirit through Simeon is saying this from the Old Testament is happening now. All nations will see the Messiah. He is the light of the whole world. And then Isaiah 46, 13 says Israel, my glory. And that's where Simeon says there in verse 32 that Jesus will be glory for his people Israel, Luke 2, 32. So Simeon is bringing all these things. And let me just say a quick note about prophecy and the gift of prophecy is that the gift of prophecy in our time, what God has shown us is that it's going to look like this where people are going to bring scripture and the truth of God's word into a situation. So sometimes we think of prophecy as foretelling, like I'm going to tell you the future of what's going to happen. And really most of the time, the prophecy that we see in the scriptures and in our day is what we call foretelling, where it's a truth of scripture that I am then bringing into this situation, right? And so some of you might even wonder, like I wonder if God's ever gifted me with a word of prophecy or give me the gift of prophecy and if you've ever been with someone that tells you something or you're in a situation where you're close with them and they share with you something in their life and you go, hey God's word speaks to that. And I know that Jesus said this in the book of Romans or whatever and so I just want to tell that to you that I think this might apply to what your situation is here. This might be for you in this moment. This truth of scripture is here now for you. That's oftentimes what the Holy Spirit's doing with the gift of prophecy is the truth of God's word for this moment. And so I offer that to you just as sort of a clarification sometimes of what that means. So again, Simeon's bringing all this truth from the Old Testament of what the Messiah's going to be. He's bringing it forward into this situation as he holds the baby Jesus, says this all from the Old Testament is happening right now in the person of Jesus. And then we see back in Luke 2, we see in verse 34 that Simeon turns to Mary in verse 34 and 35. Let's read it together. It says in verse 34, "Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel and for a sign that is opposed. And a sword will pierce through your own soul also so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed." So Simeon has a harder word for Mary there as he tells, of course, and we're reading that and going, okay, Simeon is probably talking about the cross, right? He's telling Mary that this is this child who you love, there's going to be pain in this. But as I researched it this week, there's also just a sense here that Jesus' life and ministry, like you can imagine when those of you who have children, when you first have kids, you always kind of look forward and think about what their life is going to be like and you want certain things to happen, you want certain things to go a certain way and I have a few 20-year-olds, my kids, and so you realize they're like, oh, yeah, very few of those things are actually happening, right, as a parent, it's kind of hard at times. Simeon is looking forward and saying that just to go, you know, this child, this first born son is going to have some different priorities than you might have for him. It's going to look a little different, not just the cross, which he's talking about the cross, but all through his life, Mary, you need to know this as his mom. Mary, you need to know, like, he's going to put a dividing line among people in your town. It's going to be the rising and falling of many in Israel. His priorities are going to be different. We're actually going to see that in the next episode when, as many of you have read it before, is when Jesus stays at the temple to be a part of hearing and teaching God's word and Mary and Joseph lose him and leave and, oh no, we lost our son, they have to go back and Mary says, son, why have you done this for us? And Jesus says, didn't you know you'd find me in my father's house, right? Okay, this is a different kid, this is different, different priorities than what I might have for him. His father's house, he's going to stay when the rest of us have left. That's what we're going to see in the next episode that Luke records. And so I think Simeon is just sort of setting that up for Mary a little bit, like, hey, this is going to look a little different throughout his life. And as a mom, you need to know that. And of course, we know that Jesus did divide Israel, as Simeon says, he did cause many to rise and many to fall based upon if they will accept him or reject him. The criteria there was, do you accept Jesus as a Messiah, do you accept him, do you worship him and view him that way or do you not? If you do, rising for you, if you don't, that's going to be fall for people in Israel. In verse 36, the prophetess Anna arrives and also affirms Jesus waiting through her whole life. It says, we're going to look at that later, some details on Anna, but she affirms Jesus as the Messiah as well. So that's the story this morning. Simeon and Anna arrive in the temple, Simeon lifts up Jesus and prophesies that these prophecies are being fulfilled today while we're here and turns to Mary and gives her a word as well about her son. And we see how Simeon foretells the Scripture. Like I said, that these prophecies are happening now. And another very important promise that's fulfilled here is that God has kept for himself a remnant in Israel. If you read through the Old Testament, you may have heard that term, it comes up quite a bit, that there's always a faithful remnant left in Israel through all the terrible kings and the invasions and the carrying away and the coming back and people fall into grievous sin and idolatry and all kinds of things that we know from the Old Testament narratives. It always says, there will be a faithful remnant. God will keep for himself a people receiving and welcoming him. And that's what we see today. First of all, through Mary and Joseph, if you read through verse 22 to 25, I didn't read that this morning as it sets up Simeon, but it's basically talking about how Mary and Joseph are fulfilling all the temple regulations with Jesus, they're coming in when he was a newborn baby and doing all of the things devout Jews do following the law and temple faithfulness and then also Simeon and Anna, faithful Jews who didn't go the way of the Pharisees and rejected Jesus, no, they accepted him. And Simeon, by the way, I remember he said that, that many would fall, many would rise because of this baby and so Simeon and Anna are faithful Jews as well. God has kept for himself a remnant and here we see four of them. We see Mary and Joseph, Simeon and Anna. If you want to look that up, it's Isaiah 10, Isaiah 28, Joel chapter 2, Micah chapter 2 always talks about that faithful remnant that God keeps and so that's another thing that's being fulfilled today is the faithful Jewish people. Just remember Christ was inaugurating a new covenant like we saw in the prophecy in Joel, this is a new thing that's happening with the Messiah here, a new covenant that Jesus fulfills at the Last Supper. Remember he breaks the bread, takes the wine and says this is a new covenant in my blood. The old covenant is passing away and the new covenant has come through the Messiah of Jesus, that he would be the ultimate sacrifice, that all of the old covenant sacrifices couldn't complete, Jesus completes that and he says here I am, I am the new covenant in my blood and Simeon is sort of foretelling that, no this is the Messiah, this is going to happen through his life and through his ministry. It was a quiet time for revelation, some of you know this too, that after the closing of the Old Testament prophets, when the Old Testament prophets ended, after the children of Israel had come back, we just went through this in the book of Ezra and Nehemiah, if you're with us in the spring and summer, when they came back and the prophecies were closed, there hadn't been a word from the Lord until John the Baptist, about four or five hundred years there had been no words from the Lord to the people of Israel until John the Baptist came and now these events surrounding the birth of Jesus as well from Simeon, these were signs that God was active and the promises were true and the prophecies were being fulfilled and so the new covenant, the Messiah, God's Word is here now, God's Word is here, that's what Simeon is showing the people, it's a new era and a new covenant for all people. Shows that God has been faithful to his people of Israel, you think about when we were just in Nehemiah, how many years so many had waited for the Messiah and even just in the life of Simeon and Anna that we're talking about today, just through their whole life they've been waiting for the Messiah, Jesus had come and he's faithful to his people and faithful to us as well. Luke is showing that God has kept his promises, God promised he would send a Messiah, the Messiah is here now in Luke chapter two and that's so that we would be certain of our faith because God has been faithful to his promises and so we can have certainty because of God's faithfulness, because of his faithfulness and I think that's a helpful encouragement to us as we sort of go back in time and look at Simeon and Anna and we see this scene in the temple and we see, oh okay, God's faithful, he fulfilled all that stuff from the Old Testament, that should be an encouragement to us that God is faithful to us and it's a model for our lives too to be folks who would wait on the Lord as Simeon and Anna did and that God will be faithful in that, God will be faithful in that and so I want to look at a few places in James and think together about what that looks like, what it looked like for Simeon and Anna, what does that mean for us? How could we in a similar way in our lives be faithful and patient in waiting for our God who's faithful to us? That's what I want to think about today as we sort of apply this story that we're seeing. It says in James chapter 5, the guy that this up here is that as an example of suffering and patience, look at the prophets. So I didn't just make that up what I just said, if we need an example, we should look at the prophets and you know in our day we could also add to that, we should look back at Simeon and Anna, Simeon the prophet who arrived at the temple that day, we should look at him and his life and we see two older saints welcoming and expecting God no matter what that means for their life, that kind of Holy Spirit wrought patience that's so hard for us in our day and age, right, to be patient like that and then when you think about man I can't even be patient for next Tuesday, I'm reading about someone who is patient throughout their entire life, Simeon and Anna were waiting, look with me at verse 36 in Luke 2, back in Luke 2 and there was a prophetess Anna, the daughter of Fenuel of the tribe of Asher, Luke always adds those details because some people knew these folks and you could go talk to other people that knew them if they had passed away and so that's why he always adds those things. From the tribe of Asher, she was advanced in years having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin and then as a widow until she was 84 and she did not depart from the temple worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day and coming up at that very hour when Mary and Joseph arrived with the baby, she began to give thanks to God and to speak of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. So think about this woman, she had been married to her husband for seven years before he died and she was now 84 years old and so most theologians think that she had been waiting in the temple for nearly 60 years for the arrival of the Messiah. After her husband had died she had just devoted herself to praying in the temple and that kind of patience, that kind of perseverance doesn't come except through the Holy Spirit. That's not a common kind of patience right? And so she is sort of an example to us today. I'm going to talk more about her in a minute. Look with me at James chapter one where it talks to us about patience and perseverance. I think we have this up on the screen as well. You've heard this passage before so I want to read it to you again today. Count it all joy, verse two, count it all joy in my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and lets steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing. That Greek word that is translated for a steadfastness means a patient enduring. That's the Oxford definition of that word, a patient enduring. And it says let steadfastness have its full effect. That's a really interesting way that James would put that. Have you ever thought about that? That when you're waiting on the Lord, when maybe there's something that you're waiting on, God has given you something to do and it hasn't fully arrived yet, it hasn't fully matured yet in your life. But you know that it's what God's called you to. Have you thought about the fact that that endurance, that enduring is doing something in you? And James is telling us that you want to be patient enough to let that steadfastness, let that waiting have its full effect. Don't cut it short, don't take a shortcut out of it, but let that waiting do what it's supposed to do inside of you. It's a very difficult thing for us. But you know the definition of that word, a patient enduring through whatever it is, let steadfastness have its full effect. And when it says that you may be perfect, what he's talking about there is that your character would be made perfect and complete lacking in nothing. So the ways that, you know, if you think about yourself, man, there are things in my life that I don't like, I don't like how I, you know, maybe my temper, I don't like how I can fall into the sin, I don't like how maybe my relationships can become unhealthy. And that's been a thing in my life that things haven't always gone well relationally. Those things are being helped and spoken into by your patience and your enduring. That's why James says that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing. How am I going to fix that sin problem? How am I going to finally get over this difficulty that I have in relationships? Well, it might be through the character development of endurance and through waiting on the Lord and through staying with him and remaining faithful to him through whatever it is, maybe doing that is the method by which God is going to work on you with whatever problem you know, maybe just popped into your head when I was listing them off. How am I going to get better at that? How am I going to, you know, seek the Lord and stop seeking after these other things? Well, maybe it's through waiting on him. How am I going to be healthier in my relationships and stop, you know, my friendships are strange, you know, difficulties in my marriage. How are those things going to improve? Maybe through waiting on the Lord, waiting on him, enduring with him, knowing that he's got something for you in the waiting, namely your character improving and becoming perfect. That's oftentimes what God has for us. So we look at Simeon and Anna and we go, "Man, they waited for their whole life for the Messiah. What did that do to them?" Well, God was working in them the whole time. You know, maybe that's one of the ways I'm, this is speculation, maybe one of the ways that he helped Anna grieve and deal with the loss of her husband so young was that she was then waiting on the Lord and dedicated herself to him for years and years, perhaps. See, that's what God does. He uses those things in our lives. So I want to, there's two quotes as we close today and discuss this a little bit that I think help us. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 1 says, "Because we have this ministry, we do not lose heart." And so some of you maybe hear the story today, think about Simeon, think about Anna, think, yeah, I'm finding myself there. I'm really discouraged about this. I don't like waiting. I don't like feeling unfulfilled in my life for what I think God has for me. This isn't any fun. This isn't what I thought my life was going to be. One of the biggest challenges when we're waiting is that sense of disappointment, unmet expectations. And Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians, "Don't lose heart in those times." And so two quotes about that. John Flaval, a Puritan pastor, says this, "Christ looks down from heaven upon all my afflictions and understands them more fully than I feel them." Just let that sink in for a minute, that when we are discouraged, when we're waiting, when we're not sure what's going to happen and all of the big feelings that we have in that moment, we should feel them, we should process them well. Christ understands those feelings more fully than you're feeling them. Sometimes we think that our feelings in that moment become sovereign. Well, I'm disappointed. I'm angry. That's what's most important right now. I'm tired of waiting on this to be solved. That's what's most important. And we sort of stomp our foot with God at that moment. Well, guess what's deeper and more understanding than your emotions and your foot stomping? Christ understands and is with you in that. Christ understands those feelings more fully than you feel them. That's a comfort to me. I'm a person where my feelings can get out of control. I can get real wrapped up in something to the point where I either get angry or, you know, become short with my wife and my kids or maybe I just become really discouraged and I withdraw because I don't really want to be around other people or talk to people because I'm discouraged about something. All those big feelings Christ understands more fully than I feel them. Think about Anna again, how she must have felt and to know that Christ was with her in that. And another encouragement for us in the waiting, if you find yourself in this place today. Look at this little paragraph from Mark Vergop. It says, "The tension you feel as you try to simultaneously hope in heaven while living wholeheartedly in this life isn't necessarily an indicator of sinful discontentment. It may simply be evidence that you are a citizen of heaven living on earth." What does he mean by that? Well, we can sort of start to self-condem and go, "Hey, you know, I'm not really doing very well waiting right now. There's some things I want to happen. They're not happening. I'm not doing well with that." What he's saying there is that moment is not necessarily failure for you. It could just be the truth that there's a perfect kingdom coming where everything will be perfect and it's not here yet. Amen? It's not here yet. And so you are actually correct in being disappointed with the way things are because they aren't all that they should be yet. Now, what you do with that disappointment is the big question, right? That we talked about a little bit earlier, but don't get into self-condemnation mode of "Man, it's just really hard to wait. I don't feel like a very holy person. I feel like I'm helping anyone with my example because I'm just struggling with this." No, if you're struggling with it, it means that you're not home yet. Neither am I. And so there will be things that don't seem right to us and that's good and right. Jesus is with you in the waiting. As we said, he's doing something in the waiting. He's forming us, forming our character, forming who, all who were going to become, forming us into people who, by the way, will enjoy the new creation. Because if we're just, you know, if God hasn't worked on us at all, if our heart isn't changed and warm to the things of God and we're not people who want what's true and good and beautiful in the world, we're really going to hate heaven. Won't enjoy it at all where everything's beautiful and true and right. And so he's forming us into people who will actually affirm those things and love those things and live towards those things instead of the opposite. So he's with us. Jesus is with us in the waiting and he's doing something in the waiting. I want to think about Anna for just a minute. Again, this woman, most scholars think it was 60 years from when her husband passed away that she was here with Simeon and the baby Jesus that day and you could think to yourself, man, what a waste or what a horrible thing to go 60 years in grieving and in waiting for the Messiah. I mean, that just sounds terrible, right? I know, you might know people like that. I know someone where I think about this woman who I sang with years ago and I think, man, she, this woman had a very difficult life and it was one of those people where you would come up and you would see her at church and say, hey, how are you doing? Hey, how's it going? And you got to the point where you actually stopped doing that because you didn't want to hear what she had to say anymore to that question because, well, so-and-so is in a car wreck this week and, you know, struggling with this and I've been on some painkillers for this and that and none of this was dramatic, false. Now, this was all real. Like, she went through trial after trial after trial and I thought of her when I was reading this passage to go, man, what if there's someone who really just has a really difficult 50 years? Like not, I had a bad week or I had a bad junior year in school or, you know, had a bad season at that job, but what if somebody has a bad like 50 years? That's just so foreign from our concept and I think that what Simeon is saying here when the Messiah arrives and salvation has come is that if you, even if you had a bad 60 years, Christ has promised joy and fulfillment to you for the next 10,000 years and all of Revelation says all of our tears as you've read will be wiped away. And so I think most of us would probably go, yeah, I don't think I've had a bad 50 years. I think I've had some bad seasons but maybe not the whole time. Even if you did, God has eternity for you of all things being fulfilled and perfect joy and perfect creation and arms and legs that work the way that they're supposed to and relationships being healthy the way that they're supposed to and creation being perfect the way that it's supposed to. That's what God has for us even if we are waiting and waiting and disappointed with the way things are now. That's God's promise to us. You know, we sang some old hymns this morning, we have some more coming but isn't it funny how some of the older songs always have the verse about heaven, right? You know, how great thou art. We sang that last verse, it's all about the new creation, we're going to sing more later. Why is it that these days it seems like we don't want to talk about that quite so much anymore and years ago when they were writing hymns they wanted to talk about it in every single hymn, right? It is well with my soul, the great hymn of lament talks about everything when the trumpural sound and the Lord shall descend even so it is well with my soul, right? Like they all had that verse because we need to remember in our waiting, in our disappointment when that place of Anna of years and years waiting on the Lord that he's faithful to us and he's got good things planned for us. So that's an encouragement to us I think from this story as we think about waiting. I want us to think at our tables together about maybe what that's doing in us right now and you know a lot of times we can't see that except for in the past so you can think about, I wonder how when I was waiting for this one thing that now I have, what did that do in my life? How did that help me? I think it's a good thing to think about, it helps us be faithful and consistent into the future and we remember how God has formed us and what he did in the past. It's helpful for us. So I want us to think about that together and then we're going to come back together and worship as we close today. So let me pray for us and then we'll go to our tables and think about this together this morning. Father thank you for your word, thank you for this story being remembered and preserved for us through all these years of Simeon coming into the temple, rejoicing over Jesus, encouraging Mary and just reminding us that you are faithful. And even though it's been years and generations for them to see the Messiah and for us it's been years and it's been generations as we wait for your coming again God you have been faithful and you will be faithful to us and you are good to us and so we want to be people that wait well and know what it is to have patient endurance for all that you've said. We want to be those kind of people and Lord forgive us when we fall short of that, help us to continue to look forward and look to you and bless our time together now as we think about that together and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen let's go to our tables. Well we want to respond now this morning to God's word is Simeon prophesied that Jesus would be a light the light of the world to the Gentiles to the Jews and we want to respond now and as we do every week in a few ways one way we can respond is by the giving of our ties and offerings, the giving boxes there in the back if you'd like to do that today we're going to respond at the Lord's table together we're going to come and take the bread in the cup and remember Christ sacrificed for us and then we're going to also respond and sing today as we leave and so as we all stand and go to the table I just want to remind you that we practice open communion here and so if you are visiting today or from another church if you believe in Christ and you want to follow Christ we welcome you to the table in this place we want you to take the Lord's Supper with us today as we respond and then as we worship together as well and so let's stand together and respond in those three ways this morning and remember the grace of God in our lives today. (music)
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:How have you seen "steadfastness have it's full effect" in your life? How has waiting on the Lord affected you and helped you?How have you seen God's faithfulness in preserving You throughout your life, and in keeping his promises to You? Pray for anyone at your table who finds themselves waiting on the Lord, or finds themselves, like Mary, looking ahead to hard things.
