Immanuel Sermon Audio
Luke 2:22-52
Amen. Thank you guys. If you have a bulletin, you can take that out. There's an outline. If you'd like to follow along there. If you have your Bible, find the Gospel of Luke. Our passage this morning is Luke chapter 2 beginning in verse 22. If you weren't here last week for Christmas, you missed it. You're going to have to wait 143 more days for the real thing. But if you were here last week, you know that last week was pretty close to the real thing. We had lights and we had songs and we worshiped Jesus and that's Christmas. And so we had Christmas last week, but 143 more days till the real thing. One thing that is the same this week and will be the same throughout our study of the Gospel of Luke is Luke 19, 10, which says, "The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost." Every week we're going to talk about that because everything in the Gospel of Luke ties into that one big overarching theme that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. Our passage this morning, Luke 2, verse 22, all the way to the end of the chapter, verse 52, has two stories in it. Both stories about Jesus, both stories where Jesus is at the temple in Jerusalem. And both stories that teach us some important lessons and some important truths about who Jesus is and about what He came to do. And you can just sort of steal my thunder right now and you can say, "Well, He came to seek and to save the lost." And so you know everything we talk about this morning is going to tie in with that. In this passage that we're going to read in just a minute, there is the fourth of four original Christmas songs. And we've been looking at these over the last couple of weeks. We saw Mary's Magnificent. We saw Zechariah, father of John the Baptist. We saw his Benedictus. Last week we saw the angels in the Gloria and we sang several Christmas carols that include parts of what the angels sang. And this morning we're going to look at Simeon's New Demedus. And those are funny titles, but you remember if you've been here the last couple of weeks that they're taken from the Latin Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible. And it's just the first Latin word in each of those songs. Magnificent, Benedictus, Gloria, and then the last two words, or the first two words in Simeon's song, the New Demedus. And as we read this passage, it will be very obvious what Simeon means when he says those two words, which mean now you dismiss. And so we're going to see that in just a minute. Let me begin with the big idea of this particular passage. And here it is. Jesus came to fulfill the law of God so that he could save those who had broken the law of God. That's what Luke is hammering home in these two stories about Jesus and his trips to the temple. He came to fulfill the law of God so that he could save those who had broken the law of God. Verse 22, verse 23, verse 24, verse 27, verse 39. All of these verses make mention of the law of God. And when you're reading the Bible and you see something or you read something over and over again, it's repeated. That's because we're dense and God's trying to get through to us. And he's saying, this is important. Pay attention. This is important. Pay attention. This is important. Pay attention. And right in this passage, over and over and over again, Luke is saying, it's about the law. It's about the law. It's about the law. He came to fulfill the law so that he could save those who had broken the law. And so if you have your Bible, look with me at Luke chapter 2, beginning in verse 22 and we will read to the end of the chapter. This is the word of God. When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord. Pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. 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 custom of the law, he that Simeon took him, that is Jesus, up in his arms and he 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 his mother marveled at what was said about him. And 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, a sword will pierce through your own soul also so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Fanul, 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. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day, and coming up at that very hour, she began to give thanks to God and speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. And when they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee to their own town of Nazareth and the child grew and became strong, with wisdom and the favor of God was upon him. Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when he was 12 years old, they went up according to custom. And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents didn't know it, but supposing him to be in the group, they were a day's journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances. And when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem searching for him. For three days, they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them, and asking questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, "Son, why have you treated us so? Behold your father and I have been searching for you in great distress." And he said to them, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father's house?" And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Jesus. And we thank You for Your Word for the gospel of Luke that tells us the story of His birth and His life and His mission, His death, His resurrection, the hope that He's coming back for us. And Father, we pray this morning that as we look at these stories from the life of Jesus, You would give us ears to hear truth, give us hearts to receive it. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. It's a simple passage, simple stories. There's just a couple of things we need to try to wrap our minds around. One is, how and especially in His early years, did Jesus fulfill the law of God? And why is that important? Secondly, thinking about this story of Jesus being left at the temple and what that means for us. And then lastly, how should we respond to Jesus? So question number one, this is on your outline. How did the early years of Jesus' life fulfill the law of God? And we're going to move through these quickly. The first way is that Jesus was circumcised. This is actually in a verse that we read last week, verse 21. And most English Bibles have a break between verse 21 and 22. But verse 21 is sort of part of this passage. And it says that Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day. And He was given the name Jesus just as the angel said. This goes back to Genesis 17, where God told Abraham to circumcise all of the males in his family. It goes back to Leviticus 12, where God told Israel to circumcise their sons on the eighth day. And Luke is saying, look, in perfect fulfillment of what God said to do on this issue of circumcision, Jesus has fulfilled the law. Secondly, Mary was purified. Mary was purified. This goes back to Leviticus 12. And there were instructions about after childbirth, if a woman had a son, she would be unclean for a certain period of time. And when that time was over, she would go to the tabernacle or to the temple. And she would offer two sacrifices. One would be a lamb. The other would be a dove or a pigeon. A lamb was pretty expensive in those days. And so there was a provision for the poverty stricken for those who were underprivileged and said, if you can't afford a lamb and a bird, you can bring two birds. And we read here, interestingly, that Mary in her poverty brings not a lamb and a bird, but two birds. She cannot afford a lamb for the sacrifice and don't miss the irony in her arms. She is carrying the lamb of God who would one day take away the sins of the world. But she brings her offering of these two birds, and she fulfills this law of purification. Number three, the firstborn was redeemed. The firstborn was redeemed, Exodus 13. After the Passover, you remember the firstborn of Egypt were killed, the firstborn of Israel were spared, and God, after that happened, laid claim on the firstborn, he said, these are mine, and you must redeem them back for me. And it was a small price that had to be paid, but we read in verse 23, a quotation. Luke quotes Exodus 13, quoting this passage to say to us, look, this requirement of the law was fulfilled perfectly by Jesus. Number four, the firstborn was consecrated. Jesus was the firstborn. Mary took him to consecrate him. This is in fulfillment of 1 Samuel 1 and 2. You remember the story where Hannah had prayed for a child. She eventually had Samuel, and she took him to the tabernacle and dedicated him, consecrated him for special service to the Lord. And Luke indicates in verse 27, and again in verse 39, that Mary and Joseph were very careful to fulfill all the commands and all the examples set forth in the law. And so Jesus was circumcised, Mary was purified, the firstborn was redeemed, the firstborn was consecrated, and number five, the Passover was celebrated. Exodus 12. God had told his people, you will celebrate the Passover, you do it on this day of this month, and you remember that I'm the one who brought you out of Egypt, you do this forever. And it says here in the text, Luke indicates that Mary and Joseph were very careful, their custom was to travel to Jerusalem to celebrate this feast as the law prescribed. Now that's a quick run through, and you can go back and read all of those references and all of those verses. Here's why it matters. I want to put a verse up on the screen, Galatians 4. It says when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. In the context of Galatians, here's what Paul is saying, all of us would love to be adopted into God's family. We want to be brought into the family of God. For that to happen, Jesus had to die in our place. He had to take our punishment. He had to be cursed for us. And before Jesus could take our place on the cross, Paul is reminding us he was born under the authority of the law. And this makes sense because what is our problem? Why do we need Jesus to die for us and to take our death and to take our curse? It's because we've broken the law. We haven't kept it. We haven't fulfilled it. We haven't obeyed it. Not in our words, not in our hearts, not in our actions. We have broken God's law. And Paul says, look, Jesus came, born under the law. The fullness of time he was born of a woman, born under the law, and he fulfilled it perfectly in the big things and in the little things. Not once in his thoughts, in his words or his actions. Did he do say or think anything that violated the law of God? And Luke is saying, look, that applies even to the minute minutia of the law relating to his birth and his dedication and the circumcision and the purification and the feasts and all of these things, he perfectly fulfilled the law so that when the time came, he was a fit and perfect substitute. Not only did he die for us, but he also lived for us. He took our punishment and he took the curse that should have fallen in us. But before he did that, in his life, he earned the righteousness that we need to stand before God. And Paul's reminding us that in the fullness of time, he was born under the law to redeem those who were also under the law. Now in Luke 2, as we read this story about Jesus and the temple and these two trips, the cross is a long ways away and Luke hops around a little bit and he goes from when Jesus is eight days old to when Jesus is 12 years old and then he's going to jump ahead from when he's 12 to when he's a grown man and he begins his ministry. And it does make you wonder, when you think about Jesus, the baby, the child, the teenager, the adult, obeying God's law perfectly, you wonder, what did it look like when he was a kid? Any of your kids obeyed the law of God perfectly? None of mine. You wonder, what was that like? What was it like for Jesus? What was it like for Mary? What was it like for Joseph? How did all of that work out? I read about some interesting kids this week. Did a little bit of research on special children. I read about a guy named, my French is going to be embarrassing, but John Louis cardiac. John Louis cardiac. Couldn't find a picture of this guy, but he learned the alphabet by the time he was three months old. Three months old, he could recite the alphabet. By the time he was four years old, he could read Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Four years old. I read about a kid you've probably heard of this one, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. That's a picture or a painting of young Mozart. By the time he was three years old, he could play the piano by ear. A couple of years later, he was composing his own music. A year after that, he was composing symphonies. By about the age of eight or nine, he was touring Europe as a concert pianist, brilliant prodigy child. I read about John Stewart Mill, and I found a picture of him as a child, but I like this picture better. So if you want to know what he looks like as a kid, you can Google that and you can find it. John Stewart Mill, but I thought this was a better picture of John Stewart Mill, taught himself by the age of eight, Greek, Latin, geometry, and algebra, self-taught by the age of eight. Here's a good one. Truman, Henry, saffered, and it looks like he's deep in thought there. He was a math prodigy, and when he was ten years old, they had a sort of an exhibit or an exhibition or a performance, and they asked him in his mind to calculate the square root of 365 trillion, 365 billion, 365 million, 365,000, 365. Calculate the square root of that number in your head. Took him 60 seconds, and he could give the answer. Amazing math prodigy. Here's a good one. William James Situs couldn't find a picture of him as a child, but that's him as a young man. His IQ was over 200. When he was 18 months old, he could read the New York Times cover to cover, 18 months old reading the New York Times. He spoke Latin, Greek, French, Russian, Hebrew, Turkish, and Armenian by the age of eight, and by the age of 11, he was installed as a math professor at Harvard, 11 years old, math professor at Harvard. So I read about all these kids, and I just want to know what can your kids do. They're five, and they can say the alphabet and mumble through L-M-N-O-P. That's awesome. That's really good. Amazing kids. And you think about Jesus, the Son of God, and you sort of want to step back and say, "What could he do?" And throughout church history, there have been people who are uncomfortable with this answer. He was a regular kid. He didn't show up in Bethlehem, in the manger, in the shepherds, and the wise men come around, and he sort of sits up and gives a lecture on advanced calculus. It's not part of the Christmas story. There's nothing that indicates that he was uniquely intelligent, some sort of child prodigy, and that has made some people uncomfortable. And so throughout church history, there's been people who have sort of made up stories, tall tales, legends about things that Jesus the child did. And some of them you sort of listen to, and you laugh at, some of them you listen to, and you say, "Well, that sounds like he broke the law of God. He sinned. He did something wrong." And I had a whole list, and I thought I would share some of them with you, and I started to write them down, and I thought, "You know what? It's too irreverent. They're silly. They're ridiculous. They're preposterous. They don't fit with anything you read about Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John." So I don't want to dignify him by talking about him this morning, but what Luke is telling us is that he was a regular kid. He had to grow up. He had to learn. He had to obey his parents. He did these things perfectly without sin, but he had to learn and grow up, and he was a normal child. And we don't have any stories. We would love to have them. We don't have any stories from the manger, from Bethlehem, until his baptism, except one, except this one right here, in this trip to Jerusalem. And you're familiar with the story. This is one of the first stories we teach kiddos in Sunday school, and we have the pictures or the flannel graph or whatever to teach the story. It's very simple. Every year they went to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. Traveling in those days was dangerous, so they traveled as a group. And typically the women and the younger children would be in the front, the men and the older children would be in the back. And so they traveled to Jerusalem. They celebrate the Passover. They get ready to leave. And Jesus is sort of on the bubble of which group does he travel with. He's 12 years old, which for a Jewish boy is sort of on the fence. And so they get ready to head home. And Joseph says, "Well, I don't seem, but he must be with the women and the children out front." Mary says, "I don't seem, but he must be with the men in the back." And they head off down the road. And finally they realize that they have left him. He's not with anybody. And so they turn around and they go back to Jerusalem. Listen, if you're a parent, you've done something like this at some point in time. Maybe not this exactly, but I think this is in the Bible just to say to parents, "It's okay. Your kid doesn't need counseling forever because you made one mistake. You haven't scarred them for life because you made one accidental mistake." And so they go back, they find him. And so many times I remember hearing the story of they go back and Jesus is teaching in the temple. But that's not what Luke says. That would have been highly offensive to everyone in the temple for a child to stand up and teach. What Luke says is they go back and he is with the teachers and they're talking and Jesus is listening and Jesus is asking questions and they're asking questions of him and they are impressed with his answers. But Jesus isn't giving a theology lecture in the middle of the temple. He's there and he's learning and he's listening and Mary comes up and literally what she says in the Greek is, "How could you do this to us? How could you do this to us? What would a disrespectful child have said?" "You're the parent. What have I done to you? You're the one that left me here. What have you done to me? I'm scarred for life. From now on, I'm going to have abandonment issues. You left me in Jerusalem at the temple. Instead, he looks at his parents and although it sounds like a rebuke, what he says to them is, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I had to be here in my father's house?" That's interesting because Mary walks up and says, "Your father and I have been looking for you." And Jesus says, choosing his words very intentionally, "Why are you looking? Didn't you know that I had to be in my father's house?" An interesting story. What do we learn from it? How did Jesus experience in the temple reveal his identity in his mission? First thing is this, Jesus acknowledged that God was his father. In fact, this is the first time in the Bible that anyone explicitly and openly said, "God is my father in a unique and special way." Up to this point, it had never happened. The first recorded words of Jesus are Jesus saying to his earthly mother and his earthly father, "Did you not know that I had to be in my father's house?" Now, we hear that differently than they heard it in Jesus' day. What we hear is, "Well, God is your father. You're saying that you're a child of God, a son of God. Of course you are. We're all children of God." That's sort of the idea in the United States of America. If you believe in God, he's sort of the heavenly father up there looking down on all of us. And we're all his children, red, yellow, black, and white. We're all sons and daughters of God. Of course, God your father. What are you talking about? He's all of our father. Nobody talked like this in Jesus' day. We hear Jesus say, "God is my father." And we hear Jesus saying, "I'm a little bit below God. My ranking is below him." But that's not what he's saying at all. When Jesus says, "God is my father and I am God's son," what he's saying is, "I'm God." People knew this in Jesus' day. When their dogs had puppies, they weren't lesser dogs than the dog they started with. They were real dogs. And when their cows had calves, they weren't lesser cows than their parents, the mom or the dad, the cow or the bull. They were real cows. And Jesus is saying, "Look, I'm the son of God. I am God's son. He is my father. I'm God." You remember last week, we talked about Augustus Caesar who divinized his father Julius. Why did he do it? Because if his father was a God, then he became what? The son of God. And in his mind, and in everyone else's mind, that didn't mean that he was God. B, that meant that he was God just like his father is God. Jesus says to Mary and Joseph, and for everyone listening, "Did you not know that I had to be here in my father's house?" And what he is literally saying to his mom and his dad is, "I understand that you are my mom and your dad, and I'm going to go home with you, and I'm going to be submissive to you." Luke tells us that that happened. But you also need to understand that I'm not just your son. I'm also God's son in a unique and a special way. That leads us to the second thing you need to understand about this trip to the temple. Jesus acknowledged that he had a mission. He had a mission. Here's what Jesus said to his parents, "Did you not know that I must be in my father's house?" "I must be here." You can just underline that word "must." And we're not going to flip through the gospel of Luke, but you might want to jot these scriptures down. Let me tell you some other passages where Jesus said, "I must do something." Luke 4, 43, Jesus said, "I must preach the good news." Luke 9, 22, he said, "The Son of Man must suffer many things." Luke 13, 33, "I must go to Jerusalem, even though I know that when I get there they're going to slaughter me. I must go." Luke 17, 25, he said, "I must suffer and I must be rejected." Luke 22, 37, "I must be numbered as a transgressor." Was he a transgressor? Absolutely not. But he was numbered as one. He was counted as one because he was taking our place. He said, "It must happen." Luke 24, 7, "I must be delivered to sinful men and crucified and rise again three days later." In all of those passages, Jesus is talking about Luke 19, 10. And what he's saying is, "I have come to seek and to save the lost." There are things that I must do. I am going to teach. I am going to heal. I am going to make some friends along the way. I am going to be submissive to you while I'm growing up, but make no mistake about it. I'm not here to be a carpenter. I am here to seek and to save the lost and these things must happen. That leads us to the last thing you need to see from this passage. It's about Simeon and Anna. The worshipful responses of Simeon and Anna remind us that Jesus came to seek and save the lost. When you listen to what flows out of their mouths, you're reminded Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. Somehow God had told Simeon that before he died, he would see the Messiah in the flesh. And somehow, as he's in the Holy Spirit, as he's in commune with God, he sees this family come into the temple and somehow he knows this is him. This is the Messiah. And Luke tells us that he takes Jesus in his arms and he blesses the parents and he says, "Seeing this child is seeing the very revelation of God. He's the Son of God. This is God. I'm holding God in human flesh." And he says, "I have now seen God's salvation. I'm looking at this child and I have seen the salvation of God." And he says to Mary and to Joseph, he says, "This child will cause a division among people. Some will rise and some will fall. Some will believe in him. Some will harden their hearts toward him. He will divide men. He will divide people." And he says, "It's going to come with suffering." And he looks at Mary and he says, "A sword will pierce your soul. If you've lost a child, if you know someone who's lost a child, you know the pain of what Mary eventually went through." And Simeon says, "It's not all going to be easy. It's not all going to be fun and delightful. This is the salvation of God. This is the revelation of God, but suffering is in store for this child and also for this family." Here's the coolest thing about Simeon. It's the song that he sings. When he breaks out in song in the middle of the temple and he's holding this baby, and the first thing he says is nuke to meet us. That's in the Latin, but what he says first is, "Now you dismiss your servant in peace." In other words, now that I've seen this, I'm ready to go. The text indicates that he was an old man. We don't know that for certain, but whether he was old or whether he was in the prime of life, shouldn't that be the way all of us are? Shouldn't you say to God, "I have met Jesus." I know Jesus. And now as a consequence, my agenda is clear. And my calendar is not all that important. And my bucket list can be watered up and thrown in the trash, because from this point forward, now that I've met the son of man who came to seek and to save me, the lost, nothing else matters. Of course, I have concerns here, and I have connections here and friendships and family here, but ultimately at the end of the day, once you've met Jesus, nothing else matters. And Simeon got that, and he says, "I've seen the revelation of you. I've seen your salvation. I'm ready to go." Anna hears it. And the text tells us that she was an older lady, depending on how you translate the Greek in your version. It may be a little bit different, but she was at least 84 years old. And the text says that she walked up to Simeon, to Jesus, to Mary, to Joseph. She began to give thanks to God, and she began to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. An amazing sight to see is his young family walks in with the baby, and these two people in the temple, Simeon, Anna, break out in worship. Think about their worship. Were they worshiping God because he had made their life easy? Were they worshiping God because he had given them something they had prayed for over and over, something selfishly they wanted for their own life? Were they worshiping God because he had blessed their bank account? Were they worshiping God because they had got good news at the last physical? None of that was on their mind. Simeon, Anna, in the temple of God, see God himself carried in. They see the very revelation of God. They see God's salvation in the Messiah, and their response is worship. The consolation of Israel is here. The redemption of Jerusalem has arrived, and they respond in worship. This morning, very, very simply, that's what we're calling you to do. To see Jesus for who he is, the revelation of God, God in human flesh, come to seek and to save the lost. Understand that that was his mission, that there were things that he had to do. He had to be about his father's business, and when you see that, realize ultimately nothing else in my life matters, and my response to Jesus needs to be worship. I'm going to ask you to bow, I'm going to ask you to pray with me. As we ask God to bless the remainder of this service, as we sing, as we praise him, as we lift up the name of Jesus, Father, what a privilege to read your word. What a privilege to read true history about what you have done in this world. Father, we believe that the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Father, we admit to you that we have broken your law, that we are guilty under the law. Father, we need the righteousness of Jesus to be applied to our lives. We need our punishment to be counted as paid at the cross. We thank you that Jesus came to fulfill the law so that he could save those of us, all of us who were guilty of breaking your law. Father, I pray for the folks that are here this morning. Father, a lot of these people know Jesus and they love Jesus. Father, our prayer is that as we sing and as we leave, that we would love him more, that we would be committed to him in a new way, that we'd be able to agree with Asaf and saying that there is no one in heaven other than you that we desire. There is nothing on this earth that we desire other than knowing you. Father, we pray for those who are here this morning who do not have a personal relationship with Jesus. Maybe they've gone to church. Maybe they've done religious things. Father, maybe they have not grown up in a God-fearing family. Maybe they have never been to church. Maybe they don't know all of the things that take place on a worship service and it's all new to them. But Father, for those who are here who do not know your Son, we pray that you would reveal Jesus to them, that you would open their hearts, that they would see Jesus as the revelation of you and that they would see Jesus' salvation sent from heaven. Father, we want to sing and as we sing, we pray that you would receive our worship. We pray that your spirit would work in our hearts. We pray that the name of Jesus would be lifted up. Father, be honored, be glorified. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.