Brothers and sisters, it's wonderful to be with you today worshiping our God.
I was reminded in our responsive reading, and it was good for me to hear, I pray it was also good for you to repeat and to hear Paul's words to Timothy as He says, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, and knowing that his presence is among us right now. He said, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching.
We are continuing to look at the gospel of Luke as we have been systematically going through the gospel. We are in chapter two. So if you would turn there and copy of God's word. We are looking at the last verses of the early life or the infancy life of Jesus. We've looked at his birth and now we are coming to verse 36, I think for the context to help us recall where we are, and we're looking at the firstborn being presented at the temple, let's pick up in verse 22. In fact, we'll pray before we read. Fathers, we come to the gospel of Luke.
I pray that your spirit would work amongst us that you would help us to be receptive to your word, that, Father, you would rebuke us where needed, that you would instruct us, that you would exhort us with much patience and longsuffering. Lord, help us, I pray. Teach us, I pray. Reveal yourself to us. Lord, may we see our Redeemer. It's in His name that we pray. Amen. Well, I'll pick up in verse 22. We've been in this passage for a while, but let's see it as a whole. Verse 22, we'll read to verse 40. Hear the word of the Lord.
And when the days of their purification, according to the law of Moses, were completed, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every firstborn male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord, Yahweh, and to offer a sacrifice according to what was said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.
And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. And this man was righteous and devout, looking 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 the child Jesus to carry out for him the custom of the law, then he took him into his arms and blessed God and said, now Lord, you are releasing your bondservant to depart in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light of revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel. And his father and mother were amazed at the things which were being said about him. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel and for a sign to be opposed. And a sword will pierce even your own soul to the end that the thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.
Verse 36, and there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher, She was advanced in years and had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage. And then as a widow to the age of 84, she never left the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers. At that very moment, she came up and began giving thanks to God and continued to speak of Him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. when they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own city of Nazareth. The child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. Amen. Thus ends the reading of the word of God. I pray that the Holy Spirit would impart it to each of our hearts this morning. The title of our message this morning, it is Recognizing the Redeemer. Recognizing the Redeemer.
And as I looked at this text, when we're coming to verse 36 and 40, and I was considering, well, how will these two sections tie into each other? And what I want us to see is two aspects of our Redeemer. I want us to see the humanity of the Redeemer, as well as the divinity or the deity. And within the humanity, I want us to see the personal growth of Jesus. Within the deity, I want us to see the prophetic recognition of Jesus, the recognizing of this child and who he was. So we're going to take it in reverse order. We're going to look at the humanity first, the humanity of Jesus.
And the more that I studied the humanity of Jesus, I realized it's a vast topic. I knew this to be. I think it would be wise of us even as a church maybe to consider maybe on a Sunday school of taking the humanity of Jesus and the deity of Jesus and dividing it up and going through maybe even an eight-week study or a four-week study. There's much to gain of understanding the humanity, the two natures of God, of Jesus, the two natures of Jesus, I should say, the second person of the Trinity, of his humanity and his deity and the many heresies that have come over the years that have gone against what the Bible says. In fact, we'll even get to this in 1 John when many in the early early days of the church and there was heresy of, well, he wasn't really human. They had no doubt that he was God, the early Christians, but there became some doubt understanding the humanity. And now, even today, we see that. We also see more on the other front of those who say that Jesus is not God that are much heresies. We'll talk about that at a different time. I'm not going to be able to cover everything regarding this. But let us look, and first we come to the humanity of Jesus, the personal growth of Jesus.
His parents are spoken of here in verse 39, when they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord. The parents of Jesus were Jewish parents who were very pious. They were devout. They desired to follow what God had said. Everything according to the law. Not according to their own understanding, but according to what God has said. And here the parents, they return to their place of origin. Recall that Jesus grew up in Nazareth. This is where Joseph and Mary lived in Jesus' life. They'd gone to Bethlehem, according to the scriptures, where Jesus was born.
Now there's a tidbit here I must share. It says they returned to Galilee to their own city of Nazareth. And you might say, well, what about the kings from the east that came? Well, it would have been right around in between this portion of verse 39. It would have been after the occasion at the temple where they the firstborn was dedicated, the purification ceremony of Mary, and they would probably have gone back to Bethlehem, and then Matthew tells us of where the wise men had come to see the baby, the Christ. And then after that, sometime they would have given the vision of the angel, remember? And they said that Herod was gonna kill all the firstborn, so they went to Egypt. And then they would have gone back to Nazareth. But Luke here is telling us much that's not told in other of the Gospels. And we're so blessed to have all of the Gospels to see, to hear, and to know what God has revealed about His Redeemer, our Redeemer.
But let's look at the personal growth of Jesus. It says the child continued to grow. I pray that God would open our hearts to better comprehend the personal growth. We might first say, well, we know Jesus is God. We know this to be true. But then we think, well, he grew? He continued to grow? And so we're apt to think, something that we ought not think. We need to be careful when we come to this.
Now, we're not told much of his early life at all. In fact, we'd like to know more, probably. But the scripture is sufficient to tell us all we need to know. Charles Simeon, another preacher from the 1800s, he says, there is little related of him, Christ, to gratify our curiosity at his early stage.
But there's enough to regulate our conduct. And there's much instruction really for all of us, for young people, the people in our congregation today who are still in the home. There is much instruction for us and all of us have at one time been in the home. Maybe some of us are parents now, some grandparents, but there's much exhortation for us to know that Jesus was a baby, that Jesus was a four-year-old and a six-year-old and a nine-year-old and we'll see next week is a 12-year-old.
I skipped numbers, he was all of these in order. Eight and nine, he didn't go from seven to nine. That is important though, because we might think, well, all of a sudden he's God and boom, he just became, well no, he grew. And so he didn't skip year eight. He went through year eight.
Now he was a perfect humanity of a six-year-old. as perfect as a six-year-old could ever be, Jesus was, and as a seven-year-old. But he still grew in phases. He grew in his human nature. He grew. He was sinless. That's hard for us to understand what a sinless seven-year-old looks like, those of you who have seven-year-olds. It's hard to understand. And he had brothers. They probably didn't understand this sinless Jesus either.
But he did grow in his body, in his mind. We're gonna talk more about this even next week. But it says he continued to grow and become strong. His bones grow, his muscles grew, his mind developed without sin. In fact, there's been no child ever before to have grown in a perfection of a way like this. But there was progress. He grew mentally. It says he increased.
That's hard for us to understand. Well, if he's God and he increased, well, now his divine nature did not increase. But recall, it says that he emptied himself. Coming in the form of a man, Philippians 2, helps us understand this mystery of the incarnation. It is mysterious.
To someone that says, I have this figured out, this is exactly how, I'm weary of that, because this is, it's more than our minds can understand. And many people say, well, my mind can't understand it, so therefore it can't be. Well, you're not the judge.
God is, and in his sovereign plan, this is how he accomplished redemption. He came in sending himself, the second person of the Trinity, who became man. He never started to become God. He was always God. But at a point in time, he came to be man and forever the God-man.
This is a vast topic, and I'm probably just gonna say enough to confuse us today. As I said, I think we need about an eight-week time to look at both of these natures. true humanity of Jesus, we must be careful about it or we can easily fall into heresy, thinking something that is not. We need to think of this like when we know Jesus is the true temple, and a temple, let's consider it to have two walls that support everything, the structure of it, you engineers.
And the structure, you have the humanity and the deity, and they uphold what we know to be our Redeemer, and we must hold them in equalness, not slope them one way or the other, or confuse them. In fact, our confession helps us with that, that it's two natures. They're not confused. They're not mixed. It is a deep mystery to understand the person of the Lord Jesus. But to be doctrinally sound, we must hold them together in tension. There is a tension there between these things. He was born into creation. He was born as a baby we saw earlier in the beginning of Luke chapter 2, an infant.
Eight-year-old, or now we're to the 40-day-year-old, excuse me, we're at the temple 40 days and here the child is here and it says that he continued to increase, to develop. He didn't sit around as a four-year-old around the table with his mother talking about the deeper things of theology. He probably asked simple things that a four-year-old would ask.
And he learned. He learned from the instruction we're going to find next week as a 12-year-old at the temple. There was a personal growth. I was helped remembering and reading back to B.B. Warfield. He was the president of Princeton back in the 1800s.
And he said this, Jesus was how men ought to grow up. how they ought to grow up if men were not sinners. And this is how men would grow up if they weren't sinners. This is the pinnacle of growth. And so if we're looking for an example, you young people, as you grow on how that is, it would be to look at Jesus's life, to understand the humanity of Jesus.
He came into a sin-cursed world. He faced the same temptations that you face, yet without sin. He had to exercise the same faith, you who are believers, learning obedience by the things that he suffered, the scripture says. This is Jesus in his human nature. He had the mind of a man in his human nature. He had the heart of a man and the soul of a man. He was perfect in his humanity. He was perfect in his deity. He was 100% man and 100% God.
You are learning mathematics in school that doesn't add up, but this is divine mathematics of how God has worked to send his own son to save our soul. It should elicit in us adoring gaze. It should elicit in us worship of who this great God is. B.B. Werfel said this, it's not a humanized God or a deified man, but the true God-man, the one unique, the one who will never be able to be compared to.
Oh, the wisdom of God. Warfield says, because he is man, he is able to pour out his blood. Well, before I start this, you ought to think, well, why did he have to be man? Why did he have to be God? Because he needed to be, to be the Redeemer. How is this? Because he is man, he is able to pour out his blood. True, real blood. True flesh.
And because he is God, his blood is of infinite value to save. and that it is only because he is both God and man in one person that we can speak of God purchasing his church with his own blood, Acts 2.28. And so I pray that today and every day that we behold the man Jesus Christ, God in flesh, truly amazing, humanly incomprehensible, almost to the degree that we can't even wrap our minds around it, the true humanity of Jesus. But it is necessary. It is completely necessary that he be truly human.
It says he increased in wisdom. The Greek word for wisdom, one of our families probably knows it, Sophia. Sophia is the name for wisdom. If that is your name, you are named after wisdom. True wisdom is found in Jesus Christ. Another, and the grace of God was upon him. That word is Hannah or Anna. Hannah. We're going to look at that and that will actually pivot us into the next part of this sermon and we come to the deity. We come to looking at this prophetic recognition of Jesus. Last week we looked at Simeon and Simeon recognized the Christ child.
He says he came in the spirit and what does it say? He says, now Lord you are releasing your bondservant to depart in peace according to your word for my eyes have seen your salvation. which you have prepared in the presence of all people, a light of revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel.
Remember how amazed the mother and father were about these things that were said about the child. Almost as if they had for a second forgotten who this child was. Maybe as a 12-year-old they might have forgotten the identity for a moment there too when we come to this next week. But he said, Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed, and a sword will pierce even your own soul to the end that thoughts may be revealed.
But notice it says in verse 36, And there was a prophetess, It says here later, it says, she came into the temple at the very moment. So think of the scene, Mary and Joseph coming in, just according to the law, they're not expecting anything big. And all of a sudden Simeon comes and first surprising thing, he grabs the child. I'm sure the mother was like, what are you doing?
And raises the child. and proclaims this prophetic word, and at the same time, Anna comes in. And let's look at this Anna, Anna who we know, Hannah would have been the Jewish, or excuse me, Anna the Jewish, Hannah the Greek. Hannah was the mother of Samuel, and her name means grace. Notice what it tells us about this Anna, it gives us some, Some background.
But it's noteworthy, before I go further, when Luke mentions, he only mentions two saints here. He mentions Simeon and Anna. These are only two lone Jewish believers that he relays to us who are looking for the redemption of Israel, who are looking for Messiah. And from this we learn that whatever truly belongs to the Lord might be small in number. It might be insignificant in the eyes of the world, but to God it's not. To God, He has placed in the pages of Scripture for all eternity these two saints. These two that are given honor above all the masses of the priests and the Sadducees and the mighty people, the places of prominence and position, they're not named here. But Simeon and Anna are. Let's look at Anna, her remarkable testimony, her witness. And first we come to her circumstance. She's the daughter of Phanuel, the tribe of Asher. So she's of the people of Israel.
Notice it says next, her circumstance, she is advanced in years. That means old. Nice way of saying old. But look else, she lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, so she was married young as they normally would in that time, and her husband died early. What it tells us here, and I think Luke is helping us to know the devoutness of this lady, is she remained a widow, Paul talks about widows in one of his epistles and talks about those who are truly widows. She was about the things of the Lord. She was not about what's best for me and I'll go look after my life now, but she was devoted to the Lord. It says, and then a widow to the age of 84.
So she never left the temple. Now, obviously, it's hyperbolic language. She was there often. But when the doors were open, when the people of God were there, she was there. She wasn't one to stay home. She wasn't one to make excuses, but she was there. Day and night, it says. There was nightly gatherings. There was daily gatherings.
Look at her practice, her practice of fasting and prayer. Fasting always goes along with prayer. Fasting is just assumed in the Bible. It doesn't mean you fast all of the time, but believers will do so to help us to pray. It's not something done in isolation. Well, look Lord, I've fasted. Fasting helps us to focus on our prayer life, our commune with God. Helps us to really understand that we do not depend on God. on physical food, but we depend on Christ as our food and the Word of God.
And it says that she was serving in the temple, never leaving, with fasting and prayers. And she was one to testify to God. We see what she was doing at the very moment she came up. So here she is, she's coming up to the temple, she's giving thanks to God and she sees the child. She sees Simeon, I'm sure, lifting the child up and she, by the Holy Spirit, is given the same recognition where she recognizes the Redeemer.
This is the one whom we have been waiting for. This is the one who would be the redemption of Jerusalem. That phrase, redemption of Jerusalem, is much like the consolation of Israel, the comfort of Israel. That there was a Redeemer coming, and they, by the Spirit, recognized. There was no, don't think some strange idea that there was this halo over Jesus' head, or He had some special glow. He was a child like any other, but The Spirit of God allowed these two saints to recognize who this truly was. And Anna recognizes the Redeemer. Notice she says that she began giving thanks to God.
This is what she was always about doing. And she continued to speak of Him. Him is capitalized in my text. Him, speak of Him, of Christ, to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. There might not have been many, there might not have been numbers, but she was speaking of Christ. She was looking for Christ.
She had eyes of faith to know that God would send the Redeemer in His own time. Look at her, her true faith. She walked not by sight, but she walked by faith. Her name, Grace, would enable, would Proclaim what she was, that she was looking for the unmerited favor of God and the Redeemer. And Anna recognized the Redeemer. She saw God in human flesh. She knew this was no ordinary child, but this was God come in human flesh. She didn't need to completely understand it to believe. She had eyes of faith to believe. She believed what God had said, and she took with her own eyes the God whom she had continually served, and now she sees Him.
What joy must that have brought? How much, how should her proclamation have been after seeing, laying eyes on Him? I'm sure it was the same for Simeon. The joy that was in their heart to realize that, God, You have given me this privilege to lay eyes upon Him. The God who she worshiped in spirit and truth was now in the same room and she beheld him. This reaction, what should our reaction be?
You will not be able to hold him in your hands, but have you grasped him by faith? Have you seen Jesus in the word of God and took hold of him by faith? Believed upon him, thrown yourself upon him. The Bible, God calls us to believe in the Savior, to take Him with eyes of faith, to take hold of Him, and then to speak of Him and to spoke of Him in a celebratory fashion, telling of what the Scriptures have said.
I'm sure opening up passages in the Old Testament, this is He. This is the one we've been waiting for. This is the long-awaited Messiah. And she continued to serve Him, continued to speak of Him, as if there wasn't any other conversation worth having but to speak of the Redeemer.
Is that what our lives look like? Do we desire when we are at work to speak to those about Christ? Of course we love to on the Lord's day when we are together, but do we do that throughout our week? Are we about that from sunup to sundown? speaking to God in prayer and speaking to others about God in our witness, in our testimony.
Some might think, Anna, what a wasted life. I mean, here she was, her husband died early and she just spent all her days at the temple. Oh, there's so many things she could have done. This was a life well lived. This was a life recorded in scripture. A life that God is giving honor to, that she spent her life for what is eternal. She knew that the short life, however long it was, 84 years, was but a breath compared to eternity. And she longed to see God. She longed to be with God, to fellowship with God's people, to be among the saints. hear the word proclaimed. She had a heart for God, for she had been given a new heart.
And none of us come into this world with this heart like Anna has, but when we are redeemed, when we are saved by faith alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone, he gives us a new heart and a new fervor. I pray that you have a fervor like Anna, like Simeon, that you are excited for the things of God. If you are not, if you just, Come this Lord's day with grimness in your face and, oh, no, I guess I got to go do this again. You need to check yourself. You need to look to the Redeemer again. You need to check your own heart.
Same regarding our witness. Are we exuberant about telling others what God has revealed to us and seeing others saved to the glory of God? in speaking about the things of God, what we learn from Scripture, what we hear from the pulpit, what we hear in the teaching of the Bible. Lastly, I want us to think, do we have expectations like these two saints? Like Simeon and Anna, expecting to see Him, longing to see Him. The Bible says that Christ is coming again, that He is soon to return. Do you have eyes of expectation? Your testimony, your witness will reveal how expectant you are.
Because if you are letting sinners go to hell as you go about your day, you are not very expectant that Christ is coming. If you are expecting Christ to come, if you are, as we heard in 2 Timothy, longing for His appearing, then you will be, I want to say frantic, but urgent to tell people about the Savior, to see them come to saving faith, to not let them go to hell where they are going. to have compassion and love for others, to tell them the truth, to be a witness.
Spurgeon says that people are determined to go to hell. May we have scratch marks across our body as they're climbing over us to get to hell. That we should stand in the gap, stand in their way, plead with them, come to Christ, Sinner, you're doomed to suffer the punishment for your sin.
But Christ has sent the Redeemer. God has come in the flesh. He is Jesus the Christ. See Him, believe upon Him, repent of your sins and believe upon the Savior. And once we do, we have this new heart that's full of thankfulness, that's coming to the temple as Anna began giving thanks to God, that we are a thankful, grateful people.
Because in order to recognize the Redeemer, God must open our eyes. You cannot, all of a sudden, on your own work and pulling up your own bootstraps, recognize the Redeemer. Sure, you've read him in the scriptures. Sure, you've been told about him. But in order to truly believe in Christ, you must have eyes of faith. You must be born again. From the deadness of your soul, you must be given life. And just like Paul had the scales covering his eyes, you must have the scales removed, and you are blind, and you must be given sight.
And when you do, when you do, young man, when you do, young girl, when you do, older person, you will recognize the Redeemer. You say, why didn't I see it before? Oh, God, I wish I had known before. Just thank God that he allowed you to recognize him at that moment, because salvation is all of God. The word Jesus, it means Jehovah saves, God saves. So when God saves us, we don't sit there and say, well, God, thank you that I believed. No, God, thank you that you saved me. I have nothing to glory in. There's nothing of me that helped anything in my salvation except for my sin. That's all I brought. I brought the condemnation, God brought the salvation.
That's the truth of it. And when you see that, you can't help but thank God. You can't help but glorify God and exalt Him and tell others about Him because of the excitement that your own heart has discovered that you've laid hold of Him by faith and that you've seen redemption, salvation. Salvation is a person. Redemption is Jesus Christ, and He has come to save us. The lost. He has come to save sinners. He has not come for the righteous, but he has come for those who are unrighteous.
And so if you can say, I am unrighteous, then you are in the position that God can save you. For any who think that they're good as the way they are, they need to go look at God's perfect standard. Go to the moral law of God and see how you compare. It's not how am I comparing with my neighbors or the people I know.
It is perfection. And all have fallen. All have come short. But praise God, Jesus didn't come short. He fulfilled it all completely. And he says, if you will believe upon me that your sins shall be forgiven, pardon, and that his righteousness will be clothed upon you, so when God sees you, he doesn't see the sinner, he sees his son. He sees righteousness. His robes for mine. We just sang about it. This is the gospel. This is the good news. Jesus is revealed to us in the pages of Scripture and I pray that the Spirit of God would awaken all of our hearts and that we would be those who go out and spread this gospel, tell others about the Savior.
What's the worst thing you can do that can happen? You'll be embarrassed? They're going to hell. Put your embarrassment aside and may I be embarrassed a thousand times a day because you are laying up. There's a crown of righteousness, it says. We read about that in 2 Timothy. He says, endure suffering. Do the work of evangelists. Fulfill your ministry. Paul says, I am already being poured out as a drink offering. And the time of my departure has come. Each of you has a time of departure. It's coming. Mine's soon to be as well. I pray that I can say this. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.
Oh, to see Christ. Oh, to lay your eyes upon Christ, the Christ who you have seen by faith, believer, you will see by sight when He comes for us. That day is coming. Your day is coming. There is appointed to man, once to die and then the judgment. You will either see Jesus as your Redeemer and Savior or as your Judge. It will be with open arms or it will be with flaming eyes of fire and judgment. It's one or the other.
He says, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. loved His appearing, like awaited His appearing, longed for Him to come to be able to say with your own heart, Lord, come quickly. Lord, come for me. Whenever you say, I want to see Christ, I pray that be what your own heart can proclaim truthfully to yourself and that you would be one to proclaim it to all, every creature. Everybody, all.
God will save who he'll save. But we are called to the ministry of reconciliation. I say we, not pastors, Christians. The ministry of reconciliation. That means telling people about Jesus so that He can save them, so they can be reconciled. Two opposing parties, God and man, bringing them together. This is what happens in salvation. This is what happens in redemption. You are bought out of the slave market. You are set free to follow Jesus. You are now made that bond slave. You desire to serve Him. You put your ear to the all and you put the all through there. You say, I want to be yours. We read about that in Deuteronomy. I love how the scriptures all just feed into each other.
I pray you have recognized the Redeemer. He has been displayed this morning from the Word of God. Let's pray. Father, what a glorious Savior we have. The glory of our Redeemer, the God-Man, His true humanity, His true deity. Oh, I pray that every soul in the hearing of my voice would recognize the Redeemer for themselves. that they would see salvation in Christ, that they would desire salvation, for there is no other name under heaven by which man might be saved but Jesus the Christ.
It is the name by which every knee shall bow, every tongue shall one day confess, but Lord, I pray that that confession is done in this life before it is too late, that they would come and see the Savior, not to stand before the judge, but to come into the arms of the Redeemer. He stands with open arms. He calls forth, come unto me.
Father, draw them by your Spirit. I pray that you would save the lost, that you would sanctify your saints. Help us to be faithful, Witnesses, help us to be servers of you all of our days. And may we look with longing eyes to see you. In Christ's name we pray, amen.
