Promises Kept

If you would open with me to Luke chapter 2, we're going to be looking at verses 25 through 35.

He would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ and for glory to your people Israel. Let's pray. All right, Lord, as we open this text dealing with Jesus and the Incarnation, and Lord, what He has come to do, and we read this testimony of Simeon. Lord God, I pray that your Holy Spirit teach us tonight. Lord, let no error come from my mouth, but let your word go forth so that it honors and glorifies you and it builds us. And it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. You know, to start this evening to walk in and hear that one of our brothers in Christ is discouraged is part of the reason that I went to this text as I was praying and preparing for what to preach on. The opening is that I have written down as it's easy for us to become disheartened and cynical in this world.

We just have a tendency with everything swirling around us that discouragement, disheartened, cynicism can rise up in us easily. And to hear that Jim is struggling with some of that discouragement tonight, I pray that as we look at this text, two things occur. Number one, that I treat this text fairly.

I don't want to make a text say something just for the sake of saying it. And I don't think that I am. Number two, and most importantly, that we get edified by the word that we're hearing.

You know, when we look at this life, it is easy for us as we look out. We are lied to in many, many ways from the culture. We have been outright lied to by media. We are true.

We've been lied to by employers or employers have been lied to by employees. We see even in our own life where people who are close to us can make a promise and not hold to it. Or unfortunately, even ourselves, when we look in the mirror, we have made promises and not held to our word. And the text we're looking at tonight, it covers many different truths about the incarnation, but it speaks to truths about God and the promises He keeps. By that I mean, when we start looking, starting at verse 22, in the context of this text, we find this narrative is after Jesus' birth, He has just been circumcised at the eighth day, every day waiting period for this rite of purification that Mary must take part in, and this presentation of Jesus, because He is the first male child to open the womb. And so all these things are being listed in this gospel so that we know several things about this Christ. And we are brought through the right processes to be ultimately our true high priest, our true prophet, and our true king.

And so I don't want to lose anything out of that in the text. But as we move into it, starting in verse 25, we read, As we look at the text, there is something very unique about this descriptor of Simeon. What does this descriptor tell us Simeon is? He is a believer, like you and I, prior to the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. And he is a believer, like you and I, prior to the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Where Jesus said, I will send the Holy Spirit, the comforter be with you.

We see in the Old Testament, men and women are saved in the same style of salvation, that you and I are on this side of the cross, after Jesus has sent this Holy Spirit. this Holy Spirit, so we see that even prior to Jesus' arrival, the Jews that are believers are in the same way brought by the Holy Spirit, and it goes on to say, 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. Simeon was a man of God, but more than just a man of God, he was a believer in this Messiah who was foretold to come, and that is the context of which his testimony is then going to flow as he sees Jesus and he declares the truth of who Jesus is, and so that is much the context and truth of what we're looking at, but what we also see are promises that are made, promises that are kept, and by that, knowing that a promise-keeping God we may rest in. So tonight, what I would like us to do is look at two important truths from Simeon's testimony. The first of those truths will be that God keeps his promises, past promises, present promises that we see in this text, and future promises that Simeon's going to speak of, and secondly, the importance of God's kept promises to us. When we look at the first, if we look at verse 26, we read this, 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 if we jump down to verses 32 through 35, it says that this Christ will be 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, so that the thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. When we look at these two verses, or these two sections of the text, in verse 26, it teaches of both a past promise and a present promise that are being kept by God. That past promise out of 26 is the promise that God will send a Messiah, that God will send his anointed one into the world.

In Genesis 3.15, God told them, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. It is an illusion towards this Christ who is coming. If we move from there to 2 Samuel 7, verses 12 through 14, we read this from the prophet Samuel, when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body and will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. In the book of Isaiah, as we read through the chapters, and especially that chapter 53, verses one through six, God says this through the prophet Isaiah, who has believed what he has heard from us and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed, for he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and as one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed him not, surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. When Doug preaches many times, he'll say that Isaiah wrote that 750 years before the coming of this salvation that Simeon is going to make witness of in a few moments. If we look, 2 Samuel's written a thousand years and if we go back to Genesis 3.15, this promise that has gotten expanded as far as the descriptor, but still the same promise comes to us from the very foundation of creation and in the garden. A promise of past that God now in the revealing of Jesus Christ is keeping to his people. But not just to his people, but to all of creation.

We love to talk about many times that it is our Christ because we are his believers, but the whole world, this is the Redeemer who is going to set right all the wrong. The promise is for not just us, it was to a world driven in sin by man's choice to rebel and even the world itself has received its Redeemer who at his consummation is second coming will make all things right. So we have a past promise and we have evidence by what we read in verse 30 that Simeon declares for my eyes have seen your salvation. It says that when Mary and Joseph walked in with the baby Jesus that Simeon took Jesus, held him in his arms and he looked down and that was the declaration.

My eyes have seen your salvation, a promise kept from the past. We also see from verse 26 a present promise in the text being fulfilled. When we read in 26 and it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see or taste death before he had seen the Lord's Christ, there is a promise from God to Simeon that you will live to see the incarnation of God, God with us in your presence. And the testimony that Simeon is able to give is another proof of God keeping the promises he makes and the promises that he makes to his people. In verse 29 we get a witness to the fulfillment when we read, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word. I started out by saying that it's easy for us to become discouraged, it's easy for us to become disheartened, it's easy for us to become cynical in a world that is continually working to pull us away from God. But Simeon founded in the Holy Spirit looking forward to the Christ and now seeing the Christ, the salvation of God says it is now, Lord now, letting your servant depart in peace according to your word, according to your promise to me.

What is Simeon saying? I have seen the salvation of the Lord, the only hope that I have and I can rest now in that hope fully knowing that I am right with God the Father. The Spirit has led me, the Spirit has protected me, the Spirit has indwelt me and now God's salvation is full in my knowledge and I go now and depart or die, leave this world in peace.

Do we look at life in that sense? It was about a year ago that I had my last conversation with my brother, he had COVID and he was struggling very hard and at the end of our conversation, I said, Don, I love you and he said, I love you too and I always have and that stuck with me but his final words to me and he knew he was dying, he said, I'll talk to you soon. There was a peace in his voice because he knew that Christ, that salvation of God and I know full well in my heart that my brother believed in Jesus Christ and because of his faith in that Christ, he departed this world in peace, how do I know? He died in the hospital that I worked in for 20 years. The therapists who took care of him were texting me all through the night how he was doing and the one therapist texted, I sat and had a great conversation with your brother about an hour ago, it's not gonna be long but he's good.

I still have the texts. That is what Simeon is declaring, he's saying, I have this peace now that I knew was coming but it is for real. Jesus Christ is born, he is man, he's been circumcised and he is here at the temple and he is going to go through this purification and all those things that must take place in his work will accomplish what God said his Messiah will do and that is bring the new covenant where we will be his people and he will be our God and he will remember our sins no more. So Simeon is able to declare with great, great peace, now you are letting your servant depart according to your word. You know when we sit and look at how God works in this covenant that he has made with man all along, we say that God relates to us through covenant, these covenants are promises and these are promises that are being fulfilled and kept so that we can rest in who that God is. It leads to the second point and one, well I'm sorry, I gotta finish point one, there is a future promise also that is made by Simeon himself in verses 32 through 35. Simeon tells Mary what work Jesus is going to do and that can only be given by the Holy Spirit and it's to a degree and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, this is in verse 34, 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.

There is a future promise that Simeon is resting on that I jumped the gun on and told you about and he's resting on that work of this Christ, this Messiah, of inaugurating the new covenant that is spoken of in the Old Testament and it's going to be sealed by this salvation's blood and he is telling Mary that Jesus is going to be the one who is a lightning rod, he is a force that is going to cause a yes or a no. The Holy Spirit working in men's heart when he is pronounced as the Christ, there is either by the Spirit's work in your heart saying a yes or if the Spirit doesn't move on your heart and change you to understand his word, there is a definite no. We don't know the yeses and the nos and God tells us that he can work on a man over time and change that heart at his time and our job is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men so the Holy Spirit may take that word and make it effective unto them. But there is definitely a yes, no in Jesus Christ. When he is presented, the sinful heart rebels against that thought. The man who wants to be righteous in himself says, I need no need, I have no need for external righteousness, I have my own righteousness. I will find a way to make myself right for those of us changed by the Holy Spirit which I hope is everyone here tonight, we know. Even this morning, this afternoon, probably before I walked up here without the grace and forgiveness of the Lord Jesus Christ, I stand condemned.

My thoughts, my actions too many times, I opened by saying, I've made promises that I've broken, which means I lie. If I promise somebody something and don't follow through, that makes me a liar. What we find in the text here is God is no liar ever, that every promise fulfilled, especially we have the text, that all promises through God are fulfilled as Jesus Christ, he is that amen, that yes. But when Simeon tells Mary, there is a work that this child is going to do, and in this work, a sword will pierce through your own soul, we see that Simeon is talking about this completing work that God has revealed to us in that Isaiah 53 passage and the whole text of Isaiah 53 is describing that work that Jesus is going to do that is going to end in Mary seeing her son die on the cross.

The good news for Mary is that sword is temporary because three days later, that tomb is empty and she worships the risen Christ. Tonight, we worship the risen Christ because why? Because God keeps the promises he makes. And so that is the thrust of my point number two, what is this importance of God's kept promises? Well, first of all, verse 30, for my eyes have seen your salvation, this kept promise is the gospel that man has sinned and left to himself has no way to commune with God.

God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit without Jesus emptying himself and coming, taking on our form, living under the law perfectly, giving himself over and taking our sin, hanging on the cross and giving up his life in death, being laid in the tomb and allowing the Holy Spirit and the power of God to bring him back up from that death. That is what my eyes have seen your salvation. We talked many times about salvation as some ethereal thing and Simeon in his testimony here tells us exactly what salvation is. Salvation isn't a thing, it is a person. Over and over, Paul tells us what, that we need to be in Christ Jesus. Why do we need to be in Christ Jesus? Because Christ Jesus is salvation, he is the redemption, his atonement is seen by God and his righteousness is applied to us.

When Simeon is holding the baby Jesus, he doesn't say, I see the potential of a saving act, he says, I see the salvation of the Lord in this person, Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters, tonight as we prepare to celebrate this first incarnation coming of a man, I beg you to be in Jesus Christ. I beg you to know Jesus Christ as your salvation, not just a worker of an item, but the one who accomplishes everything that we need.

It is our only hope. Secondly, this promises kept by God is the affirming of the keeping of these promises gives us rest. God makes promises and we can rely on them because he is faithful, he is steadfast. We read this morning in Sunday school class on the reasons why to worship, we read Exodus where God revealed himself to Moses and he said that he is steadfast and faithful, showing love to thousands, forgiving sin and iniquity, but by no means will he allow the guilty to go free.

So he's also just. But what it tells us is that this God, that our God, the true and living God, the triune God, that his promises we can rely on and we can rest in. Well, what kind of promises do we rest in now?

Romans 8.28, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. How does that promise work out? How do we respond and we struggle and we need to be just continually going back to Christ because this evening, brothers and sisters, Jim Belk is struggling, resting in that promise. And we need to pray that the Holy Spirit strengthen that promise and Jim, that greater is Christ and more to be desired than even this life.

What other kind of promise? God will provide our needs this morning in Sunday school class. I used Luke 12, just looking at the last two verses of what we read out of there 29 through 31. And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried, for all the nations of the world seek after these things and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom and these things will be added to you. God will provide what we need. That is not a slogan, that is not a wish, that is a promise told to us from God himself, Jesus, as he's addressing the disciples to not be anxious.

Do we live in that truth this evening? Do we rest on his promise? But most importantly, there is a promise that we should be longing for and that is that he is coming back and that we will dwell with him forever. I used this the last time I preached, but I'll use it a million times, John 14, one through three. Let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me, in my Father's house or many rooms.

If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to where I am. That is a promise. As Simeon's declaration, let the world know, let the community, the Gentile community who was given the Gospel of Luke know that Jesus is truly the Christ, the one promised by God from the Old Testament. It is so much more because we see that those kept promises by God is what we today can rest on. Tonight, when we leave here, if we're struggling, go to God in prayer that the Holy Spirit strengthen us to rest in the God of kept promises. As we go to prayer tonight, raise Jim Belk, Jim Belk, the Holy Spirit, just minister to him to rest in the God of kept promises. Now, as Simeon made that declaration, my eyes have seen your salvation.

That is a whole Old Testament filled with prophets, filled with kings, filled with the great leader of Israel, Moses, out of bondage, all writing the promises of God that there will be a Messiah who comes. And Simeon held that promise, that kept promise, that assured him the peace that he could rest as he meets God, and we can too. Let's pray. Father, we just praise your name tonight for the way that you take care of us.

Lord, I do pray for Jim right now that he rests. Holy Spirit, strengthen him to know that your promises are true and sure, that you are faithful and you are steadfast and that you keep us. Lord, as the world tries to tear that away, I pray that, Holy Spirit, you just drive us deeper and deeper into Christ. Teach us your word, strengthen our faith so that we rest fully in you. Lord, we praise you and we thank you for all that you've done and all you are doing. And Lord, all that is yet to come. And it's in Christ Jesus we pray, amen.