"The Good News of Redemption "

Hi there, this is Lon Solomon and I'd like to welcome you to our program today. You know it's a tremendous honor that God has given us to be on stations all around the nation bringing the truth of God's word as it is uncompromising and straightforward. And I'm so glad you've tuned in to listen and be part of that.

Thanks again for your support and your generosity that keeps us on the radio. And now let's get to the Word of God. Now this morning as we continue our study in the life of Christ, we're going to meet two other people who waited a long, long time to see their dream fulfilled. And the dream that they wanted to see fulfilled was the dream of living long enough to see the Messiah of Israel be born. And in his mercy, God allowed them to do just that. Their names were Simeon and Anna. And we're going to read and study about them and then ask the question that really is the most important question and that is, so what? Right. All right, Luke chapter 2 verse 21.

Follow along with me. On the eighth day when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived. And when the time of their purification, according to the law of Moses, had been completed, Joseph and Mary took Jesus to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord.

And they took him to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of doves or two young pigeons. When a boy was born in the Jewish culture, there were a couple of ceremonies that were very important. The first one was his circumcision carried out on the eighth day.

And that was the day on which he was given his name. And the Bible says that his mother and father named him Jesus just the way Gabriel had told him to. Now in the case of a firstborn son, there was another ceremony that was very important. And that is that that son was taken to the temple in Jerusalem and in a very special way consecrated to God in light of what had happened in the Passover when the Egyptians all lost their firstborn son in the tenth plague, but none of the Israelites did. And as a result, God said the firstborn son therefore always belongs to me. You take him and you consecrate him to me at the temple. And this is what's going on in obedience to God. Mary and Joseph take Jesus, their firstborn son, to consecrate him at the temple.

Now what happens when they arrive? Verse 25. Now there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon who was righteous and devout. He was 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 die before he had seen the Lord's Christ or the Messiah. The word Christ in Greek simply means Messiah. What do we know about this man Simeon?

Well we know virtually nothing. Hebrew tradition says he was 113 years old. I don't know whether that's right or wrong, but the tradition is that he was a very old man. And the important thing is that God had made him a promise. God had promised him he would not die before he saw the Messiah born. Now how did God make him that promise? Did he have a dream? Did he have a vision?

I don't know. But God had made him that promise. So here he was, he was in Jerusalem, and on this fateful day for some reason he felt compelled to go to the temple.

Now if you're 113 years old, going anywhere is a big deal. And so getting up and going to the temple that day was a big deal. Nonetheless, he did it because God moved him to.

Look what the Bible says, verse 27. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. And when the parents brought the child Jesus to do for him what the law required, Simeon took him in his arms and began to praise God. Here was Simeon, the old man, shuffling into the temple courts.

They were crowded, it was noisy, there was all kinds of confusion. And here the old man is shuffling through the courts of the temple when suddenly he spotted a very young girl with a little bundle in her arms coming in. And something said to him, you should go see this girl. And so he went on over and as he got close, something inside of him began to leap. And as he got there, his heart began to beat quicker and quicker.

And he slowly peeled back the little blanket from over this baby's face. And the Spirit of God said to him, Simeon, here's what you've been waiting for. Here he is.

This is the one that you've been looking for. And Simeon was so moved that he couldn't control himself, he actually took her baby from Mary and held the baby in his arms and squeezed the little baby to his breast and possibly even lifted the little baby up and began to praise God at the top of his voice here in the temple courts. And look what he said. He said, Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. I'm ready to die, God. You promised me I would make it to the Messiah.

And here he is. You can take my life now, I've seen it. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people, Israel. Now there's one thing about what he said that I want you to pay special attention to. Would you notice in verse 30 that Simeon said, my eyes have seen your salvation.

Now I have a question for you. What had his eyes seen? Had his eyes just seen a church membership certificate? Had his eyes just seen a baptismal certificate? Had his eyes just seen a church attendance record? Had his eyes just seen the Ten Commandments? Had his eyes just seen a list of all the good deeds that you and I have done in all of our lives? Had his eyes just seen a ledger listing all the money in time of service you ever gave to the church?

You see, these are the things that so many people think and that so many people look to as the basis for their salvation, as the basis of earning God's favor and getting into heaven. But that's not what Simeon saw, was it? About two weeks ago, I had to go see the doctor and had to have a little bit of surgery on my thumb. I had a wart that got under my fingernail and began growing and growing and growing and began wrecking my fingernail and it just wasn't getting any better. They thought it was a yeast infection.

It wasn't. And I went to see another dermatologist. He looked at it and said, it's a wart. We're going to have to laser surgery it out. I said, okay. So I went in for this surgery and he cut a hole in my thumb deep enough for me to drink soup out of.

That's really no lie. I mean, I could soup it up and drink it right out of my thumb. He cut my thumb all the way to the bone to cut this out.

And in fact, when he was done, he kind of had that little giggle, you know, that the doctors have and go, you want to see the hole? I went, no, no, I don't. I really don't. Because I didn't look.

I'm not stupid. So in the process of us talking, I told him I was Jewish. So was he. And we got to talking a little bit. I also told him I was a pastor and told him that I believed in Jesus and talked a little bit about my background. As I was sitting there in the chair and he was using this laser to cut this partway to China really through my thumb, we began talking about eternity. Maybe because at that moment I looked like I was on the verge of going there.

I'm not sure, but because that's how I felt. He kept saying, you all right? And I kept saying, just finish.

OK, just finish. And as we got to talking about eternity, he said to me, well, he said, you know, the way I see it, it's all based on the golden rule, you know, do unto others the way you'd want them to do unto you. And he said, the way I see it is if we all did that, I can't imagine that God wouldn't be happy with us if we all live like that. And I think that's what salvation is all about, trying to live and keep the golden rule. See, but that's not what Simeon said.

And that's not what the rest of the Bible says either. Simeon said, my eyes have seen your salvation, God. And what his eyes had seen was the person of Jesus Christ. Salvation is a person. And when you have that person, you have salvation. And when you don't have that person, you don't have God's salvation.

It's just that simple. As a matter of fact, there's another verse in the Bible I'd like you to look at. It's in the back of the New Testament. It's in John's first letter. We call it 1 John. 1 John, Chapter 5. I'd like you to look back there for just a moment with me.

We're coming back to Luke, so keep your finger there. But in 1 John, Chapter 5, and if you're using our copy of the Bible, it's page 864. 1 John, Chapter 5. I want you to see verse 11. 1 John 5, verse 11. It says this, and this is the record that God has given us eternal life. And this life is in his Son.

Now look at verse 12. He who has the Son has eternal life. And he who does not have the Son of God does not have eternal life.

Can it be any simpler than that? He who has the Son has eternal life, and he who does not have the Son does not have eternal life. Folks, salvation is not based on what you do or what you don't do. It's not based on your merits, your achievements, or your religious activity. Church has nothing to do with it either. It doesn't matter whether your grandmother is buried behind the church or even if you were born in the center aisle way. It doesn't matter.

None of that makes any difference. Salvation comes to us through a person, when we have a person. Salvation comes when we do with that person what Simeon did with Jesus Christ. He took him in his arms. He embraced him.

He hugged him to his breast, and he made Jesus Christ his own personal Lord and Savior. And I want to urge you this morning, the most important thing you've got to do here this morning is make sure when you leave, you're Simeon. That you've done with Jesus Christ just what Simeon did with him, and that is that you've hugged him to your breast and made him your personal Lord and Savior as well. Because salvation is whether or not you have him as a personal Savior, not what you do or what you don't do. That's why Simeon said, my eyes have seen Jesus Christ. My eyes have seen your salvation.

Well, let's go on. Mary and Joseph kind of were shocked to have this happen. They weren't expecting this, but before they could recover, the same thing happened again. Verse 36, there was also a prophetess, Anna, there in the city. She was the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher, and she was very old. And she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then she was a widow until she was 84. So this was a lady. Her Hebrew name actually was Hannah with an H, and she too had seen a few sunsets and sunrises.

She was 84. And when she, who never left the temple, the Bible says, that she, look, it says she never left the temple, but she worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. And she heard the commotion, and so she came over to them at that very moment, and she began giving thanks to God. The Bible says she was a prophetess, and as a result of that, God immediately testified to her that this indeed was the Christ, the Messiah, that Simeon was right. And so immediately she began to give thanks to God and to speak about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

And so as Mary and Joseph stood there, here they've got Simeon raising this little baby up to heaven and praising God. And they've got Anna running around and telling all of our friends, all of our friends, the one who is bringing redemption to Israel has arrived. You know, this happened to Mary and Joseph everywhere they went, something like this it seemed like. And I'm sure they began to wonder inside of themselves, what have we gotten ourselves into?

What in the world is going on here? Well, that's where our passage ends this morning. But when we come to asking the question, so what, it's something that Anna said that the Bible tells us about Anna that I want us to concentrate on rather than something that Simeon said. Because the Bible says that Anna went around and began speaking about the child, look at this, verse 38, to everyone who was looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. And in connection with Anna, the Bible uses one of the most important words in the word of God, the word redemption. And I want to talk to you about that word because I want you to really understand what the Bible means when it talks about Jesus Christ redeeming us. Have you ever been in a situation where you were completely unable to help yourself?

I mean totally, completely unable to help yourself. I was thinking this week, now what's the greatest example of that I can think of in my own heart and life? And I don't know that this is the greatest example, but it's certainly one of them. When I was a child, maybe six or I was probably about eight at the time, maybe nine, I went out to go ice skating on one of the ponds near our house. I went without my mom's permission.

I went by myself in defiance of my mother. I was good at that in those days. But I went to go ice skating. I don't know if it's just me, but does it seem to you that the winters aren't as cold as they used to be? Maybe when you're a kid, every winter seems cold.

I don't know. But I remember ponds freezing over and lakes freezing over and going ice skating and I lived down in Virginia Beach, which is not Minnesota, you know. I mean, so, I mean, it just seems like it's not as cold as it used to be. But this pond, this little lake was frozen over and I went ice skating. Well, there was one little section of it that was not frozen over, although I didn't know it at that point. And I went over there, I was completely by myself and I fell through the ice. But all of me didn't fall through the ice.

Only one leg fell through the ice. And so one leg fell completely through and the other leg, if you can imagine, it was like completely bent up next to my chest and my body and the other leg was completely straight through the ice. And there was nothing around for me to grab a hold of and I was completely and totally immobilized. I could not move.

I mean, there's nothing to get any leverage on because I'm right there on the very edge of the ice. There's no stick or branch or tree to grab onto and pull myself out. And I was absolutely stranded. I couldn't move. I must have been there well over an hour yelling and screaming for help. But this pond was way out in the woods. That's why my mom said, never go by yourself. And I'd have been there till spring. Really, there was no way to get out. Absolutely no way. My mom got worried about me after I didn't show up home after a while and called a bunch of my friends and said, do you have any idea where he went?

No, we don't. Would you go out and look for him? And about an hour, maybe two hours, I don't know how long it was, but it was long enough that I was freezing to death. My friends showed up and found me there. One leg still through the hole in the ice, one leg still all the way up against my chest.

The only thing that had changed was I was hoarse now from screaming for an hour, help! And they threw me a twig, a long stick that I could grab ahold of, and they pulled me out. I've never been so helpless in my whole life, completely and totally unable to pull myself out of that ice and help myself. Now, for those friends who pulled me out of that ice, what they did for me is a perfect example of what the word redemption means. Redemption is actually a word that was a very common word. The Greek word hilasterion was a very common word in the Greek marketplace, because this was a term that was taken from the world of the Roman slave trade.

Let me explain to you how it worked. In the ancient world, when a man was in debt and he couldn't pay up, they didn't offer him a visa with revolving credit, and they didn't offer him a home equity loan to consolidate his debts. What they did is they sold him into slavery, and they took whatever money they could get from selling him into slavery and they applied that towards his debts. But once they sold you into slavery, there was no way for you to ever get out of slavery.

No way! There was no way for you to ever earn any money to pay off your debts to buy yourself back out of slavery. You became, once you were sold into slavery, you became like a person with one leg through the ice and the other one completely up against your chest and absolutely unable to help yourself. Now the only way for a person to get out of slavery that was sold in for this reason was for someone who was free, someone who was not a slave to come along and be willing to pay off all of your debts that you owed as a slave and in that sense to buy you back out of the slave market, to buy you back into freedom. You couldn't do it for yourself.

Somebody else had to do it for you. This was known as redeeming a slave. And the Greek word that is translated redeem in the New Testament, the Greek word translated redemption, hilasterion in the New Testament is actually a word that originated in the slave market to refer to that practice of a free man coming along and paying off the debts of a slave who was completely helpless to help himself and buying that person back from the slave market and making them a free man again. Now in using this word therefore, the Bible is giving us a very beautiful picture of how Jesus found us and what he did for us.

A picture that every person in the day and time the Bible was written would have clearly understood, easily understood. How did Jesus find us? He found us as sinners who owed a debt to God we could never pay. And as a result, the justice of God left him no choice but to condemn us to the slave market of sin where we were helpless captives of the one who owns the slave market and that's the devil himself.

We had no hope of ever freeing ourselves. In fact, the Bible says John 8 verse 44 that we were the property, we were children of the devil. And the Bible says 2 Timothy chapter 2 that we were caught in the snare of the devil and were held captive by him to do his will. We were captives. We were slaves in a slave market owned by Satan himself.

We belong to him and we were captives in his slave market and there wasn't anything you and I could ever do to buy our way out. That's how Jesus found us. The Bible says Jesus demonstrated just how much he loves us in this way. While we were yet sinners, before we had ever done anything to deserve it, Christ died for us. And so in the word redemption, God gives us a dramatic picture of what Jesus did for us when he saved us. We were hopelessly condemned to the devil's slave market of sin and the Lord Jesus Christ came and died on the cross to pay our debt, to buy us back, to set us free. However, and here's the big so what, Jesus Christ didn't set us free to go do whatever we felt like. He adopted us and there's a way he wants us to live.

Look what he says. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 19. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who's in you, whom you've received from God, now watch, and you are not your own. You were bought with a price.

Do you understand what the Bible is saying? It's talking about redemption and saying Jesus Christ bought and paid for you with a price and you are not your own. You don't belong to yourself anymore.

Your body doesn't belong to you anymore. It belongs to Jesus Christ. He was the one who paid for it.

He was the one who bought it back. It's his property, not yours. And since your body is now God's property, there's a specific way in which God wants it used. Yes, God set you free, but he set you free to do something very specific with your body.

And look what he says. Therefore, honor God with your body. Honor God with your body. In the way you talk, honor God. In the way you eat and exercise, honor God. In the way you handle sexual matters, honor God. In the way you treat other people, honor God. In what you watch on television, honor God. In what you read and look at in magazines, honor God.

In everything you do with your body, in every place you take your body, in everything you allow your body to be a part of, honor God. Why? Because it's not your property. It belongs to Jesus Christ. He bought it.

He paid for it with his own blood. It's not yours. Therefore, use it the way the owner wants it used. You know, I hate to borrow other people's cars. I've had to do it a few times. I hate doing it. I hate it.

I'm so nervous. I mean, I'm obsessed with taking good care of it and using it only the way I think the other person would want to use it. I mean, I even come to complete stops at stop signs when I'm driving somebody else's car. I don't roll stop signs.

I'm too afraid I'll get hit. I roll them with my car, but I don't roll them with anybody else's car. And as Christians, we need to have that same obsession with how we take care of our body and what we do with them. Because you see, they're really somebody else's property.

Your body is. It's God's property. And the one of the things the Bible does is the Bible tells us how the owner of your body wants it used.

Dear friend, may I challenge you? If you're careful with somebody else's car and it's replaceable and it doesn't even belong to God, it just belongs to another person, then above everything else, we need to be careful how we use our body because it belongs to God himself. And God's going to hold us responsible eternally for how we use his property. Therefore, the Bible says you are not your own. You've been bought with a price.

You've been redeemed. Now, honor God in the way you use his property. May God help us to do that.

May God help us to think in those terms. God, this is your property. Would you want it going here? Would you want it watching this?

Would you want it doing this? If not, then help me not to use it that way. May God help you do that. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the scripture this morning, which teaches us that we have been redeemed. For so many of us as Christians, that's been such a fuzzy concept, redeemed. I guess that means I'm going to heaven.

But help us this morning to get a good grasp on what it means. That we were slaves. We were slaves to sin, slaves to our own passion, slaves that belong to the devil in his slave market. Totally and completely helpless to extricate ourselves and Jesus Christ redeemed us. He paid our debt and bought us back and made us free. But he made us free not to go do whatever we wanted to with our bodies, but to use them to honor. And I pray that as Christians, we would indeed do that. That people might look at the way we live and understand that we have had an interaction with the living God that has transformed our life forever.

And they can too. Thank you, Lord Jesus. You loved us so much that even though we weren't like Ben Hur, we had not done one thing to deserve it.

You still were willing to come and buy us back. We love you for that, Lord. Help us reflect that love in the way we live. We pray these things in Jesus name.

Amen. You've been listening to So What with Dr. Lon Solomon. So What is an outreach of Lon Solomon Ministries. To listen to today's message or for more information, visit our website, lonsolomonministries.org. Thank you for your support. If you would like to contact us, please visit our website or call us at 866-788-7770. We hope you will join us next time when Lon seeks to answer one of life's most important questions. So What?