The Christmas We Weren't Expecting

Joshua Bell is perhaps the world's most famous violinist. At 39 years old, he was called America's greatest classical musician, the kind that people would fill up Carnegie Hall at a minimum of $100 a ticket just to hear him play his Stradivarius violin.

In 2007, a news outlet put him up to an experiment. He was in Washington, D.C. for a concert and so the day after the concert, they had him go down anonymously into the Lefont metro station in D.C. right in the middle of rush hour, his $3.5 million Stradivarius violin in hand, and he played for an hour with his hat out to collect tips. Keep in mind, thousands of people had just paid hundreds of dollars each for a ticket to hear this guy play the night before. Over the 43 minutes that he stood there in the Lefont metro station playing Bach and Brahms and other classical pieces, they say that no more than six people stopped and he made a grand total of $32.17 in donations, not counting one $20 tip from one person right at the very end who recognized, actually recognized who he was.

It is possible, it is possible to miss some of the greatest things in your life because your heart is not tuned to listen for them or look for them. You have to recognize majesty even when it's right in front of us. If there were a theme for Luke's rendition of the Christmas story, I think that might be it. Luke chapter 2, if you've got your Bible, if you are with us at one of our campuses here on Sunday morning or you are in one of our home gatherings all across the triangle or joining us somewhere across the country or around the world, I want to welcome you. Grab your Bible, turn it to Luke 2.

If you're at home, you have the privilege of pausing me right now to run, get your Bible. If you are at one of our locations in person, obviously you can't do that, but you get your Bible, turn it on and go down to Luke 2. We've been working our way around the gospel of Luke for a while now. And so for the next few weeks, we're going to look at what Luke says about the very first Christmas.

Of course, they didn't call it Christmas, but that's what it became. While you're turning there to Luke 2, let me tell you about something that you're going to be getting today for free, for free as you leave. It's a new little book that I just published with the Good Book Company.

It's called Searching for Christmas. It is, as you can see, short, mercifully short, I might say. It's a pretty easy read.

It's light, it's accessible, it's hopefully humorous in the right places. The kind of thing I think you could fit right into a stocking. It is an evangelistic exploration of the meaning of Christmas that takes a look at the names that were given to Jesus at his birth.

You know, the best way to learn who Jesus is, is to look at the names that God his father gave to him when he was born. I wrote this book thinking about you giving it to somebody, perhaps your one, that person that you're reaching out to and beginning to build a relationship with. I wrote it thinking about you giving it to some person in conversation. Listen, this is a very unusual Christmas and none of us really know what's going to be like over the next few weeks in terms of the holiday traditions we've grown so accustomed to being disrupted. We can't get together like we have in the past for big Christmas services.

We're not comfortable coming to any of our Christmas services in person this year. But, you can give them one of these and you can read it with them. Anyway, it is our gift to you and I hope that you'll stop by one of the tables at whatever campus you're at that we have set up on the way out.

Take two. Take two of them and give one to somebody that you're reaching out to and tell them that you'll read it together with them. Okay? If you need extra copies, you can always order them on Amazon or you can download it for free.

Just go to our website, summitchurch.com, and you'll get a link there where you can download the e-book for free. Okay? Back to Luke chapter two. One of the big themes in Luke's gospel is that the first Christmas came and went with most people totally unaware that anything at all had even happened. Have you ever gotten an unexpected or an unwanted Christmas gift?

Think about it for a minute. What is the worst Christmas gift that you've ever received? One of our missionaries told me recently that she got a gift from one of her new friends in her new country.

She opened it up, she was pretty excited, and it was a local variety of candy, beef flavored candy, she said. I think this is the worst Christmas gift I've ever received. I'm sure it's hard to hide your disappointment in the face of a gift like that. I remember one year, one of my relatives, the kind of, you know that relative that you could always depend on for a good gift?

You know, you count on the good aunt or the good uncle. I remember opening up the gift and that year they gave me a belt. I was sure, I'm sure it was a nice belt. I'm sure my mom had told them that I needed a belt. But still, y'all, it was a belt. I had opened the package so expectantly, so excitedly, and I literally had to fight back tears when I saw what it was. This was last year, by the way. No, no, just kidding.

I was like 10 years old. God's gift to us at Christmas was unexpected, but if you knew what you were looking for and your heart was tuned to listen to the right things and you could recognize majesty when you saw it, it wasn't disappointing. Verse 22, and when the days of their purification, that is Joseph and Mary's purification after Mary had given birth to the baby Jesus, according to the law of Moses were finished, they brought him, that is Jesus, up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, which was the next stage of their ritual offering process. Verse 23, just as it is written in the law of the Lord, every firstborn male will be dedicated to the Lord. Verse 24, and to offer a sacrifice according also to what is stated in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. In Leviticus chapter 12, when it refers to the law of the Lord, it's a reference back to Leviticus 12, where God commanded each Israelite family to dedicate their firstborn to God by means of an offering. Because in the Exodus, God had spared the lives of all of Israel's firstborn sons if they put the blood of a lamb on the doorpost of their homes. When the angel saw the blood of the lamb, he would pass over that house and spare their son. So when they gave birth, when Israelites in future generations gave birth to a firstborn son, they were to travel to the temple and offer a lamb to commemorate that Passover. Now, this text says that Mary and Joseph offered two pigeons instead of a lamb, which is a very important detail to note, because that was an exception made in the law for exceptionally poor families. If a family just could not afford a lamb, the law said that instead of a lamb, they could offer two pigeons or two turtle doves or a partridge in a pear tree or whatnot. What that shows you is that Jesus was not just born middle class, he was not just born lower middle class, he was born poor.

And I want you to let that sink in for just a minute. A pastor friend of mine, Pastor Thabiti Anabwile, he asks, he says, what does it mean? What does it actually mean that Jesus chose to be born into poverty?

Well, he says it means at least five things. Number one, it means that poverty by itself is not a sin, and it's not shameful in and of itself. He says number two, it means that poverty is not a sign of God's disapproval or that you've done something wrong. He says number three, it doesn't mean poverty does not prevent a person, he says, from worshiping God. And after all, didn't God in the law make the provision for them, for a poor person to still be able to offer their first and their best? People, even when they're on hard times, can still offer the first and the best of what they have to God. Number four, he says, it means that poverty now does not necessarily doom you to poverty forever.

Some of you should be encouraged by that, right? Jesus' life certainly took a turn. And then number five, it also means, he says, that a cross, that poverty is a cross that God entrusts to some of us for a season, maybe for a lifetime.

And it is possible for us to be faithful in that season. So just listen to me, if you're poor, or if you feel downtrodden, you should not feel second class. Jesus identified with you first. God has a plan for you, where you are, and that plan can turn out very well indeed. So we see that Jesus was born poor.

But what happens next is totally unexpected. Verse 25, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout. He'd been looking forward to Israel's consolation, and the Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, if you underline stuff in your Bible, kind of underline that, or, you know, whatever, smudge it with lipstick or prick your finger, dab it in blood, that's an important little phrase, that he would not see death before the Lord's Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, there's your second reference to the Spirit of God, Simeon entered the temple. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him up in his arms, praised God, and said, Now master, you can dismiss your servant in peace as you promised, for my eyes have seen your salvation.

You have prepared it in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to your people Israel. Y'all, this is crazy, right? Mary and Joseph are simply there with hundreds of other moms and dads presenting their babies, and an old guy, a stranger, an old guy, suddenly runs up to them, grabs their baby, and starts singing. Mary and Joseph are like, Hey man, I mean, respect the social distancing, please. You at least got to sanitize before you do that. I mean, old ladies do this kind of stuff all the time, right?

Pinching babies without asking permission and saying weird stuff like, Oh, I could just eat you up, right? But old men typically don't do this, which leads to another important detail in this story. Luke says it was the Spirit of God that gave Simeon this insight. It says that three times in that little passage, right?

That's an important insight. That is the only way anybody ever accurately recognizes Jesus. The irony here in this whole story is that all of these rituals that the Israelites are going through, all the going to the temple and all the offerings and all the Passover stuff, those were all given to them to prepare them to recognize the Messiah when He came. The irony is that those Israelites most steeped in the rituals were the last ones in line to recognize Him.

And I think that there's a very important lesson here for you and for me. Keeping rituals and traditions and Advent celebrations are great, but more often than not, they can keep you from seeing Jesus. I mean, think about it, right? How many of you have already started to just go through the motions this season? Day after Thanksgiving, you bought the tree.

Were you set up? How many of you fake tree people out there? Just raise your hand. You're a fake tree person. I'm a fake tree person. How many of you destroy our environment every year by cutting down a real tree? Why don't you raise your hand?

No, no, I'm just kidding. Whatever, you got the tree. You listen to the never-ending Christmas music on K-Love.

You watch all of the Hallmark movies about the big city lawyer girl who comes home and falls in love with the tractor-driving high school dropout who looks like Matthew McConaughey guy. You set up your stockings and your manger scenes and even your little heretical elf on the shelf to teach your kid to be little self-righteous Pharisees. Maybe you're even doing some Advent readings. Maybe you're doing the Advent blocks that we've given out to our families here at the Summit Church, but there's very little reflection or very little wonder over who Jesus actually is. You need the Spirit of God to open your eyes to the majesty of Jesus.

That's the only way that you can see it. So let me urge you this season to pray that over yourselves and your families. Pray it for your family as you go through your Advent traditions. Pray it for those to whom you give this book searching for Christmas. It's not a good book that's going to open their eyes to who Jesus is. It's only the Spirit of God. You and I never talk to men and women about God until we've talked to God about those men and women. The good news, the good news for you is that this is the Spirit's mission on earth. It's why Jesus said, John 16, Jesus sent the Spirit to earth to teach people to see Jesus. But here's the catch.

If you want to call it a catch, you have to ask for His help. He gives the Spirit without measure, He said, to all those, but only those who ask for Him. Verse 33. Verse 33. His, that is Jesus' father and mother, were amazed at what was being said about Him. Then Simeon blessed them and told his mother Mary, indeed this child is destined to cause the fall and the rise of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed. And a sword is going to pierce your own soul that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

We will come back to that in just a minute. Verse 36. There was also a prophetess named Anna, a daughter of Phanuel, the tribe of Asher, Dancer, Vixen, or Prince, or whatever. She was well along in years, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage. And there was a widow, and after that she was a widow for 84 years. She did not leave the temple serving God night and day with fasting and prayers. At that very moment, at that very moment, she came up and began to thank God and to speak about Him to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Israel.

Alright, so what you got here is you got two people, two people who have something in common. They're both old, and they're both hanging around the temple waiting, longing for something. First you have Simeon, whom the text says was waiting for the consolation, or comfort, or the relief of Israel. For most Jews, that referred to a, or they pointed, they thought, to political deliverance. Because for nearly 700 years, Israel had been subject to oppression by foreign powers. It had started with the exiles, to Assyria, and then to Babylon, but after that came subjugation to the Persians, then the Greeks, and then the Romans, under whose rule the Israelites were now, and who were probably the worst of all the oppressors. And even when the Jews were in their own homeland under self-rule, their kingdom did not have near the glory that it once had had under King David or King Solomon. So Israel was waiting.

They were waiting for consolation, for deliverance, for justice, for restoration to promise glory. Simeon, being old, represents for Luke that posture of long waiting. Then, beside him, you've got Anna, whom it tells us has been a widow for 84 years, after being married for seven. It is safe to say, I think, we can say that no girl of 16 years old dreams about her life turning out this way.

Being married for seven years, and then having your husband die, and then living for 84 years alone. Especially in those days, because widows usually had very little way of providing for themselves, which often meant that widows were lonely and poor and had nobody to take care of them. I think we could say that for Luke, she represents somebody for whom life has turned out very differently than what she had expected or hoped. Hers, I think, is not so much a yearning for political deliverance. She yearns for what? For personal relief. She yearns for personal consolation and comfort. So let me make a couple of, I think, important observations about this story. Observations that should impact you and me.

Number one. Number one, waiting is a key component of the Christian life. Waiting is a key component of the Christian life. There is a reason that Luke brings these two characters into the story. It is to show you that Jesus comes to those who wait.

And there is a reason that both of these characters are old. Because for Luke, that shows that they've been waiting for a long time. Sometimes you and I talk about the Christian life as if it is instant fulfillment. Immediate answers to prayer requests. If you do A, oh yes, God will give B. And if you do A in your marriage, then your marriage is going to turn into B.

And if you do A with your kids, then your kids will turn out like B. But friend, that is just not always true. Many of you find yourself in a posture of waiting this Christmas. You're in a time that feels dark.

A time of confusion. Maybe you even feel abandoned. Maybe it's a season for you of yearning and longing. A longing for something to be set right. Injustice seems to reign everywhere around you.

Maybe you yourself have been the victim of that injustice. Maybe you, like Anna, are yearning for some need to be fulfilled. Life just has not turned out the way that you would always expect it. Maybe it's a longing to have your family put back together.

Or maybe to have a family of your own. You were hoping to be married by this Christmas, and here we are again entering another Christmas season, and you're still single. Maybe you're grieving the death of a child this Christmas.

Maybe you're grieving a miscarriage this year. Maybe you're still waiting on a prodigal who has yet to return home. I don't know.

I don't know. But here's the thing. You've tried everything that you know how to try. Or you've tried to do it God's way. I mean, you went and got advice, and you talked to the pastor, and you believed God, and you trusted Him, and you worked hard, and still things have just not gotten better for you. Why isn't the marriage getting better?

Why isn't the situation changing? Simeon and Anna's story show you that God sees you. God has not forgotten you. Waiting does not mean that you've done something wrong. Waiting is, in fact, an essential, I would even say an appointed part of the Christian life. You see, the prophet Jeremiah said in the book of Lamentations, the Lord is good to those who wait for Him.

The prophet Isaiah agrees. He says, blessed are those who wait for Him, and those that wait for Me shall never be put to shame. If you want God to deliver you, if you want His powerful working in your life, it will come on the heels of a season of waiting. God will not disappoint those of you who wait for Him. He will not let you be put to shame. Nobody who has ever waited for God, ever in history, has been let down. No one, not even one.

You will not be the first. Waiting is an essential, even an appointed part of the Christian life. And that's what we're reminded of at Christmas.

I love how Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who ended up being a martyr of the Nazi regime, I love how he said it. The Advent season, the Advent season is a season of waiting. But our whole life, our whole life kind of feels like an Advent season, he says. That is a season of waiting for the last Advent.

Advent just means coming. The last coming for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Christmas reminds us that while we've got a lot to be thankful for here, a lot of us are still waiting. In fact, we're all waiting for the second coming of Christ. We're all waiting for the new heavens and the new earth. We're all waiting for Jesus to come and make things right and for all the sad things in our lives to become untrue. So I would just say to you this weekend, whether you've got a specific need that you're waiting on God to do something in, or whether it's just a yearning for heaven, Simeon and Anna show you that God has not forgotten you. The joy and the comfort of Christmas is for you.

Even if your situation is not going to change this weekend. Which leads me to number two. Number two, God's answer did not match their expectations. God's answer did not match their expectations. I think it's safe to say that neither Simeon nor Anna was thinking that a helpless baby born to a dirt poor family was God's answer to their longing.

But he was. You see, what Israel thought they needed most, what they thought they needed from God was different from what they actually needed most. What they thought they needed most was political deliverance. What they thought they needed most was a new husband or a restored fortune.

But what they actually most needed was restoration with God. This, Jesus says, is eternal life, not streets of gold and not perfect health. You want to know what eternal life is? To know God and Jesus whom he has sent. You can have that knowledge in pain as well as you can have it in health. In fact, sometimes you can have it better in pain than you can in health. Jesus said the abundant life that I'm talking about is not Mercedes Benz and it's not a 5,000 square foot house and it's not a second home at Hilton Head and it's not a perfect family.

It's not all the people around the table. You want to know what the abundant life is, Jesus says? It's knowing me and walking in the fullness and joy of your Heavenly Father.

We may think that what we most need is physical health this Christmas or financial assistance or family reunion, but what we most need deep in our souls is reunion with our Heavenly Father. You see, you and I were created for God. Whether you've ever realized that or not, maybe I'm going to start filling in the gaps for you in ways that are making connections maybe you've never made, maybe you've never understood, never thought of yourself as a religious person. But see, I know a secret about you.

That is, you're created for God. Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher and mathematician, he famously said that the human heart has a, it's like a gigantic hole in it, a void, a vacuum, he called it. He said we spend all of our lives trying to figure out what goes in that hole. He said when we try to romance and we turn to romance, I think if I meet Mr.

Right or Ms. Right, then that's going to take care of it, he said, but that hole is not filled by money. It's not filled by romantic love. It's not filled by family. It's not filled by job success.

It's not filled by prosperity or political peace. That hole is in the shape of the love of Jesus Christ. And that's why no matter what you find in life, you're always going to feel like something is not quite there, something is still missing because you're created not for health or prosperity, you're created for fellowship with God. You're not even created for family. You're created for fellowship with God. That's why St. Augustine said 1,500 years ago, our hearts are restless until they learn to find their rest in you. You were created for God. You need to be restored to him and only this Messiah, only this Christ, born as a baby to live the life you were supposed to live and then die the death you were condemned to die in your place.

Only that baby could fill that hole. The arms that you've been searching for in romance have actually been his arms. The security that you look for in money is actually found in the presence of Jesus and his promises. The significance that you craved from your dad, from your spouse, from the approval of others, from likes on a Facebook post, that significance is found in hearing God the Father say to you, you are my beloved son or daughter in whom I am well pleased.

Now I want to be very clear. God is good and we're supposed to ask for that goodness to break into our lives and our families. At this church we believe that we can and should pray for physical healing. We should pray, you can pray, and you should pray for an end to loneliness.

You can even pray for political help. But first and foremost, Jesus came to lead you and me into fellowship with the Father. Because again, that's eternal life. That's the fullness of joy. That is life abundantly.

And apart from that, any other fix is only going to be superficial anyway. What God did here was unexpected, but it was exactly what they needed. Can I ask you this weekend, are you ready for God to do the unexpected in your life this Christmas?

Be honest. Are you ready for God to do the unexpected in your life this Christmas? I do not care how spiritually mature you are or how much you know or how certain you feel that you know exactly what you need most from God. I'll just go ahead and tell you as a guy who's been a pastor for almost two decades now with a PhD in theology, you've got to always be ready for God to do the unexpected in your life. And if there is no room in your heart for God to surprise you, I mean legitimately surprise you, I mean I didn't see that come and surprise you, well then maybe it's not God you're actually worshiping. Maybe it's not God you're really seeking. You see, if you're really going to come to God, there's got to be room in your heart for Him to surprise you, to do the unexpected.

Sometimes the greatest love that God might show to you or to me is not in fixing our problems, but when He uses that problem to open your eyes to see the treasure you have in Him, and sometimes that comes through pain. I mean think about it, how does a surgeon bring peace to your body? Not by telling you everything's going to be okay. If you've got a tumor in you, he's got to cut you.

He's got to cut you to take that tumor out so that you can have peace. How does a therapist bring peace to a downcast or a depressed person? A lot of times it's by dredging up the past, isn't it? Getting you to remember and confront those painful memories. Often, this is the irony, you've got to feel worse before you can feel better.

It's the same thing with spiritual healing. Sometimes the paths toward peace lead us through valleys of pain. It's like we often say here at the Summit Church, sometimes God answers our prayers by giving us what we would have asked for if we knew what He knew. Sometimes God shows His love by giving us what we would have asked for if we knew what He knew. And what He knows is that your deepest longings, the deepest longings in your heart, and the peace that you're really looking for, those are found in the knowledge of Him. Those are found in the knowledge of Him. Simeon said two things that, right at the end, that I want to close us with. Two things, look at them, verse 29. After this encounter, Simeon said, I can depart in peace.

I can depart in peace. Hey, what had changed in Simeon's life? What had changed? Having had the Spirit of God open his eyes to see who Jesus really was, he could depart in peace. Nothing had changed about his circumstances. Israel was still under Rome's rule. When Simeon left, he would still be a victim of injustice.

Walking out of that great temple, he might be confronted by a Roman soldier who would say something rude to him, or push him, or maybe even take his money. Yet Simeon says in the temple, I am at peace and I will leave in peace. Nothing had changed with Anna's circumstances, had it? She's still over 100 years old and she's still a widow. She's dead. She's at peace.

Here's my question. Can you be at peace today? When you leave, whether it's one of our campuses or the home that you're sitting in, can you be at peace today?

What do you require in order for you to be able to say, I can depart in peace? Do you require a change in circumstances? Do you require resolution of some injustice?

Do you require some kind of personal vindication? Do you need a new husband? Do you just need a husband?

Do you need your kids to come to faith? Imagine this ring of keys right here as representing the keys to your heart. Remember how in the old days, people would just collect keys and the really important people would have them all, and I was like, that person must be important. They got keys to everywhere. So imagine this just representing one of those big old key rings, and here's what most of us have done. This represents the keys to peace in my heart. And so you've taken one and you've given it to your spouse. My wife gets a key and my kids get a key and my stockbroker gets a key and my boss gets a key and my girlfriend's got a key and your boyfriend's got a key and the school I'm trying to get into, well, they got a key also.

And then you step back and you tell all those groups, all those people that they better treat you the way that you want to be treated because they've got the keys to your peace. Well, y'all, that's not a good plan for a couple of reasons, right? Number one, they're gonna let you down. Guaranteed. You don't even have to have much life experience to know that, and when they let you down, it's hard for you to even be mad at them. Let me tell you how I can say that. Because the person who's let you down most is staring at you every morning when you look in the mirror.

Am I right? Every morning when I look in the mirror, I'm looking at the person who has lied to J.D. Greer more than any other human in history. Every morning when I look in the mirror, I'm looking at the person who is disappointed and let down J.D.

Greer more than anybody else. So here's what I know. If I've let me down, I can't be surprised when other people let me down either because probably I've let them down.

In fact, I'm sure of it. So it is silly for me to give them the keys to my peace. Listen, if hope for you is found and somebody taking the key and using it the right way, then all hope is, listen, is delayed disappointment for you. That's all it is. You've given it to them and you might be able to delay your disappointment for a little bit, but it's coming.

No, no, no. Only Jesus should have the key to your peace. There should only be one key on that ring and you should be able to hand it to Jesus and you should be able to say you've got the key to peace in my heart because only you're going to be faithful with it and you're what I've created for and your promises are sufficient and only you can guarantee it. That's what Simeon and Anna do here. They saw that Jesus held the key to their peace and once they saw Jesus, once they'd entrusted themselves to Him, then they could depart in peace.

It's He and He alone, the keeper of your peace today. Here's the second thing that Simeon said that is so important. Verse 34, this child is destined to cause the rise and the fall of many. Simeon said this baby's going to bring a dividing line. Verse 35, Simeon says he'll cause offense. Because of him, Simeon said, the thoughts of a lot of hearts are going to get exposed. What they really think about God, this baby boy is going to grow up and reveal that because of his claims, the truth about their heart will actually be revealed and we can pull back the veil on their fake religiosity because that baby is going to grow up and preach that none of us are good enough to get to heaven. And he's going to have to give us that as a gift through his work, not ours. And we're going to have to receive that humbly like beggars. Jesus did not come to make you a better person.

He came because you could not be a better person and you'd have to depend on Him and Him alone to save you. And a lot of people aren't going to like that because it's going to attack their pride. Because they want somebody to improve them.

They want a new and better version of them. But Jesus said, you are dead in your sin and I've got to put my life into you. You've got to admit that you're worth nothing spiritually to God or you're at least worthy of nothing spiritually.

And you've got to receive the gift humbly. He's going to demand absolute lordship from us. And a lot of people aren't going to like that either because while they've got no problem with religion, they want to retain control of their lives. They want control of their pocketbooks. They want control of their destinies.

They want control of their relationships. And so this baby boy is going to grow up and say, if I'm not Lord of all, I'm not Lord at all. And they're not going to like that because as religious as they are, they want to keep their hands on the reins. And this baby boy is going to grow up and insist that more than we need fixes to our problems, we need Him. And a lot of people aren't going to like that either and they're not going to be satisfied with that. And that's going to reveal that a lot of them aren't interested in God.

What they're actually interested in is what they think God can do for them. This baby boy is going to bring a dividing line and all of us are going to be challenged. Hey, get this. Simeon, talk about a guy with some backbone. Simeon looks at Mary. Yep, Mary.

And looks at her and says, and a sword will pierce your soul also. Hey, could we just acknowledge there are a few people in the Bible that are presented as admirably and attractively as Mary, right? I mean, yet even Mary didn't get it completely right. Mary was seriously mistaken at first as to what her son was all about.

And more than once, more than once, she tried to stop him. Mark 3.31, look it up, especially if you grew up in a church that taught you that Mary was sinless. Mark 3.31 says that Jesus' mother and brothers found his claim so absurd that they thought he was literally, verse 31, insane. Verse 21 says that they tried to bring him home out of his ministry. They tried to bring him home by force because they thought, verse 21, he was out of his mind. So Simeon looks at Mary and says, Jesus' claims are going to challenge even you, Mary.

Why do I point that out? Because that means you should expect that he will challenge you also. In fact, I would say that one of the signs that you've really encountered Jesus is that you've wrestled with him. Because he really given yourself that Jesus is going to feel in some ways like a sword has come into your soul. Really encountering Jesus means your pride is going to get challenged. And that control you want over your life, that's going to get challenged too. And he's going to challenge you with the core of your idols.

And if you've never wrestled with that deep challenge, you probably have never grappled with the real him. You've just gotten religious. This baby boy is going to draw a dividing line and that dividing line is going to separate people for eternity. John 3, he that believes and obeys the son has everlasting life.

And those that don't believe and obey the son will perish without him. The most important question you will ever consider is what side of that dividing line are you on? Have you surrendered to him? Have you given yourself to him?

Or are you still without him? He's a dividing line. My kids and I were on a trip recently and we were coming out of the RDU airport and we walked in this little corridor, the TSA corridor where you pass like the, there's this little like line with lights in it and it represents the security line. And my kids, every time we go on a trip, every time they say, dad, don't you remember that time you made the security alarm go off?

Every time we go now, they say, dad, this is the play. I'm like, I remember the place. Because it was, you know, we were walking on the line and I was just trying to be, you know, dad jokes. So I was like, oh, look, there's this line here. And I thought it was like a zone, like sort of a general kind of like, just, you know, don't go past this area and come back. So this little line on the floor, I was like, you know, hey kids, look, I'm in, I'm out, I'm in, I'm out.

And they're all, you know, and all of a sudden the lights start flaring and the alarm goes off and the whole air and like the security guards come running down the thing. And I'm like, you know, I get down on my knees. No, I didn't get down on my knees, but it just, it was a moment because the kids are like, remember that? I'm like, I remember that. Remember the time you almost got arrested?

I remember that. So, but it's a line, right? And you're either on one side or the other, either in or you're out.

It's a dividing line. What side of the line are you on with Jesus? Have you ever come to a place where you've acknowledged that you can never be good enough to earn heaven? Have you come to a place where you surrendered yourself to him knowing that only his mercy could save you and that you were putting him in charge of your life? You can be a better person. He came because you couldn't be a better person. And have you received him acknowledging that only he can save you?

Right? And having received that, can you now say I am ready to depart from here and I am ready to be at peace? Why don't you bow your heads if you would at all of our campuses and our homes? Hey friend, it's very simple, okay?

Have you received him? If not, you could do it right now through, we call it surrender in faith. That's the biblical words. Surrender in faith. Jesus, I turn over control of my life to you. I can't save myself. You've got to save me. I receive you right now as my savior.

Say it to him wherever you sit, however old you are. Jesus, I can't save myself. Only you can save me. Hey friend, summit member, can you say I can depart in peace? I know that I have received Jesus.

If so, then ask God to open your eyes to how rich a treasure you possess in him. Let that be the time of your prayer. Hey, if you just received Christ, with heads bowed and eyes closed, if you just received Christ, if you just prayed, whether you're at home or whether you're in one of our campuses, I want you to pull out your phone. In just a minute, whenever you want to, I want you to pull out your phone. I want you to text the word ready, R-E-A-D-Y, to 33933. 33933, in fact, you can very quietly peek up here at the screen as I put it on the screen here. 33933, text the word ready. We'll get back to you. If you prayed to receive Jesus, you text the word ready to that number because we want to show you what it looks like to know for sure that you're gonna go to heaven when you die and what it looks like to follow Jesus. God, we're ready. Working through this this weekend, I can say I got a lot of life ahead of me and a lot of things I'm looking forward to, but if today it's all over and if a lot of the things I'm hoping for don't come true, I can depart in peace, let your servant depart in peace because my eyes have beheld Jesus and I know Him and He knows me and that is enough.