"Simeon's Vision of Christmas” – Salvation – Luke 2:25-35

Do you ever think about what you would do different if you were God?  Sure, you do.  You may not think about it in exactly that way but everybody has thoughts about how they would do things better if they were in control. So, don’t feel bad if you have ever thought about that. In fact, as I have said before, that is how just about every other religion except Christianity got started. 

It was basically some guy sitting under a tree somewhere thinking about how he would do it if he were God and he fell asleep and had a dream and claimed it was God speaking to him.  Then he wrote it down and people believed it. Now we have Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism (I don’t know.  I just googled world religions).

Do you know that every world religion except Christianity has something else in common?  Anybody want to guess what separates Christianity from everything else? In every other religion, you have to do something or do enough good somethings to be saved and go to Heaven or Paradise or Nirvana or Lalaland or whatever they call the place you go after you die. You have to earn your way in.  There’s no free lunch and there’s sure no free Heaven.  Be good enough or go to the other place. It just makes sense, right? 

People think Heaven is for good people and Hell is for bad people.  It is the religion’s job to figure out how much bad you can do compared to how much good.  Some people just think it’s basically a 51% versus 49% kinda deal. If you do just a little more good than you did bad, that’s good enough.  I guess if it’s a tie, you just hope you catch God in a good mood. People think that way because if they were God, that’s the way they would do it.  It makes sense.  It’s logical.

Now, who in his right mind would ever think, “I know.  I’ve got it.  I’ll send a baby.  I’ll send a baby to be born of a virgin.  Yea, that’s it, and he will grow up perfectly and then be tortured to death and then come back to life and He will pay the price for every low-life, degenerate, sinful person to have a way to live in a perfect and wonderful Heaven forever and all they have to do is have faith”?

Now, there are some pretty crazy religions out there but that would be one of the craziest…if it weren’t true, right? Honestly, I left out some of the other “crazy” stuff; stuff like being all God and all man, predicted in hundreds of scriptures for hundreds of years before His birth, born in a barn and raised by a carpenter and did miracle after miracle including walking out of the grave alive after three days.

That’s almost laughable.  How’s a guy supposed to make any money peddling that kind of religion? Huh? Everybody knows you have to earn your way to Heaven, right? Well, you know that’s not right.  I know that’s not right and Simeon knew that wasn’t right. Simeon knew that Jesus was the Way, the Truth and the Life even before it was written about Jesus. Simeon knew as soon as he saw Jesus, just eight days old, that He was the Messiah, the one promised by God all through the Old Testament.

Turn to Luke chapter 2 if you haven’t already and let’s read again verses 25-35.  We saw last week that it says that Simeon was waiting for the “consolation of Israel” and we today are consoled and comforted in some of the same ways Simeon was that day in the temple. We are consoled because we know that baby grew up and it is our faith in Him that brings forgiveness, joy and peace in this life but also we know that this life isn’t all there is and we are promised eternity in Heaven with Him as believers.

Today, we see Simeon acknowledge the salvation that Jesus brought and still brings for us today. Let’s read it in Luke 2:25-35.

Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:

29 “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
    you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
30 For my eyes have seen your salvation,
31     which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
    and the glory of your people Israel.”

33 The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

In passages like this, I think it is important to know exactly what the word means, as the person who wrote it meant it and what it means for us today.  So, I grabbed my 42-pound concordance off the shelf and looked up this word “salvation” as we see it in verse 30. It told me the Greek word that Luke used here for salvation is “soterion” (so-tay-ree-on).  Soterion means…drumroll please…Salvation!

Yes, it was one of those times when it wasn’t worth lifting that big book up.  We know what salvation means.  We know what it means to be preserved or delivered, you might also say. Simeon said, “I can die now for I have seen God’s salvation. I have now seen God’s plan to bring about salvation to the entire world.”

Do you save anything; anything at all?  Maybe you save stamps.  I know Janet collects and saves anything about horses.  Lois saves puppies and kittens sometimes. Troy saves everything because he was raised during the Depression. I used to collect and save speeding tickets when I was younger, but I don’t do that anymore.  It’s too expensive and dangerous of a hobby.

I was thinking about this and about the only thing I save anymore are Walmart bags.  You know what I mean. I have thousands of them and I hate to throw them out.  You can put a thousand Walmart bags in a very small space and they are so handy.  I hate to waste them.  You can use them as trash bags.  You can carry stuff in them.  Keep things from getting wet in them.  I hate to throw them away.

Why do we save things like that?  We save them because we want to use them for something else.  We don’t want them to be wasted.  They still have value to us.  You see where I’m going with this, don’t you?  Almighty, all-powerful, all-knowing God had this “crazy” plan to save people because He values us and loves us and didn’t want our lives to go to waste.

Now, there are three questions we need to ask to fully understand our salvation.  If we really want to fully grasp why God sent His Son Jesus to live and die and be our sacrifice for our salvation then we need to ask these questions.  1) To what are we saved? 2) From what are we saved? 3) For what are we saved? (Mrs. Overman, my high school English teacher would be proud of my effort to say that correctly.)

Let’s look first at what being saved by God gives us.  To what are we saved?  We are saved to Heaven.  Yes, we can have peace and joy in this life, as we talked about last week but we also talked about this life being so short compared to eternity and so ultimately and the main reason we are saved and what we are saved to is eternal life in Heaven.

Do you remember a few months ago going through a sermon series on what Heaven is going to be like?  We spent two months going through what the Bible says and doesn’t say about Heaven and it was some of the most fun I have ever had preparing sermons.  It was fascinating. It is so far from being what most people picture as Heaven.

The Bible never says anything about sitting on clouds strumming harps, wearing white robes and wishing we had a magazine to read.  How boring!  The Bible teaches us that Heaven is filled with music and fun and filled with color and excitement; full of art and architecture, fulfilling all our wants and needs with God’s unlimited creativity.

Do you like waterfalls and beautiful mountains and the smell of flowers?  Just wait until you experience that in Heaven!  Or maybe you like the city life with lots of things to do and places to go.  The capital city of Jerusalem – the New Jerusalem – will be 1500 miles squared.  Yes, squared; as long and wide as it is high. If you have enjoyment doing things on this old earth, just wait until God has finished preparing a place just for you.

Did you know God has a job waiting for you in Heaven?  I know for some of you, a job doesn’t sound very heavenly, but it is work where we find satisfaction and fulfillment.  In Matthew 25:23, Jesus is telling a parable about a rich man who entrusts his servants with some money while he is going to be gone and when he comes back he tells one of them, “Well done, good and faithful servant.  You have been faithful over a little.  I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.”

Because we are faithful with what little God gives us in this life, He will reward us with the great joy of being over - or in charge of – much. Imagine having a perfect body with all the energy, imagination and resources you could ever need and all the time you need to do whatever your job is.  Sounds like fun to me!

We are saved to a Heaven where we will walk and talk with Jesus Himself.  We can sing with perfect voices and dance and run and jump and never get tired.  Being saved by the blood of Jesus means we are saved to Heaven for eternity.  Do you believe that?  Are you sure we are saved to Heaven? Because if you believe we are saved to Heaven then you have to believe that we are saved from Hell because the same place – the Bible - that teaches us about one teaches about the other.

Okay, Todd, preaching on Hell is not very Christmas-y.  Who does that? Well, if we truly want to understand what it means to be saved as Simeon is talking about here in Luke 2, then we need to know, not just what we are saved to but also what we are saved from (sorry Mrs. Overman). Just like Heaven is a real place, we know that scripture teaches that Hell is a real place as well.

I’ve often said that if we truly knew how great Heaven was going to be and just how horrible Hell was going to be, we wouldn’t sleep but would run into traffic trying to tell people about Jesus. I saw a bumper sticker that said, “Heaven doesn’t want me and Hell’s afraid I’ll take over.” People have this idea that Hell is going to be where all the cool kids go to party, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Let me read just a few passages of scripture that give more detail about Hell.  I won’t read all of them.  It is still Christmas, after all.  Matthew 25: “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Matthew 8: “But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Revelation 20: “Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.” 2 Thessalonians 1: “everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”

I think that last part is the worst: “shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might”. In Hell there is no grace or mercy; no protection or provision because they are shut out from God’s presence. God has gone to great lengths to provide a way out of Hell for you and He wants you to be there.  He has provided salvation to Heaven and from Hell for all of us even though we are all sinners. Simeon realized it.  He believed.  He had faith.  Do you?

Lastly, we see for what we have been saved.  We have been saved to Heaven and from Hell, but did you know we have jobs to do on this side of Heaven as well?  What we have been saved for is simply to tell others about Jesus. You know, in this colder weather, it’s perfect for having a camp fire.  I love sitting around a fire with some of my cousins like we do sometimes and telling stories and jokes.  But there is something mesmerizing about just watching the fire.

It’s fascinating to see the flames dancing from one piece of wood to another.  It starts out small and develops into a huge, roaring, colorful flame. If you watch, you will see one piece of wood catch another piece on fire and it just spreads and spreads even as the original piece of wood is consumed and used up.  That’s how a relationship with Jesus plays out in the life of a true believer.

When you experience the peace and joy in the midst of difficulty; when you have the assurance of eternity in Heaven and when you realize what you have been saved to and saved from it should consume you.  Your life should be blazing with thankfulness, so much so that other people recognize and catch it too.  They should see that you are different from other people and start to catch the flame as you spend time with them.

And what better time to tell somebody else about Jesus than when the whole world is celebrating His birthday? Oh, they don’t always want to admit it and they would rather sing Jingle Bells than Oh Holy Night but they are still celebrating the birthday of our Savior.

In Paul’s day, some people were preaching about Jesus because they thought they could make money off it (boy, they were wrong) and some people thought they could do it better than somebody else and they wanted to look good.  Do you know what Paul said about that in Philippians 1:18? He said, “But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.”

That’s how we ought to feel as we go through the stores and see Santa Claus and snowmen and every other commercialized product in the world having to do with Christmas. Yes, they have it wrong.  It’s not about the presents or the tree but who cares? They are celebrating Jesus and that gives us easy opportunities to speak His name and tell other people about that peace and joy we have and to tell them about our eternity in Heaven.  If you can’t find a way to talk about Jesus during this holiday…you’re not on fire.

That’s why God saved you and left you here on this earth; to tell other people.  It’s what you have been saved for.  We are blessed to know what we are saved to and what we are saved from but that should motivate you to do what you were saved for. In fact, that’s what Jesus wants for Christmas this year; a relationship with you. Make that decision today as the music plays.