Simeon - Real Men of Christmas: Wk 5

Hey, welcome. We are so glad you guys are here. I want to introduce you to some friends of ours. This is the Cash family, Benji and Grace. We got Cedar and Arrow and eight day old Dove. Come on. First outing out of the house and here. So thanks for being here, you guys. Benji has been doing a church planning residency with us for the last year. And they have just launched a brand new church plant in Mayport Elementary. It's called the Gathering Jacks. So, yeah, we can clap for that. I was there a couple of weeks ago and what the Lord is doing is absolutely incredible. And it's just wonderful to see what you guys are doing. The Lord blessing it and using you guys. And we're thrilled at what you're doing. And so we want to pray for you in just a minute. But as we've done this before, we have this little tradition of it's a really bad gift, but it's kind of sentimental. You guys that laugh know what's coming. These are doorstops. And when I planted a church, we met in a middle school, like you guys meet in an elementary school, and doorstops just walk off and they disappear. And so I called my dad one day and I said, hey, dad, can you make me some doorstops? So my dad got a two by four, chopped up a bunch of doorstops, and my mom sewed up these bags like this and she's made more. So my dad cut these, my mom sewed this up. And I remember my dad coming in and he shoved the doorstops in my chest and he said, you do whatever it takes to keep the door open for people to come to Jesus. And so that's what I would tell you if if Pop was here, he'd say, you do whatever you can do to keep the doors open for Jesus. And in Psalm 8410, it says, I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than to do anything else. And that's what you guys are, that you guys get to open the door and let people come in to see Jesus and experience him. And so I pray that that is always what you guys are, what the Gathering Jacks is, that people would come to see Jesus. So I'll give you these.

And then Pastor Trey is going to pray for you guys. Yeah, come on. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this precious family and the call that you've placed on their lives. God, I thank you for Pastor Benji and the man of faith that he is to step out and to boldly take the gospel to Mayport. God, we just pray for the 15,437, Pastor Benji can correct me if I'm wrong, people that live in Mayport. God, we pray that you would save them, that you draw them to yourself. We know he will lift you up high. And so we pray that you would draw them to you. And we pray that the nations would be impacted because of Gathering Church. We pray blessings over grace and these children. We pray not only would you save them, but these boys would grow up to be men who not only love you, but make you known. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Say thanks to these guys. Thanks, you guys, for being here. Pastor Benji is going to be out front. If you want information, if 730 is too early for a service, then you should just go to the Mayport service and go to that church down in Mayport. And they would love to have you go out. If you want more information, you can see him out in the lobby. You want to give him a handshake and slip him $100. I'm sure that wouldn't be objected to out there. So would you all please stand and we're going to read God's word together. It's from Luke chapter 2, starting in verse 21. And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. And when the time came for their purification, according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord. Pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. Now, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, 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 see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came in the spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him, according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and he blessed God and said, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for. Glory to your people, Israel. And his father and 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 and a sword will pierce through your own soul also so that the thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. Lord, I pray that you would take these words that you've inspired by the power of your spirit and you would illuminate them, that you would lift them off these pages, make them living words in our lives. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our heart be acceptable in your sight, oh God, our rock and our redeemer, in Jesus' name, amen. You can be seated. So we are closing out this week the series called Real Men of Christmas. We've looked at the wise men, we looked at Joseph. We looked at different people. We looked at Jesus last week. Today, we're gonna look at Simeon. And if you don't know who Simeon is in the Christmas story, no problem. Most people don't know who Simeon is

in the Christmas story. He's probably one of the least talked about people in the Christmas story, but he is critically important. The things that we come to see through the account of Simeon are like almost nothing else that we see in here. And as we do this last message, not only do we wrap up this series, but we're wrapping up the whole year on stand firm and act like men. And so, ladies, I just say, you've been making the translation for 51 other weeks. I believe in you. You can do it one more week, okay? You got it in you. All right, you ready? So here's the big question. Is what do we see in the account of Simeon that points us to what a real man is? What do we see in the account of Simeon that points us to what a real man is? And to give some background, we'll go back and let me reread Luke chapter two, starting in verse 21. At the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus. The name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. And when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem

to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. And to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. So here's kind of where we're sitting when this account happens. There were 41 days. We are 41 days after the birth of Jesus when this happens. You say, well, how do you know that? Well, in Leviticus chapter 12, which I'm sure you were reading this morning before you got here, it says that there's after eight days, you're supposed to take your son, present him to be circumcised. And they said that's what they did. And then there's a period of purification. And Leviticus 12 says that's 33 days. So 33, eight, he was 41. So they're about a month and a half after Jesus's birth. Mary and Joseph take Jesus. Because you always go up into Jerusalem. It's up on a hill. They go into the temple and there they present him. And it says that they have two turtle doves and two pigeons. Now what's interesting is in Leviticus 12, it says that when you come to bring that sacrifice,

that you're to bring a lamb or turtle doves or pigeons. And one of the things that you see in here is that Mary and Joseph, they don't bring a lamb. They bring two turtle doves or two pigeons. And one is because I think they're just young and poor. Anybody remember starting out just being young and broke? You can't even, I mean, I think that's part of it. The other thing, the other reason that I think that they're there without a lamb is because they actually brought the lamb. They brought Jesus. They're bringing the sacrifice into the temple. And so that's kind of the whole context of what's going on. Now verse 25, now there was a man. This is really important. He's not the man. He's just a man. Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. And this man, not the man, just a man, this man, Simeon was righteous. Now righteous doesn't mean perfect. He was not a perfect man. The reason I know that is because scripture tells us nobody's perfect. We're called to be perfect as God is perfect, but nobody is perfect. And so what righteous means here is, I mean, he may have had some actions that were better than other people, but righteous really means in a right relationship with God.

That a real man is in a right relationship with God. That's what it means to be righteous. You go, well, how do you get into a right relationship with God? Well, you get into a right relationship with God through Jesus. That Jesus is the righteous one. Like, he is perfect. He lived a perfect, holy, righteous life. And his active obedience to God the Father in every way, at every moment, when we come to faith in Jesus, that is imputed to us. That's a big old Bible term that just, it means you and I are declared righteous. That what is true of Jesus becomes true of you and me. That his perfect status becomes our perfect status. About a week ago, our family went out to Northern California to see Kristen's mom and dad for Christmas. And Gavin and Sophie were flying out with us. And my role in church planning means that I fly a ton. I think last year I flew 90 days. And listen, that comes with some perks. If you fly on the same airline enough and you guys do that, every once in a while, they'll let you in the little lounge area or whatever. And so we get there and we all come walking in. We go in, I'm like, let's go, we'll go in the lounge. We'll get something to eat. So we walk into the lounge. I boot my phone.

They go, are you by yourself? I said, nope, they're all with me. And they go, hey, nice to see you, Ms. Flint. Come on in. And we walk in and we're sitting there and Gavin and Sophie go, you know, we all, we just destroy the buffet in there. Eat it all up. We're sitting there. Some point later during the trip, Gavin looks at me and he's like, man, I love flying with you, dad. Like, I love it too. He's like, yeah, cause you got all the status. And when I fly with you, it's like, I got all the status. And I'm like, yeah. And we talked for a second. That's what it's like to be in Christ. That, listen, I did all the work. I sat on the plane, cramped up, my knees jacked up, eating the little Cheez-Its. The guys sitting over my edge of the seat. I earned it all. I suffered. And then they rode my coattails. That, that's what it means to be righteous. That what is true of Jesus gets credited, declared to us. Our status is our status for God because Jesus is righteous.

This man was righteous and devout. That he's reverent and God-fearing. He's intentional. You see he's committed to things like worship. Like he's going regularly up into the temple and he's worshiping. You see him praying. You see him committed to scripture. That a real man is a devout man. Listen, are you devout? Are you casual in your relationship with God? Are you devout in your faith or are you casual in your faith? Like next year, we're gonna do a sermon series in the book of Matthew. And it's gonna take us almost the entire year. I think it's gonna take us like 10 months or something to go through the book of Matthew. And I loved it on Christmas Eve at our Christmas services. Pastor Joey said, just give me a year. You remember this? If you were here, just give me a year and see what happens. And I would ask you the same thing. What would it be like if you devoted yourself to a year of walking with Jesus from his birth, his life, his death and his resurrection? What would that be like for us? So he was a righteous man.

He was a devout man. And this man was also waiting for the consolation of Israel. The consolation of Israel, it's like the saving, the redeeming, the freeing, the restoring, the comforting of God's people. And he was waiting on that. He had a hope of a thing to come, the saving of God's people. And he was waiting on it to happen. Like he wasn't passive. He wasn't just sitting there. This waiting, it's an active waiting, right? I love to fly fish. And you go out when you fly fish, you don't just like toss the worm on a bobber and just let it sit there and then go take a nap. When you fly fish, it's an active way of fishing, but you're waiting on the fish. Like you tie the fly on, you cast it right out there, you're letting it drift down and you're watching and you're waiting and you're like here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, set. That's what this waiting is like. So if you came home from the promised land, Gainesville, two weeks ago, go Gators. No, all right, there we go. It's all right, guys, you can cheer for the Gators just because our lead pastor likes the other team, it's fine. I'm here, I got you.

She's coming home from the promised land and we're waiting on her. And you know how we wait? I go get, find my phone and I pull her up on find my phone because she's on my phone plan and as long as she's on my phone plan, I get to track her. And so it's like, oh, she's left Gainesville, all right, hour and a half. I check back, where is she? Okay, she's heading through Waldo, start here, she's getting closer, she's getting closer and then it's like, okay, she's coming down Michaels Road, she's turned on A1A, she's into the neighborhood and then I go, we get the dog, we go out, put the bed of the truck down and we're sitting there and we're waiting and then here comes and we're watching her, we're tracking, we're waiting for her to come and then there she turns around the corner and down the road and the dog starts doing back flips and we're standing in the truck, we're here, that's waiting. He has this hope and he's waiting for it, that this, a real man is actively hopeful in what God will do. And this man was righteous and devout, 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 see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ and he came in the Spirit into the temple. There's three things that are said about him right here about the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit was upon him, that he was filled with the Spirit. Here's the good news is that if you are a follower of Jesus, you have the Spirit of God in you. You don't need more of the Spirit, God has given you the Holy Spirit, that's how you came to have faith and he's filled with the Spirit and it's revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he's listening to the Spirit. You go, well, how do you listen to the Spirit? How do you follow the Holy Spirit? Here's how you do it, you read this. Because the Holy Spirit inspired these words, he revealed these words to be written and there is no more revelation. Here's what God does, he illuminates what he reveals. And so if you want to listen to the Spirit, you listen to this. And so it's revealed to him by the Spirit and he came in the Spirit into the temple, he's living obediently. He's living by the power of the Spirit. And so are you full of yourself or are you filled with the Spirit?

Do you spend more time listening to sports commentators or political pundits or reels on Instagram or are you listening to the Spirit of God? Are you trying to manage your life by your own power or are you living in the power of the Spirit? 27 says, and when the parents brought the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms. Like here come Mary and Joseph and they got little baby Jesus, five, six weeks old. They walk in and Simeon sees Jesus and he takes him up in his arms. A real man is Christ-centered. You see, back in verse 26, if you look back there, it says, he said he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. If you look down in verse 29, it says he's praying and he says, God, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word for my eyes have seen your salvation. You have a bucket list? You got a list of things that you wanna do, you wanna go see the Grand Canyon, you wanna travel overseas, whatever it is? You got your six, 10, 12 things you want? Simeon had one thing on his bucket list, see Jesus. Fix his eyes on Jesus. A real man is Christ-centered. And so are you self-centered, or are you Christ-centered? Verse 28, he took him up in his arms, and he blessed God.

He said, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all people, a light for the revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel. He blesses God, he glorifies God, he prays to God, he worships God, he makes much of God in this thing. A real man is God-glorifying. Are you self-glorifying, or are you God-glorifying? And a real man is peaceful. Lord, now you're letting your servant depart in peace. You know, peace is a feeling, right? It can be a feeling, I got a peaceful, easy feeling. But most of the time, peace has not so much to do with the feeling as it has to do with a right standing with God, that you're not at war with God. You realize this, that on our own, in our sin, we have committed treason against God, that we declared war on God. Now, you may not think of it that way. You may just think, well, I'm doing my own thing. But what you have done, cosmically speaking, is you've declared war against the king. And Jesus comes as victor, and he conquers, and he ends the war, and he brings peace. He's Prince of Peace. So are you at peace with God? Like, are you satisfied in Jesus?

How about this? When you walk into the room, does chaos walk in with you, or does peace? When you walk into a meeting, does the stress level go up, or does peace and calm come with you? When you get home, does everybody kind of tighten up, because, uh-oh, here he comes? Stress, anger, anxiety? Or when you walk in the room, does everybody just take a deep breath, and calm and peace comes with you? And a real man is biblically based. Do you see what it says in 29? He's doing this according to your word. That's what he wants to be. He wants to live according to your word, that a real man is biblically based. Six times in just these handful of verses, it's repeated, according to your word, according to the custom of the law, in your law, and all over. Go read the birth narrative of Jesus. It's all over, that everything is happening in accordance with the law of God, the word of God. And so do you wanna do what you wanna do? Are you doing what the infallible, inspired, inerrant word of God says to do? Verse 33, 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, for a sign that is opposed, and a sword will pierce through your own soul, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. And here's the last thing. A real man is a blessing to others. Do you see that? He blesses God, and he talks to God, and then he turns around and he blesses Mary and Joseph, and he talks to them. That he's focused on somebody else other than himself. This whole thing is not about Simeon to him. It's about, he's blessing them, he's focused on others. We got to see this together as a church a couple weeks ago. We had Compassion Sunday, right? In the middle of Christmas, where everybody's making their list and checking it twice, and telling everybody what they want. You guys showed up and sponsored over 3,700 kids. That's amazing. You guys should have clapped right there. That's stunning. The 3,700 kids got freed from poverty in Jesus' name. That you blessed 3,700 other families. If you didn't have a chance to do it, you can still do it. You can text sponsor to 83393. Sponsor to 83393. I dare you. But that's not the end of it.

I want to tell you a little bit more about this. Here's the thing about being a blessing. It's not a feeling. Everybody feels like they're a blessing to everybody else. It's not the thought that counts. It's not. It's actually saying the thing out loud to the person. Like bless them, encourage them, speak it over them. It's what you do for somebody that is a blessing. Like be generous to them, help them. Take the garbage when you're not asked. Be a blessing. It's not a blessing to go, well, I thought about helping, but I didn't. I thought about telling you this, I didn't. And so here, are you the hero of your story? Or do you make others the hero of the story? Are you actually generous? Not feel generous, actually generous. Like if people were honest with you, would they say they think you expect them to serve you? Or that you expect to serve them? So how are you doing on these eight? Failing? Me too. Are you running through as you think about these? Do you have reasons why you should be exempt from some of these? Me too. Are you feeling like I hear you and I want to,

I just don't have the power to do it? Me too. And so the question becomes, so how do we become a real man? Where does that power to be those things come from? Where did Simeon get it? And here's the thing, Simeon was a real man, not because he was the man. It's because his whole life was about the one and only, the real man, Jesus. That's what it means. And the good news is that Jesus isn't just some example for us to follow. Where we should have to try harder to do better, to be like Jesus. The good news is that Jesus is actually the real man for us, that he does what we can't do. He stands in our place for us. That's the good news. And that's what makes a real man, a real man. So why is Jesus the real man? Well, Jesus is the one and only perfect real man because he's the savior. Look at verse 26. It had been revealed to him, Simeon, by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. That word Christ is savior. He's not a savior, but he's the Lord's Christ. He's the savior.

Listen, you and I, we're not mistakers in need of some tips and tricks. We didn't just kind of get it a little bit wrong. So we just need a little bit of help getting back on track. You and I are sinners and we need a savior. You see, you and I were created to be in a perfect right relationship with God. That's Genesis one. That we were supposed to be face to face with our creator forever in an unbroken relationship. But what Adam and Eve did one page later in scripture, it only took one page, is they look at God and they go, hey God, I know you created all of this, that you designed it all, that you hold it all, that you know how it works perfectly. But hey God, I'm gonna do my thing. I think I can run my life better than you can run my life. I think I know how everything should go better than you, sovereign king of the universe knows how it goes. And when we did that, we walked away from God. And that's sin, to stiff arm God. And the Bible says the wages of sin is death. Now listen, the reason that is true is because God is just. And you want God to be just, don't you? Like you don't want God to look at the atrocities of the world, child abuse. Things like that, rape, killing, murder. You don't want God to just look at that and kind of brush it under the carpet and say,

well, we'll just forget about that. If you did that, if a judge did that, you would go, that's an unjust judge. And because God is perfectly just, sin must be paid for. And the wages of sin is death. But God is not just just, He is love. That's what the scripture tells us. He's not just loving, He is love, that He is merciful. And so how do you reconcile those two things? How do you reconcile a perfectly just God and a loving, merciful God? It's not like those things all have to equal out to 100%. He's 100% just and 100% loving and 100% merciful. How do you have that? The only way you can have that is in the cross of Jesus Christ. That in Jesus, you see the perfect Son of God live a perfect life and God pours His justice out on Him and you and I receive love and mercy in that moment. That's how Jesus is the Savior. And not only is He the Savior, but He is salvation. Look at verse 30. Simeon says, for my eyes have seen your salvation. That Jesus isn't just the Savior who obtains salvation. He isn't just the Savior that gives salvation. He is Himself salvation. That to be saved is not just to be forgiven of your sins. That would be enough if that were the case, to have your slate wiped clean. But the reason you get your slate wiped clean

is so that you can be adopted into the family of God and then you get Jesus. Like you get Him forever. You get not only a Savior, but you get salvation in the person of Jesus. And He is the Savior of every kind of sinner. Every quantity of sin and every quality of sin. Some of you are like, I'm nailing, I can sin because I got a bunch of it. Some of you are like, I'm sinning because I'm really good at it. You got a quality of sin about you. Listen, verse 30, it says, for my eyes have seen your salvation. That you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, all kinds of people, a light for the revelation to the Gentiles, like the rebellious, the running from God, and for glory to your people, Israel, the self-righteous ones. You realize that, right? That you can sin through rebellion and self-righteousness. They're the same thing, just separate sides of the coin, different sides of the coin. Both of them are you trying to have your life your way. And Jesus is a Savior for every kind of sinner. That's why we say around here that we're a movement for all people, all kinds of people. Jesus is the real man because He's God's promised plan. Verse 30, my eyes have seen your salvation.

That you have prepared in the presence of all people. I'm gonna skip down to verse 34. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel. That he's prepared. Jesus is prepared and appointed. Jesus is not plan B. It wasn't like God set all of the world up and then sin happens and he goes, no way, I didn't see that coming. Jesus, how about you go? No, he knew from before the foundations of the world, the way all of this would go down. And he planned and prepared and appointed his son, Jesus, to be the Savior and be salvation of every kind of sinner. Because he knew that's what would bring him the most glory. And Jesus is the real man because he is resurrected. Verse 34, Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many. That word rising, it's the same word as resurrection. Resurrection. resurrected, anastasis, that Jesus himself is the resurrected one. Like he lived, he died, three days later he's resurrected. And 1 Corinthians 15 tells us that Jesus is like a first fruits, that for those who place their faith in Jesus, that what is true of Jesus becomes true of us. And so if Jesus is resurrected, what is true of those who have faith in Jesus is that you and I will be resurrected. We're not going to float around on clouds in some ethereal, heavenly place forever. We're going to talk about this next week. We will get

resurrected bodies because Jesus is the resurrected one. And Romans 10, 9 says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart, faith, that God raised him, resurrected him from the dead, you will be saved. And Jesus is miraculous. He's miraculous. Verse 34, behold, this child is appointed, one, for the fall and rising of many, and two, for a sign that is opposed. That little word sign is miracle. That's what that word is. If you were here during the John series, we talked about this a ton. That Jesus did lots of miracles, and all of the miracles, they weren't just for themselves. They were all signs. They were all pointing to the greatest miracle, the life, the death, the resurrection of Jesus. And Jesus is the greatest miracle. And that miracle is going to be opposed. You realize right now that miracle is being opposed in places around the world. Like if you go to Nigeria, right now, thousands of Christians are being killed, martyred, because of the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus. If you go to Nepal, thousands of Christians are being martyred and killed because they believe in their heart that God raised him from the dead. Jesus is this miracle, and he is the revealer of our sinful hearts. Verse 34 says, behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many, for a sign that is opposed. And here's the third one, a sword will pierce through your own soul so that the thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. That Jesus lays open our deepest needs of our soul. If right now you're bringing to mind, something's coming to mind like, man, why did I act that way on Christmas Eve? Why did I say that? Why did I do that? Something's stirred up inside of you. That's not just because you have a great conscience. That's because Jesus is the revealer of our hearts, and that it is his loving kindness, it is the kindness of the Lord that brings us to repentance. It's God's kindness. He's not like a sword that's just hacking away at us. He's like a good surgeon that makes an incision, and the incision, it's going to hurt. It's going to take recovery. But the scalpel is there to open it up and to be able to carve out and cut out the cancer so that you can live whole

and healed. And that's what Jesus is doing. And then skip down and look at verse 39 and 40. And when they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. And the child, Jesus, grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor or the grace of God was upon him. Jesus is the man, the real man, because he's strong, and he's wise, and he's full of grace. This is who Jesus is. This is who the real man Jesus is. And so Simeon was a real man, not because he was the man, but because he lived his whole life centered around, placed his faith in the real man, Jesus. Like, why was Simeon righteous? It wasn't because of his religious behavior. It's because Jesus was the Savior. And why was Simeon devout? Wasn't because of a bunch of activity that he did. It's because Jesus revealed his sinful heart and then worked the miracle of salvation in him. Why was Simeon hopeful? It's not just because he's got a positive attitude and outlook on life. It isn't just because he has a wish. Simeon is, he's hopeful because Jesus is resurrected. We say it all the time. If the tomb is empty, anything is possible. That's hope. He's hopeful because Jesus is the resurrected one. Why was Simeon spirit-filled? It's not because he's whipped up into emotion. It's because Jesus was gracious and poured his spirit out on him. And why was Simeon God-glorifying? Because Jesus is salvation.

Why is Simeon biblically-based? It's not just because he's got a good moral character. It's because Jesus was the perfect plan of God from all time. And why was Simeon peaceful? It's not just because he has like a calm demeanor. It's because Jesus is strong. And why was Simeon others-focused? He's just not a nice guy. It's because Jesus was a savior for all kinds of sinners. That he came not to be served, but to serve and give his life a ransom for many. And so do you wanna be a real man? Then you don't be the man, but you live like all of these real men that we've looked at over the entire year. And every single one of them, what they have all done is they have all realized that Jesus is the one and only true real man, the God-man. So when you fail, hide behind Jesus. He's the perfect God-man. Then when you don't know what to do, ask Jesus. He is the wise God-man. Then when life is chaotic and out of control, you remember Jesus because he is the appointed and planned God-man. Then when your life is turmoil, you rest in Jesus because he's the peaceful God-man. Then when you're empty and unable, like you've heard all the messages,

you've gone to all the conferences, you came to the early morning men's Bible studies and you're like, I want to, I really, really want to, but I can't, I'm just unable. Then you be carried by Jesus because he's the strong God-man. Like when you're all out of options, like you don't know how your marriage is ever gonna work out. You don't know how the addiction is ever gonna come to an end. You don't know how the job is ever gonna come through, the money is ever, whatever your thing is, you don't know how it's gonna be reconciled. Well, what you do is you turn to Jesus because he is the miraculous God-man. And listen, when your best religious activity isn't enough, like you've tried and you've tried and you've tried and you come to the end and you realize there's still a gap, like you can't make yourself alive, receive Jesus. He is the grace-filled God-man. And when you feel condemned, you know that feeling, right? You're just, you're sitting there minding your own business and then all of a sudden you just hear those words of condemnation for things you maybe had done 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. When that happens, you hear Jesus say, it is finished because he's the saving God-man. And when you're hopeless, you trust in Jesus

because he's the victorious, resurrected God-man. So you wanna be a real man? Quit trying to be the man. And you place your faith in the real, one, only, true God. The true God-man, Jesus. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna worship the God-man, Jesus. In a minute, we're gonna sing. We're gonna respond to Jesus as Savior, as our salvation. It's the one who pours himself out for us, who opens our hearts up, who shows us our need, who is the resurrection, who is the miracle for us, who is wise and strong and gracious, we're gonna worship Him for that. Because that's the right response. And listen, maybe your life is just out of control. And what you need to do is you need to come down here and just fall and beg God for the peace. Maybe you need to come down here and go, God, I can't fix whatever this thing is, and so you're gonna have to show up and be the miracle. And maybe you just fall down before the God man and beg Him, ask Him, plead, oh God, be the miracle for me. Maybe you've been trying to be the man and you're exhausted. And what I would invite you today is to place your faith, your trust in Jesus, that you would receive Jesus as your God man, that you would hide yourself behind Him and under Him, and He would be your covering,

that His perfection would be your perfection. His death would be the counting for your death. His resurrection would be your resurrection. His rule and reign would be the control over your life that orders everything. So I wanna give you that opportunity to receive Jesus and place your trust in Jesus. So would you bow your heads right now? And if for the first time you wanna receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior, would you raise your hand up high? Raise it up as a declaration of I'm receiving you, Jesus. I place my faith and trust in you. Heavenly Father, we love you. We worship you because your Son, Jesus, is the man. So God, we need you. Oh how we need you. We need you to be for us what we can't be for ourselves. And we will magnify your name. We will bless you. We will extol you. We will make much of you. We will sing to you, honor you, glorify you, bless you. We pray it all in Jesus' name. Would you stand? We're gonna worship. We're gonna respond by singing. We're gonna respond by bringing our first, our best, because God gave us his first and best in Jesus. And we're gonna pray.

These kneelers are open for you to come. These carpets are down here for you to come and come to the God-man, Jesus. Let's worship and let's respond. ♪ I love you, Lord ♪