Simeon and Anna

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0:00 I've been thinking about our time together to start out this year. Carol and I have been thinking about some ways we can help us continue to be church for each other. This year, whether we're still at home or in person, hopefully this year we'll see the immunity and change the way we're able to gather together.

0:31 Who knows? We can't predict anything. I give up trying to predict things this year. And just try and plan for the next week ahead. So I thought what we would do is we think about how we'd be church for each other. And this time is look for the next several weeks as we prepare for the season of Lent. To look for the next several weeks at the role of church in the life of Jesus. I think that of course the church as we know it is established then in the wake of his ascension.

1:07 He sends out the disciples, the apostles, and encourages them to build communities, establishing his teaching and carrying on his teaching and baptizing. But he has an experience of church that's in continuity with the whole spirit of scripture. And that's what I wanted to look at for the next several weeks. And starting with the text that we had last week that we've looked at together just briefly in Luke chapter 2.

1:41 And we're going to go a couple of places this morning. And really this is going to go back to also this little church survey that I've been encouraging all of you all to answer the few questions that we have there. There's like four to six little questions there. And the first one on that survey is like encouraging you to set a goal for how many times a month you want to participate in Sunday morning gatherings, whether that's streaming or in person. And I can see evidence of the importance of that in life with Jesus.

2:14 If we look at Luke chapter 2, right after the story of his birth, after the shepherds leave and in chapter 2 verse 21 it says, 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. You can imagine a little bit there. They are down in Bethlehem for the census.

2:44 We don't know exactly how long they're there. But we know it's a temporary stay. It's just because that's David's hometown. So that's where he's counted with all the members of his family. There's not a permanent place for them to stay. They stay wherever they keep the animals. There's some debate on how close to the house that is. Maybe it's even inside the house. Maybe it's outside the house. Maybe it's a little bit away from the house. But they stay wherever they keep the animals. You can imagine it takes a little bit. You don't just get up right after you have a baby and walk for miles or ride a donkey certainly for miles back up to Nazareth.

3:21 So maybe eight days. Maybe Mary is ready to start moving by eight days and they've got a way to move the baby. So Jerusalem is actually on their way back up to Nazareth if they take a little jog. Bethlehem, Jerusalem is in between Bethlehem and Nazareth. So you can imagine that they wait for maybe a week in Bethlehem and then as they're going back up they go to have the baby circumcised. And it's significant that it's not just a random time. The people of God, if we look all the way back in the beginning of the story into the book of Genesis, in Genesis chapter 17, Genesis is the first book recorded here.

4:01 We're pretty sure it's written by Moses. It tells us the story of Genesis, exos to Abraham. And I just want to give you a little bit of the context of who Abraham is in the story of Scripture right now because it's significant to understanding the role that circumcision plays and then why it's important that Jesus gets circumcised and then why it's like up to you, whether it's less important now spiritually, whether you get circumcised or not.

4:39 So remember that God spins the world up into existence in order to give it to humanity, his image bears in the world. We don't know why God created the world. The story doesn't tell us and so we don't speculate. The best answer we can give us to why God creates the world because he wants to. Then he performs humanity. Men and women, he forms them out of dust, breathes the breath of life into them. And of course they have this fatal flaw that is exhibited first in Adam and Eve and forever in humanity going forward. This fatal flaw that refuses to believe that God has their best interests at heart.

5:10 So though God gives humanity everything, they're sure that God is holding out on them. And so they tire and take rather than let God give and this creates problems. Now they're putting themselves in the position of God and they can't handle that. The weight of the responsibility of being God crosses them with anxiety and fear and guilt. And God's just about to fix the problem. He takes them out of the garden in order to preserve a future of humanity that's not characterized by anxiety, guilt, fear and finally death. In order to preserve a future of humanity that's characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithless, generous self-control forever.

5:45 And he says, I've got to fix this. I've got to find a way to get humanity to let me be God again. And he starts working with humanity. You watch the story of Genesis. The problem is that every desire of humanity all the time is all evil, only themselves. Right? And so you see that happen where he gets to a certain point and he finds Noah and he feels like there's a spark of capacity to let God be God in Noah. So he starts over. He floods the whole earth and starts over with just Noah's family. And then within a couple generations the descendants of Noah are building a big tower saying, we can get to heaven ourselves.

6:21 We don't need a God. They're building a tower of Babylon. So God spreads all the people out into different languages. It says, they're too much. I can't deal with them all at once. What I'll do is I'll take one little group of people. I'll re-establish relationship with them. And then the world will look at them and see that life with the God of creation and life is different. And he starts that life with Abram. We don't know why he picked Abram. His Bible doesn't tell us.

6:51 The best reason we can give is to why God picked Abram is because he wanted to. Right? God picked Abram because he wanted to. And God makes- if you read the story of Genesis, a couple of key promises to Abram. It's a beautiful, kind of amazing story. But what I want us to see for this, the story of Abram is God has designed something different and it's a way to reach all of humanity. It's saying, I will set up a group of people who's supernaturally by my presence to have the capacity to let God be God.

7:24 To reverse the fatal flaw of humanity, this is God is not having- my best interest at heart. These people will be characterized by faith. This is God does have my best interest at heart. The defining characteristic of Abram is God says, I want to give you something good. And Abram says, okay, I'll take something good from you. I'll receive, I'll let you give me good things rather than having to earn them or take them or build them or make them on my own. I'll let God give me good things. This will be the defining characteristic of Israel so much that God says Abram in chapter 17.

7:57 God says, I'm going to change your name to Abraham. This is last promise to him. And this covenant between us will be so one-sided, I'm going to give it to your children all the way down. This is very unique. Normally, if there was a patriarch that arose in the family in the ancient Near East and he had a special relationship with God, this would be unique to him. It's the way he maintains power is he has a voice with God so everybody does what he wants.

8:30 And he's got to do everything to maintain, to keep this God happy. He's got to make the right sacrifices all the time, whether that's to his kids, of his kids, of his crops, everything that then it goes through him. And God says, I'm going to change the relationship, Abraham, between God and man, because it is all about God giving good things. So, Abram, once your kids are eight days old, once your young boys are eight days old, if you circumcise them, that will be the mark that you trust my covenant to extend to them.

9:08 And now I'll include them. They will have every blessing that goes to Abraham will go to your kids. An eight day old kid can't do anything. Can't make anything, can't take anything, can't earn anything, can't build anything. An eight day old kid can only take, can only receive what you give him. And God says, this is the nature of the people of God. This will be the nature of the tribe of Abraham.

9:39 This tribe will let God give them good things and it will make all the difference in the world. I want you to see, at one point in the prophet Isaiah, God describes his relationship to Israel as a special vineyard for him. He says, there's this whole world out there, but in a certain place I built a wall around it. I dug it up and tilled the ground. I specially planted the vines. This is Israel, the best wine in the world.

10:11 Right? Let's see, Genesis chapter 17, oh verse 9, and God said to Abraham, as for you, you shall keep my covenant. You and your offspring after you, throughout your generations, this is my covenant which you shall keep between me and your offspring after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins and shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.

10:43 He was eight days old, among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or brought in with your money in any foreigner who is not your offspring. He's saying, anybody who comes in and wants to be counted as the tribe of Israel, gets this mark. I love that the covenant is not that they do anything, it's just that they acknowledge that they are something. Hey, we like to be among the people who get good things from the God of creation and life.

11:13 Cool, stand right here, become one of these people, this is it. It is very significant and a defining characteristic of the God of creation and life, and then the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that God moved first. But he does that with a group of people. He moves first towards a group of people and then says, these people with this mark inside this space will be different.

11:50 So that when Joshua, remember Abraham, he observes the covenant, circumcised Isaac, Isaac has Jacob, Jacob has 12, then through Joseph, they get brought into Israel, they multiply Israel protected from a famine. They're there for 200 years in slavery, they forget about God, they stop the circumcision and God comes to give them anyway, because God always moves first.

12:22 Then they go on to the desert and that fatal flaw rears its head again in the desert, and though God wants to give them the promised land, they don't believe he's good enough. He couldn't give them the promised land, they're too bad. They wait a whole generation to die and then Joshua will take them into the promised land. God will give them the thing, like we read in this poem, vineyards on the mountains producing fruit, grain, waving on the mountains tops as far as the eye can see. God's going to give them the thing, but before they go in, Joshua lines up all the men on the river Jordan and circumcises the grown men, because it is important that we recognize that God has given this thing to us.

13:04 And the mark that says we are the ones whom God gives things to is part of the plan. Because God has in mind when he restores Israel and sets them up as a tribe, as a nation, that they would be like a city on a hill, like a light on the table, that all the nations that circle around them in those trade routes and see the way they live would look at this place. And look at this group of people who are set apart and different and say why does their life make sense?

13:38 Why do they only have one God they have to worry about? Why are they not because he was anger and jealousy? Why are they not killing each other and stealing from each other? Why does their life make sense? Because they're all in it together and God gives them good things. So that when we get down to Jesus, of course Jesus doesn't need to be circumcised in order to be in the tribe.

14:08 But Jesus is the culmination of this plan of God, packed with Abram thousands of years ago, to establish a tribe of people who will have the capacity to let God be God and thereby their lives transformed, marked by a perimeter, by a boundary that says these people inside of this space are different.

14:45 Their life makes sense. All the world will see it and be drawn to the true God, the God of creation and life. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and now the God of Christ and the Church. Circumstition is this beautiful testament to the incredible and unique grace of God to provide for people before they have the capacity to choose them, to choose people before they can choose him.

15:19 So that's why, I mean there are a lot of reasons why Jesus gets circumcised, but I think it's because he is saying this plan will be the same. Jesus says more than he says I came to forgive sins, more than he says I came to save individuals. Jesus says I came to establish the reign of God on earth, to build the kingdom of God, because the mission of God throughout time has always been to the kingdom of God. Jesus says that's what I came to establish.

15:50 And so he goes through circumcision in order to say that the plan is the same. Of course, what we find out, especially in the first century, and since the first century, Jesus is the first century. Jesus is the first century. Jesus is the first century. Jesus is the first century. Jesus is the first century. What we find out, especially in the first century, and since, that circumcision is flawed.

16:20 Mostly because humanity is flawed. Remember when I told the story about the bronze snake in the desert where they're like God gives him this delivery and then they turn it into an idol? By first century, circumcision is this like exclusionary position rather than a servanthood position. It's like, are you in or you out, man? It's like I'm better than you because I'm part of the people of God. Also, only guys can get circumcised.

16:54 And we realize now that's the problem. Because maybe there was a time when women were included with men, but that was time worth leaving behind. Look in Galatians chapter 2. This became a big question in the first century, is like does circumcision endure?

17:33 Do we have to be circumcised in order to follow the way of Jesus? And Paul addresses it in a couple places. He addresses it in the beginning of Romans. But he addresses it here in Galatians, because there was a particular problem in Galatians where he had come to preach to the Gentiles. Hey, Jesus now has opened the way so that your righteousness is no longer marked by your circumcision and preserved by your sacrifices.

18:07 Your membership in the tribe of God is marked by the change of your heart, by the birth of something new inside of you that is revealed by different choices that you make, by different capacities and emotions that you're able to feel by true generosity, and love, by service, by joy, peace, and patience and kindness. He says that something different has happened. You don't have to have an outward mark of circumcision. You have an inward, what he calls circumcision of the heart.

18:38 You have a transformation of the heart, a new creation. He says, so in Galatians chapter 3, he says, but then, so he preaches that and then people come to the Galatians and tell them, okay, now that you believe you've got to be circumcised and go through all the rights. And in chapter 3, verse 1, he says, oh, foolish relations, who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

19:12 Are you so foolish having begun by the Spirit? Are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain? Does he whose supplies his spirit to you work and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted in his righteousness, know then that it is those who are the sons of Abraham. It is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

19:42 And the scripture foreseen that God would justify Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel before he went to Abraham, saying, in use shall all the nations be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. This is what I want to say to us this morning is that in the person of Christ with his death and resurrection, God, according to infinite foreknowledge and wisdom, included you in Israel.

20:19 When you read the promises of Israel in the Old Testament, they are for you. When you read the vision and the future laid out for Israel for the future of the world, they are for you. God has done something here among us. He has made a little vineyard of his tribe so that we might have like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob,

20:54 like Joshua, like Miriam and Esther, like Mary and Deborah. We might have the capacity to let God be God, and thereby our lives flourish amongst all the tribes of the world. That when they see the people of the cross, they say those lives are different. That tribe of people is different.

21:26 Jesus goes to the temple and observes the right of circumcision, not because we all must be circumcised, but because the principle applies in perpetuity that God establishes a tribe with bounds. The tribe today is the church. If we will endure in that beautiful vineyard of God, the Israel of God, we will find ourselves in the church of God,

21:56 around the people of God, regularly. Look, God incarnated in the person of Jesus, went through life, death, resurrection, and ascension in order to extend you an invitation into his tribe. So we do what it takes. We put up with the brokenness and the inefficiencies. We put up with the annoyances and the difficulties because in the church, in the people, in the tribe, we find life again.

22:34 I pray that this year you would find yourself in the church on the regular, and that thereby you meet the God again and again and again who gives good things to his people. Let me pray. Hey Lord, thank you for the gift of the church. Teach us this year to be found in your church, over and over again. Thank you for going out, finding us, getting us, and giving us life.

23:09 Teach us the taste of life that we would find it here with you. And choose this name with pray.