Worship
Service for December 29, 2024
Prelude
Announcements:
· Joint worship
at Olivet Presbyterian Church in West Elizabeth, PA at 9:45 next Sunday with
communion.
Call to Worship
L: Arise, shine, for your light has come!
P: The glory of the Lord has risen upon us!
L: Like sages from afar, come and behold your
Christ!
P: Let us fall on our knees in His
honor! Let us lift up our voices in
praise of His name!
Opening Hymn – Good Christian Friends, Rejoice Hymn #28 Blue
Prayer of Confession
All-glorious
God, we have faith in Jesus Christ, and love towards Your people, yet we are
not without blemish in Your sight, not full of love, wisdom, and other
spiritual blessings You still have available for us. Our love is not as inclusive as Yours, and
there is still much we need to learn.
Give us clearer vision of all that we are meant to be, so that by
becoming fulfilled, we may increase the glory that is properly revealed in
Jesus Christ, Your beloved Son. (Silent
prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Friends, hear the Good News! Christ has come to set us free. He has come to show us the hope, joy,
peace, and love of God.
P: In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Thanks be to God. AMEN.
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the
third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
We give thanks this
morning, O God, for Your faithfulness through the many generations that have
walked this earth – for You were the God of Job in his suffering. You were the God of Jeremiah in the exile. You were the God of David in his wealth,
power, and rule. You were the God of Ruth
as she sought to find a place and a people to call home. You were the God Anna in her old age and in
her eagerness to see Your promises fulfilled.
You were the God of Luke, who sought to understand You as Savior and Lord. You were the God of Mary Magdalene who found
forgiveness and strength in You.
We give thanks that
Your people have found ways to worship You in various places of prayer with
Cathedral Ceilings and beautiful stained glass windows, with dirt floors and
tin roofs, with icons of saints or the cooing of doves. We have sung Your praise in quiet circles
under the stars or with the heavenly voices of trained choirs. Along our vast pilgrim way through the eons,
You have provided the sustenance and refreshment for both body and soul. We are most blessed when we put our trust in
You. We ask that you continue to provide
for us in our generation, be with us Lord and bless us with Your favor.
We pray for our loved
ones…
In this moment of
silence, hear the voices of our hearts…
And now with one voice,
we pray…
Our Father who art in
heaven, Hallowed by Thy name. Thy
kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors. And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. AMEN.
Hymn – Once
in Royal David’s City #49/286
Scripture Reading(s):
OT – Psalm 148
NT – Luke 2:21-38
Sermon – Waiting for God (Luke 2:21-38)
It’s important to note that
God isn’t always in a rush to get things done, and sometimes that can be really
annoying! But think about it for a
moment! If we’ve read the Hebrew
Scriptures correctly, God announced the coming of the Messiah about seven
hundred years before His actual arrival, and announced His return at least two
thousand years ago! The truth is that
God isn’t in a hurry. We need to learn
to wait and trust God’s plan. On this
journey in life, that isn’t always easy.
Often, we recall the Christmas
story and all the events of Matthew Chapters 1-2 and Luke Chapters 1-2 sort of
pushed together, as if they happened within days of each other, but in reality
those events were actually spread over the course of several years.
It’s not
really a big deal that we push them altogether, it makes a great story. We often tell long stories in a condensed
fashion in order to get across the meaning or the overarching theme of the
story we’re telling. But, we need to
keep in mind that although we might tell it has one simple story that happened
over the course of a few short days, that this Christmas journey from the time
the angel came to Mary to announce that she was with child until Jesus grew up
in Nazareth of Galilee, several years went by and as we’ll discover many
various journeys that took place.
Our story this morning is set
halfway through Luke chapter two, where we find Mary and Joseph, having left
Nazareth to make their way to Bethlehem, under a scandalous and shameful
situation – that of conception outside a proper marriage. In that time and place, such an event was the
stuff of snickering at the local well.
Yet, the couple continued to serve God faithfully. These early days for them were, no doubt,
difficult, right from the start.
Regardless of the talk around them, when the time came, they carefully
obeyed God’s message to them, to the letter.
As the story of the birth and
visit of the shepherds ended, we pick up the account in Luke 2:21.
On the eighth day after the
babe was born, along with his circumcision, he was named Jesus, or Yeshua in
Hebrew, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb. His name, Yeshua, was from two Hebrew words
that combined God (Yahweh) and Yasha, to save – Yeshua. Or in English Jesus.
As the story moves forward,
somewhere between 25-41 days after the circumcision Mary needed to complete her
purification, a ritual for women set aside after childbirth, and Jesus needed
to be redeemed as a firstborn son – bought back from God’s special ownership.
Amid Joseph and Mary’s moment
of obedience a month after Jesus’ birth, the end of a long wait came to two old
people in Jerusalem’s Temple. An elderly man named Simeon (or Shim’on) and an
old woman named Anna finally came to the day of God’s fulfillment to them.
Luke draws our view to an old
man standing on the Temple platform, with its large smooth stone pavement. He
wrote:
And there was a man in
Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking
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 carry out for Him the custom of the Law…(Luke 2:25-27)
There are four extremely
important words or phrases of the text to fully understand who Simeon was:
• First, he was righteous. The word “díkaios” in Greek
meant he was “approved by God”. He was God’s man, stationed to do God’s bidding
by God’s hand. He was selected by God.
• Second, he actively lived his God-given role. The word
“eulabēs” in Greek is translated “devout”.
He lived out a practical, daily, “godly respect” for holy things. He walked in practical ways with God.
• Third, he acted with anticipation. For Simeon, coming to
the Temple wasn’t a heavy drudgery, but one filled with expectation. The text
says he was “looking for the consolation” the word “prosdéxomai” here
translated to consolation, but it literally means he was “ready and willing” to
receive what God promised. So, Simeon
went to work every day with excited readiness and expectation.
• Fourth, he carried in his heart a revelation – a promise
from God that he would see the Messiah before he died. The word “xrēmatízō” is
the word that means “revealed” in this verse, but in Greek this is a business
term, it is transactional. God promised
something and that promise would be fulfilled.
Simeon took this promise seriously and literally.
So, each day Simeon went to
the temple to receive each child with anticipation that one of this children
would be the long awaited Messiah. And
finally, the waiting was over and as Simeon held Jesus in his arms for the rite
of passage to redemption, he knew that God’s promise was fulfilled.
Can you hear the PURE
SATISFACTION in the words of Simeon? He
used words like “released” and called his eyes “prepared” for the child. At the same time, He fulfilled his God-given
task and offered hard words of warning to Mary and Joseph, because that was
part of the message God revealed to him.
What did he promise?
• He promised the baby was SALVATION (2:30).
• He made clear the baby would have a WORLDWIDE IMPACT
among both Gentiles and “His people Israel” (2:31-32).
• He promised the child would bring about the rise and fall
of many in Israel (2:34).
• He made clear pain would come into Mary’s heart because
of the child (2:35).
• He flatly promised the child would expose the hearts of
many people (2:35).
However, Simeon wasn’t the
only one waiting at the Temple. There
was another person who went through YEARS of waiting and pain…
When we read the last few
verses of today’s Scripture reading we see an elderly woman who lived through
tough times on her way to finding God’s peace.
If anything, the record of her life reminds us that God may call upon
you to reset your personal expectations in a “Plan B” life.
“And there was a prophetess, Anna (shortened
form of: Channah, or “Grace”) the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of
Asher. She was advanced in years and had
lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then as a widow to
the age of eighty-four. She never left
the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers. At that very moment she came up and began
giving thanks to God, and continued to speak of Him to all those who were
looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” (Luke 2:36-38)
This is the story of a life
dedicated to God that was forged through real PAIN and LOSS, not through easy
blessing and simple living…Anna is described as “advanced in years” and widowed
long ago. Her marriage lasted only a
brief seven years when she lost her husband.
Now at eighty-four years old, Anna had learned patience and dependence
upon God. She fasted and prayed day and
night, never leaving the Temple.
She was not like most women of
her time. God chose for her a different path.
Instead of finding her identity in a second marriage and raising
children – she heard God’s direction and went a different way than people
around her surely expected. She chose to
serve the Lord night and day, fasting, praying and waiting. She learned to move through the terrible pain
of losing her husband, and kept growing in trust. She learned to rely on God to financially and
emotionally meet the needs of her life.
I keep thinking about the
words “night and day”. She just kept going and kept waiting on God to finish
what He was doing in her and in others. Hers was not a life tuned to
accomplishing things – it was a life tuned to waiting on God for God’s promise
to be revealed, not just to her, but to the world. Sixty-five years or so of waiting is
incredible patience to wait for anything – much less a baby to mark the
redemption.
We need to remember that God
is in no hurry! We won’t experience
instant depth, instant passion, instant deep praise. It just doesn’t happen that way. Genuine change of heart takes time. Genuine waiting on God with expectation takes
patience.
Have you ever been trusting in
God patiently waiting for Him to work, and it seems like nothing happens. Then…
nothing happens. Then more waiting and suddenly… nothing happens.
Catchy words and platitudes
won’t help much in times like those. The battle isn’t just keeping words, it is
about keeping hope. Urgency floods in…
and time seems like it is running out.
Waves of panic strike.
How often do
we forget that God is the Master of time?
We don’t get blessings from God because we are deserving of it. We get blessings simply because God chooses
to offer them, when and how God wishes.
We often miss them in our journeys because we aren’t prepared to find
them. We miss them when they aren’t what
we expect them to be.
Often, the most dramatic
display of God takes place in the lives of people when they are seasoned by God
in a stew of “waiting for it”. God
enables us to see Him most clearly when we are attuned to God’s timing and patience.
Thanks be to God. AMEN
Doxology
Prayer of Dedication
Heavenly Lord, we know that the gifts of our
hands are no substitute for the loyalty of our lives. In giving back these blessings, we pledge
ourselves to Your service. In Christ’s
name, AMEN.
Closing Hymn – Go, Tell It on the Mountain #29/258
Benediction
Just as people of faith from
past generations sought to honor and obey God, seeking moments of truth and
clarity for their own destiny, God invites you into the story as well. Go, find your own path, and serve the Lord.
Postlude
