Listen to the Sermon
Sermon Details
- Pastor Name: Jonathan Cornell
- Date & Time: December 14, 2014 | 10:00am
SERMON SERIES:
Singing Through Advent
Download the sermon audio HERE. (Simply right-click on the following page and select Save As to save it to your computer.)
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 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 peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” 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, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”
Let me begin by asking you a question: with the dawn of each new day, how do you greet the morning? Are you the type of person who wakes before the alarm, jumps out of bed, throws open the curtains and says, “GOOD MORNING, NEW DAY!”
Or are you the type that hears the alarm, gives it a left hook, pulls the pillow tightly over your head, then rolls over and begs for just one more hour.
Or are you the type of person who rolls out of bed and does 20 push ups, just to get the blood flowing for the new day? How do you rise to greet each morning? You see, the truth is that in one way or another, we are all guided and influenced more than we know, by that little idol that sits atop the alter next to our beds. Time, it seems, has a vice grip upon our lives. In some ways, the clock is always calling the shots in your day.
The riddle that Gollum asked Bilbo in the Hobbit: This thing all things devours; Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel; Grinds hard stones to meal; Slays king, ruins town, And beats mountain down. Time.
There was a story of a pastor who was invited to go over to Africa to spend time with a church there, and while he was there, the people he was with kept noticing how he would look down at his wristwatch. One day, he saw a few of them pointing at his wrist and talking among themselves, so he asked the translator what they were talking about. They are asking what type of god it is that you can wear on your wrist. Then he said this arresting thing: the difference between you all and us is that you have so many watches, but no time, whereas we have no watches and have all the time in the world.
Download the entire transcript here: Luke 2 25-40 Simeon’s Song
Download this week’s Advent devotional here: Advent Devotional 2014 Week 3
