Introduction:
What Happens to Me When I Wait on the Lord (Luke 2:36-38)
- My Woes become Small . (Luke 2:36-37)
- My Worship becomes Authentic . (Luke 2:37)
- My Witnessing becomes Natural . (Luke 2:38)
- My Waiting becomes Worth it. (Luke 2:38)
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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Open your Bibles up to Luke 2.
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If you do not have a Bible, you are welcome to the one that's in the seat in front of you.
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You can keep that as a gift from your friends at Harvest Bible Shop.
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Luke 2.
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While you're turning there, let me ask you, what's the worst part of Christmas?
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Having to clean up?
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I'm sure you have a lot of people with you on that one.
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You know what, let's just, we'll just go around the room and everyone can give their own answer.
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I love it.
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I love it.
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And some of you right now are like, man, that is like really grinchy of you to come out of the gate, like for Christmas service.
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The kids were so beautiful.
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They sang so nice.
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The music was amazing.
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And what's the worst part of Christmas?
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Is it the fruitcake?
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Is it the fruit?
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Is that still a thing?
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Is it?
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People still do the fruitcake thing?
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Wow.
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(laughing)
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Is it the lame office party?
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Is that the worst part of Christmas?
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Is it the pressure to find the absolute most perfect gift for someone?
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I'm going to tell you what the worst part of Christmas is right now.
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This is not even up for debate, this is objectively true.
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The worst part of Christmas is waiting for it!
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At least, that's what I thought when I was a kid.
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When I was a kid, leading up to Christmas, anybody else like me?
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Leading up to Christmas, the minutes seemed like days!
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And I don't know how it happened, and I don't know when it happened, but I became somewhat of an adult, and now the days seem like minutes.
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Did that happen to anybody else?
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So today we're gonna continue looking at those who were there when Jesus was a baby.
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And on Sunday, Rich walked us through the story of Simeon, who gave the weirdest baby dedication speech ever.
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Luke 2:34, it says, "Simeon blessed him 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.
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And a sword will pierce your own soul also, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.'" And then suddenly, right there is Anna.
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Look at verse 36.
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It says, "And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher.
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She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin." And then, as a widow until she was 84, she did not depart from the temple.
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Worshipping, with fasting and prayer, night and day, and coming up at that very hour, she began to give thanks to God, and to speak of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.
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I had to read through this a few times to try to figure out what was going on because here's Simeon giving this prophetic speech and then suddenly Anna just, apparently, she just shows up.
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She just walks right up.
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I have to ask, how did she get there?
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And then I look at her story here and I think, Why is she even in this story, right?
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But even asking that question reveals something.
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You know, if Luke told us the Christmas story that Jesus was born, God becomes a man, and the most important people of the day showed up.
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All of the celebrities, all of the athletes, of the politicians. If that was the story, here comes all your LeBron James and your Beyonce's and here comes the president, you'd be like, well that makes sense because God's here.
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But he mentions this lady.
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And we really only have three verses about her, but in those three verses we We learn five things about her very quickly.
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We learn she's a prophetess.
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There's very few prophetesses in the Bible.
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Like, well what does that mean?
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Well we don't know exactly what her ministry detail looked like, but we can be sure that she was close to God, and she ministered to people in His name.
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We know that she was Jewish.
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And then thirdly, we know that she was advanced in years.
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She was advanced in years.
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Now that's the Bible's very dignified way of saying what?
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Okay, you said it.
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She was a senior citizen.
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And you know, there's something sorely lacking in our culture, and that's respect for the previous generation.
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And I had a whole thing written about this for tonight, and I'm going to save that for another time.
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But I do just want to say this, don't dismiss such people.
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Don't dismiss the previous generation.
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Because God didn't.
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Anna was one of the very few people mentioned in God's Word that was present when Jesus was an infant.
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The fourth thing we know about her is she spent all of her time worshiping at the temple.
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And the fifth thing we know about Anna is she represents a particular group of people.
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Look at verse 38 again.
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It says, "She began to speak of Him - speak of the Lord - to all who were waiting for the redemption Jerusalem.
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She represents a group of people who were waiting for the redemption of Israel.
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These are Jews who believed in God's Word that He was going to send His Messiah to the earth to save His people.
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And you see, we too, are part of a group of people waiting on the Messiah to come again, to bring the ultimate redemption.
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Do you feel that?
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Because never in my ministry have I heard more people talking about the return of the Messiah.
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In our day of so much sickness, death and corruption, our day of the celebration of sin, our day of the persecution of God's people, our day of slaughtering children in the womb.
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This church represents a group of people who are saying, "Messiah, come." We're waiting.
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And that is how we connect with Anna.
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Because we are waiters.
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I don't mean like serving tables at Applebee's.
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I mean, we're waiting on the Lord.
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And like I said at the beginning, That's the worst part of Christmas, right?
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I mean, who loves waiting, really?
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I mean, we know what Tom Petty said about waiting, right?
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Well, I mean, I'm not sure about his theological background, but I certainly agree with Tom Petty when he said waiting is the hardest part, right?
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But we hate waiting! We hate it!
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We're the kind of people that we stand in front of the microwave what's taking this stupid thing so long, right?
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We are nuclear blasting our food, can you give it 12 seconds?
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But we hate waiting.
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You know which one lands more for me?
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As I get people all the time, they'll text me or email me a YouTube link, and they're like, "Jeff, you've got to see this video.
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It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life." And I'm like, "All right, click." And it's like, "Your video will start in five seconds." I'm like, "Not for me.
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I guess I'm never gonna see that video." Five seconds? Ain't nobody got time for that.
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But we hate waiting.
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And yet God's word repeatedly calls us to wait on the Lord.
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And here at the birth of Jesus Christ comes this amazing woman who's known as being a person who's spent decades doing what?
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Waiting.
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And I just want to share with you for a few minutes tonight that waiting on the Lord doesn't mean that I sit and do nothing until He does something.
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It's not passive inactivity.
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Because Anna here is our role model.
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And she taught us the blessings of waiting actively and faithfully on the Lord.
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So tonight I just want to show you four things from Anna that you know, at the risk of contradicting Tom Petty, waiting is not always bad.
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There's actually, according to her story, according to God's word, there are some perks to waiting.
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So if you're taking notes, write this down.
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What happens to me when I wait on the Lord?
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What happens to me when I wait on the Lord?
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Number one, my woes become small.
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My woes become small.
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Now, it says that Anna was advanced in years, she was married for seven years, and she was widowed until she was 84.
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And in translating that to Greek, that can be translated a couple different ways, and there's some friendly debate about that.
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But some people say that this verse is saying that she was 84 years old here, and other translations say that no, she was widowed for 84 years, which means if she was married at 15, she would have been 106 years old right here.
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So she was either 84 or 106.
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And you're like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, which one is it?" I don't know.
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But if Anna was here right now, I know which one she would want us to believe.
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Right?
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But seriously, you've got to feel for her.
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Because that's rough.
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Married and widowed so soon.
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I mean, did she have kids?
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I don't know.
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The text doesn't say.
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She was alone for so long.
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I'm not saying that Anna never felt sadness, but obviously her faith kept things into perspective.
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That she never gave up on God.
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She never faltered seeking Him with her whole heart.
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And just because it's December 24th doesn't mean that the hardships that you're going through just magically disintegrated.
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Because I'm sure to some amount, to some degree, everyone walked in here today, or the people that are watching this stream online right now, you're carrying some woes too.
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Some of us have lost a loved one, and this is our first Christmas without that person.
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Some of us have been so affected by the pandemic that we've lost jobs, or are about to lose jobs, or we've certainly lost income.
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We come in here and we look around and we see these families, but some of us might be alone for the holidays.
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and you start to feel like maybe you're missing out.
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And at that point it's easy to give up on God.
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Like, you know what God, if this is how it's going to be, you're going to forsake me, I'm just going to give up on you.
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But you know, if Anna had done that, if Anna had let her situation turn her into a bitter person, She never would have had the opportunity to witness the most glorious thing she had ever seen in her life.
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The most glorious thing anyone could have seen.
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The face of God himself.
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I just want to encourage you, like Anna, to confess something like this.
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Yeah, life is hard.
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But God has a glorious promise that I know He's going to fulfill.
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And when I think of what God is going to do, my relatively short amount of time of suffering here on the earth doesn't even compare to the glories He has ahead.
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So what happens to me when I wait on the Lord?
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You're going to find that your woes become small.
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And secondly, my worship becomes authentic.
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Anna was known as someone who was committed to fasting and ceaseless prayer.
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And in the Old Testament, that was connected with the anticipation of the coming of the Messiah.
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And understand that's something that didn't change between testaments.
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because fasting and ceaseless prayer is still associated with the second coming of Jesus Christ.
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Matthew 9, Luke 18, verses 7 and 8, respectively.
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So for Anna, her doctrine was true, her belief was genuine, and her worship was authentic.
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So I just have to ask, what's our excuse?
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Think about this.
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Anna's knowledge of the Messiah, all right?
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You have Anna's knowledge of Messiah versus our knowledge of Messiah, okay?
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Who has more knowledge of the Messiah?
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Anna or us?
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We do.
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Because we live on the other side of his life, right?
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And not only that, we have this record right here.
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We have this account of the life of the Messiah.
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We know about his ministry.
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We know that he died on the cross to take away our sin.
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We know He rose from the dead to give us eternal life.
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We know that He promised that His Spirit would come and indwell us upon believing in Him.
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And we have these promises that He's going to return.
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So I have to ask you, church, should we be anticipating and excited about the coming of Jesus Christ?
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Should we be more or less excited than Anna was?
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Based on the knowledge that we have.
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Should we want Jesus less or more than Anna?
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More, yeah.
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All in favor?
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You see, the anticipation of the coming of the Messiah for decades kept Anna in worship mode.
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24/7.
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That anticipation.
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And if you really get it, I mean if you really get it, it's going to put you in that mode too.
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We have way more reason I'd be excited about the coming of the Messiah.
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So how's your prayer life?
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I mean, if God was writing about you in His Word, would God be able to rightly describe you as a person of prayer?
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How's your prayer life?
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When was the last time that you fasted to focus your appetites on spiritual things?
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When was the last time you fasted solely for the return of Jesus Christ?
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As God's Word calls us to do.
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You see, it's that anticipation that leads us to worship.
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And worship is, yes, it's the music, but it's so much more than the music.
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And we get to this place when we get it, and when we truly anticipate, and our lives are centered on that.
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I don't want to worship because I have to, or because I'm expected to.
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It just becomes this natural expression for my soul because of what's to be when Jesus comes again.
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So you have way more reason to worship than Anna.
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So do you?
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When I wait on the Lord, when I really wait on the Lord, my worship becomes authentic.
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Thirdly, my witnessing becomes natural.
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See that in verse 38?
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It says that she began to speak of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.
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You see, like worship witnessing become this obligatory, awkward exercise.
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Like, "I know I should do it, but I'm going to be honest with you, my heart's not in it." But notice in this passage, the witnessing came after the worship.
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And you can tell who is a sincere worshiper by how eager they are to witness.
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And right now, somebody's going, "Oh no.
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Everybody pack your bags, we're about to go on a guilt trip about witnessing, right?
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Jeff's going to lead us on this guilt trip about witnessing.
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No.
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That is not my intention at all.
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I want to fire up our passion for the return of Jesus Christ.
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I want to fan the flames of worship.
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Because then I'm not going to have to talk you into witnessing, because you won't be able to help but do it.
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Because there's a truth about every single person in this room or watching this stream, there's a truth about every single person you know.
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People love talking about the things that they're passionate about.
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You can't get around that.
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When I was in college, I worked a stretch at Walmart, and somehow I ended up working in the automotive department.
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I have no idea how I got there.
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I know nothing about cars.
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Nothing.
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But for some reason I was working in the automotive department and as I'm sure you can imagine, do you know what kind of people shop in the automotive department?
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People who are excited about cars. Guess what they wanted to talk about when they came to my department? Cars! And I dreaded that every single day when I was working that somebody would come in and they would expect me to have an intelligent conversation with them about cars and it happened all the time.
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I get guys come in and they'd say they'd say something like this they'd say yeah I just I just dropped the chassis on my catalytic fuel injected heavy to discover that the the vascular was corroded I'm like huh and he's like the best problem it was corroded and I would go um this air freshener will make your car smell like puppy breath They love cars.
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And they love talking about cars, and you can fill in that blank with whatever.
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Pets, football, scrapbooking.
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How about Jesus Christ?
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You love talking about the things that you're excited about.
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So I would say, church, let's get excited about the return of Jesus.
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and watch the Lord bring more people to Him through your witness.
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So what happens when I wait on the Lord?
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Well, my woes become small, and my worship becomes authentic, and my witnessing becomes natural, and finally, my waiting becomes worth it.
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My waiting becomes worth it.
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Look at verse 38.
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It says, "And coming up at that very hour, She began to give thanks to God.
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Upon seeing the Messiah, baby Jesus, she began to give thanks to God.
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Alright?
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It wasn't as if Anna came up, and there's Simeon, and there's Mary and Joseph and the baby, and Anna comes up and she goes, "You mean to tell me I waited my whole life for this?
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This is it?
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"Yes!" That wasn't it at all.
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She said, "This was worth the wait." God, thank You.
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Thank You for letting me see this.
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Waiting is worth it when there is a payoff.
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And if you have even the slightest idea of what Jesus is going to do when He returns, No, there can't possibly be a bigger payoff than that.
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You will see Him in His glory.
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You will fall on your face in worship.
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You will cast your crowns at His feet, and as your heart is overwhelmed with the awesomeness of being in the presence of the Almighty.
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You and I are going to declare this together.
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We're going to say, "Worth it." Worth it.
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Every difficult day, every struggle, worth it.
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Every trial, every tear, worth it.
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Every discouragement, every setback, worth it.
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And this story simply boils down to this.
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Whatever hardship you're facing, despite how long you face it, living a life of worship devoted to God, is worth it.
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Because those who wait on Him will never disappoint.
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Like Anna, at the end of the waiting, is seeing something glorious.
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I'd like you to bow your heads with me please as the worship team makes their way forward.
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Father in Heaven, Thank You for the example that we have.
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Father, I pray, just simply this, that we wouldn't grow weary in the waiting.
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That we would take a really hard look at Anna's life.
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It had to seem so long and incredibly difficult at times, She never let that get her off track.
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Father, I pray that You would find the same faithfulness and fervency in our hearts.
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Because like her, we are waiting for the Messiah to come.
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We are waiting, Father, for the return of Christ.
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We believe it.
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May our lives reflect it.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Luke 2:36-38
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Breakout
Pray for one another.