Sermon Tone Analysis

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been trying to see how the season of Advent isn’t just about getting ready to celebrate Christmas.

It is that, but it’s a lot more than that.

Remember, we saw that in the Bible, God’s people live through repeated cycles of waiting and fulfillment: they wait in Egypt before being rescued from slavery; they wait in the desert before God gives them the promised land; they wait in exile before returning to Jerusalem; and they wait for four hundred years before God sends the Messiah, the Savior he had promised them—which of course is what we celebrate at Christmas.

And we’ve seen that we, Christians in the 21st century, are waiting too.

We are waiting for the return of Christ, at which time he will make all things new.

So over the last two weeks, we’ve talked about how we wait in times of crisis, and how God encourages us in our wait.

But we haven’t yet talked about how we wait, on a day-by-day basis—what life in exile actually looks like.

In our minds, waiting is almost always a passive affair.

You sit by the phone and wait for it to ring.

You stand in line and wait for your turn.

You sit at home and you wait for your guests to arrive.

But in the Bible we see that these periods of waiting for the people of God are never meant to be periods in which we just get to sit around and do nothing, saying “Where is God?

I don’t know.

I wonder when he’ll show up.”

At the beginning of Luke’s gospel, we see two really great examples of people who are waiting well.

Reminder: Advent—How to Live While We Wait

We are waiting for the return of Christ, in which he will make all things new.

We’ve spoken the last two weeks about why we wait.

But we haven’t yet talked about how we wait.

What life in exile actually looks like.

After Jesus’s birth, Joseph and Mary bring him to the temple for the ritual of purification that all Jewish boys had to go through.

And in the temple at that time we see two people—a man and a woman—who are both present.

:

The first is Simeon.

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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.

So Luke says that while Simeon waited for “the consolation of Israel” (the fulfillment of God’s promises of the Messiah), he was righteous and devout.

That means that he had given himself over to knowing Scripture and to obedience to God’s Word in worship.

He knew the Word, and he lived the Word.

Advent forces us to put ourselves in the mentality of the Jews waiting for the Messiah, in order to help us wait for our Messiah’s return.

The second example is an old woman—Luke says she was “advanced in years”, v. 36—named Anna.

And in Anna’s case, Luke is even more explicit.

He says (v. 37):

She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.

Anon, 2016.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Here’s the point.

Both Simeon and Anna were waiting for the Messiah to come.

They were waiting for the consolation of Israel.

And, like everyone else, they were in a kind of holding pattern: they didn’t know when the Messiah would come.

But they weren’t waiting around doing nothing—they were waiting actively.

They had trained themselves in what it means to wait faithfully.

Simeon was righteous and devout (which doesn’t just happen on its own); and Anna spent all of her time worshiping the Lord, fasting and praying.

They were waiting, but their waiting was anything but passive.

Reminder: the cycle of waiting and accomplishment.

The curious thing is that these periods of waiting were never periods in which the people got to sit around and do nothing, saying, “Where is God?”

Two examples of those who waited well: Simeon and Anna ()

Simeon: righteous and devout.

He gave himself over to the study of Scripture and to obedience to God’s Word.

Anna: (even more explicit): v. 37: did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.

They were in a holding pattern, like everyone else—waiting for the Messiah.

But they weren’t waiting around doing nothing—they were waiting actively.

They had trained themselves in what it means to wait faithfully.

,

Reminder: Advent—How to Live While We Wait

So that’s what we’ll be looking at today—what we are called to learn to do while we wait for Christ to return.

And to do that, we’re going to go to .

Foundation of why we’re talking about this today—v.

10.

Before we actually get into the text, let me explain really quickly why we’re coming here to talk about Advent.

We’ve spent the last two weeks talking about how Advent is meant to help us learn to wait in hope for the return of Christ, as the people of Israel waited for the Messiah to come prior to Jesus’s birth.

We are waiting for the return of Christ, in which he will make all things new.

We’ve spoken the last two weeks about why we wait.

But we haven’t yet talked about how we wait.

What life in exile actually looks like.

We’re going to come back to this later, but in v. 10 (the last verse of our passage this morning), Paul says:

10 For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

So he’s going to give Timothy a series of things to do, and he says that all of this work—all this toil and strife—is done for one reason: because we have our hope set on the living God.

We’re going to look at this question in two places—one in the Old Testament and one in the New.

That is an eschatological sentence.

The Savior hasn’t yet returned to earth, he hasn’t yet renewed the earth and completely done away with sin, but one day he will.

And we are living in the hope of that day.

So because we are waiting for that day, because we have our hope set on the living God, here’s is what we must do.

We must train ourselves in godliness.

Training for Life (v.

6-7)

Let’s remember what’s going on in this text.

(It shouldn’t be too hard; we were in 2 Timothy just a few weeks ago, and the context here is similar.)

Paul is writing to his young protégé Timothy, who is now the pastor of the church in Ephesus, a church Paul himself planted.

He wrote this first letter because there were some issues cropping up in the church in Ephesus which Timothy was having to deal with (namely some false teachers who were trying to sneak their way in and preach a false gospel), so Paul is responding to these issues with counsel for Timothy on how to deal with them.

But as always, Paul can’t just give advice; he’s also going to speak to Timothy about Timothy’s faith, and how to care for his own soul in this contentious context.

He begins chapter 4 by talking about the false teachers cropping up in Timothy’s church, who impose weird rules of asceticism that the Bible never does, and he reminds Timothy of why the gospel should free us from those ideas.

As Christians we have a great deal of freedom to take pleasure in the things God has created, as long as we do it appropriately, as God intended, because Christ died to fulfill the law for his people, so we are not saved through works of the law, but by grace, through faith, alone.

saying this:

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, 3 who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

So in other words, he’s saying, “I

So basically these false teachers are coming in and telling people that things which God created good are actually not good.

They’re telling people it’s sinful to get married; they’re telling people that certain foods are off limits.

They’re saying you can measure your holiness based on what you give up, rather than by what you love.

And Paul’s reminding Timothy that, no, these are things that God created, and he created them good, as long as they’re used appropriately.

Of course Timothy knows these things, and he knows them because he knows the gospel.

He knows that Christ died to fulfill the law for his people, that we are not saved through works of the law (which did require abstinence from certain foods, for example), but we are saved by grace, through faith, alone.

Which means that as Christians we are free to take pleasure in the things God has created, as long as we do it appropriately, as God intended.

Now just so that I don’t get any nasty emails saying I told you all it was okay to go out and smoke pot and have pre-marital sex (trust me, it happens), let me be really clear that God did tell us how to enjoy created things.

He gives us a framework for nearly every pleasure under the sun, because he created us and knows what is good for us.

Take food, for example.

Food is a good thing.

Wine is a good thing.

These are gifts God has given us, not just for sustenance, but for pleasure.

They taste good.

They feel good.

But we don’t have to look far to know those things can be abused, right?

That food can become a crutch we turn to when we don’t want to feel whatever we’re feeling.

That wine can become a means to silence the turmoil in our brains.