He’s THE Man – Count on it!
Christmas  part 12
AND
The Glory of Christ  part 1
Luke 2:21-30    12-19-10 

Summary: We should seek to enjoy not the season but the Savior, by enjoying His attributes. One attribute is that He has been revealed and confirmed by the Father (we can have confidence!). Secondly Jesus fulfilled the Law and all that humanity is supposed to be in our place, and we can rejoice in the fact that we are destined to be like Him.
					
Introduction
Revealed (clearly)
God’s standards for credibility
Righteous
Devout
Loved the Lord’s Coming
Spiritual
So much proof
Application: Confidence
Man (THE Man)
Born under the law
Application: True Humanity
Conclusion
Announcements
 
Luke 2:21 On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived. 22 When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord"), 24 and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: "a pair of doves or two young pigeons."
25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ. 
27 Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: 29 "Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. 30 For my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the sight of all people, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel." 33 The child's father and mother marveled at what was said about him. 
34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too." 
36 There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. 38 Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. 
39 When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. 40 And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.

Introduction 
I hope none of you enjoy the Christmas season this year.
That’s my earnest prayer – that you would not enjoy this Christmas season.
My goal for me and my family and for us as a church is that instead of merely enjoying a season…
, we would instead enjoy Jesus Christ Himself.
If we were unbelievers who didn’t know the Son of God personally it would make sense for us to be satisfied with just enjoying the season…
 – the time of year and the trappings of celebration.
And I do hope that you all celebrate and that your hearts find great joy and satisfaction as you celebrate.
But my prayer is that the source of that joy and satisfaction would not be the trappings of the celebration…
, but rather that the celebration would be a tool that you use to help your soul enjoy the Lord Himself.

Another thing I hope for all of you is that none of you will ever be satisfied with religious speech that sounds good but…
 that doesn’t have any real meaning that you can discern.
And I realize what I just said may very well fall into that category.
Enjoy Christ?
What does that mean?
How do you enjoy someone who is invisible, intangible, and silent?
What does it look like in real, practical terms to enjoy Jesus Christ?
The way to enjoy a person is to learn what’s wonderful about that person, and then to personally experience that…
, to enjoy that experience, and to realize that your enjoyment is due to that person.
And today’s passage is perfect for helping us do that with the Lord Jesus Christ.

I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but the past several Christmases I’ve been going verse by verse through Luke 2.
And we left off last year at v.20.
We talked about one of the most spectacular and beloved accounts in the Christmas story…
 –the appearance of the angels in the sky to the shepherds.
And that brings us now to the next section which begins at v.21.
This section tells us about an event that I think it’s fair to say has to be the most obscure and unknown event in the whole nativity story.
It’s the account of Simeon and Anna, and if you don’t know who they are it’s not surprising because…
 for some reason this part of the Christmas story has been pretty much boycotted by Christmas cards…
 and Christmas carols and plays and sermons and all the rest.
And I think the Church is the poorer for that oversight, because this passage of Scripture contains a great deal of rich and wonderful truth.

It’s a story of an encounter that takes place in the Temple courts.
And right in the middle of all the hustle and bustle of the crowd in the Temple that day…
 a man named Simeon and a woman named Anna end up face to face with Joseph and Mary…
, and speak to them about their little baby.
And the words coming out of their mouths were prophecy – verbatim words from God.
(That’s the definition of prophecy – speaking a word-for-word message directly from God.)
And that’s very significant because there hadn’t been prophecy in Israel for 400 years.
The last Prophet had been Malachi, and the OT ended with him, and that period between Malachi until the time of Jesus is known as the 400 year silence.
For a time period longer than the United States has existed there had not been a breath of prophecy…
, and now, at the birth of this child God breaks His silence…
 – first through Zechariah in ch.1 and now through this man Simeon.

So let’s get into the time machine of the Gospel of Luke and transport ourselves back to that day 40 days after the manger scene.
We’re not in Bethlehem anymore.
We are now in Jerusalem, in the Temple, in the Court of the Women…
, and we’re going to witness this amazing encounter between Simeon and little 6-week-old Jesus and His parents. 
And in telling us about this little encounter Luke unveils at least 11 different stunning and marvelous truths about the Lord Jesus Christ…
 that will enable us to drink in deep, rich, satisfying enjoyment of Him this Christmas season if we fix our attention on them. 
I can’t do any justice to all 11 of them in one study, so I’ll try to hit the first 2. 
Revealed (clearly)
We’re about to hear some amazing things about Jesus.
But before Luke tells us those things he takes a paragraph to tell us all about the guy who is going to do the speaking.
Simeon is going to testify as to who Jesus is, but before we hear his testimony we need to know his credentials.
If he’s going to testify as a witness we have to know if he’s reliable. 
God’s standards for credibility 
25 Now there was a man…
A man? 
Is that the most you can say about him? 
Just some guy?
He’s not the High Priest or a king or a Rabi or a famous teacher? 
Luke says, “No, he’s just a man you’ve never heard of.”
No other historian at that time thought he was significant enough to mention, there are no references to him by other people – he’s just some guy.
So why does God choose him to testify to who Jesus is?
Wouldn’t it have greater impact if it were some big shot or celebrity or something?
Why pick a nobody?

It’s because God’s idea of a credible witness is different than ours.
This passage teaches us what God considers the more important factors in establishing the credibility of a witness, and celebrity status is not a factor.
Neither is education.
He doesn’t say, “There was a man named Simeon who trained at the feet of Gamaliel and was the world’s foremost expert in messianic studies.”

It’s important for us to pay attention to this because we live in a culture that has as completely different idea of what makes someone credible.
In our culture, if you have a PhD, you’re considered an expert – even if you’re a complete idiot.
If you have years and years of experience in that area you’re thought to be highly qualified, even if all those years you’ve done a terrible job.
If you’re famous, you’re considered an expert on everything.
That’s why movie actors are asked their opinion on everything from economic policy to morality.
And the church is very much influenced by the world in this area.
There are many large churches where if Jesus Christ showed up and applied for the job of senior pastor He would be rejected as under-qualified... 
(not enough education, not enough experience, not a member of the denomination, too young, way too controversial, etc.)
God’s ideas of what makes someone qualified and reliable are very different from ours.

God wants the testimony about His Christ to be absolutely bulletproof, and so he doesn’t leave it to a mere expert.
The only qualifications that matter are the ones that make a person useful to the Holy Spirit.
And Luke tells us what those are starting in v.25.
25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ. 27 Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts.
I see 4 key credentials in that description.
Righteous
The first one Luke mentions is the most important – he was righteous.
That means he was a believer.
Like Abraham in Gn.15 he had believed in the true God, placed his faith in Yahweh, and it was credited to him as righteousness. 
That is of first importance.
There are some people who claim to be Christians who can’t stand the Church.
They say, “I can’t stand hanging around Christians, because they are all hypocrites and they are more worldly and sinful than unbelievers.”
Someone told me recently that he thinks most Christians are worse than non-Christians in their behavior. 
People who feel that way about the Bride of Christ have affections that are the exact opposite of God’s.
In God’s sight there is a night and day difference between believers and unbelievers…
, and so being among the righteous is the most important factor when establishing the credibility of a witness.
Devout
Secondly, Simeon was devout.
That means he was a pious, reverent, godly man.
The root idea of this word is “careful.”
A devout man is someone who is careful about following the Law of God.
He doesn’t cut moral corners and is meticulous and careful about obeying God.
Loved the Lord’s Coming
25 He was waiting for the consolation of Israel
Waiting means he was looking forward to it with eagerness and expectation.
Part of what makes someone a qualified expert is his or her affections.
What is the person longing for?
What does he love?
The world thinks the most credible people are the most unbiased and objective.
So news reporters try to pretend to be unbiased.
But unbiased people are not reliable – for two reasons.
First, because when someone claims to be completely unbiased right away you know you’re dealing with a liar…
, because everyone is biased in one way or another.
And second, in order for someone to be a credible expert he must have a bias toward truth and righteousness rather than error and sin.
A trustworthy person is someone who not only knows the truth but who loves the truth, and is biased in favor of righteousness.
Instead of being impartial, they are partial toward godliness and truth, and they have a prejudice against lies and ungodliness.

If you were at a conference on the end times, and you had a choice between…
 going to a session taught by an expert with 5 PhD’s who has written 19 books on eschatology but who is indifferent about the Second Coming…
, or a session taught by someone who just really longs for Christ’s appearing…
, that second guy has more impressive credentials.
There are a million different sources where you can get information, but not many people can teach you how to desire something that you should desire.
2 Timothy 4:8 Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
I want that reward, but I will only get it if I can find a Simeon out there who can teach me how to have a greater longing for the coming of the Messiah…
 – so that I look forward to Christ’s Second Coming with at least as much eagerness as Simeon looked forward to His first Coming.

I’m not trying to disparage education.
It can be a useful tool, but that’s all it is – a tool.
If you’re deciding between two carpenters, and one lives in a house that’s about to tip over and the other’s house is a masterpiece, the tools they own are irrelevant. 
If the first guy has the greatest tools money can buy, and the second guy has very simple tools – that isn’t what matters.
What matters is the outcome of his work.
And if one guy spent years of his life and hundreds of thousands of dollars getting the educational tools for study but his heart isn’t longing for the Second Coming…
, then I know I’m dealing with a carpenter who has top flight tools and doesn’t know how to use them.
Spiritual
25 the Holy Spirit was upon him. 
Hi righteousness and godliness and right affections made him a useful tool for the Holy Spirit.
In the Church Age the Holy Spirit is upon all the people of God…
, but in OT times this phrase means the person is about to be used in some very special, dramatic way…
 – usually it means the person is about to speak as a mouthpiece for God.
In fact, prior to this God had spoken one other time to Simeon though the Spirit.
26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ. 
God spoke directly to Simeon and told him that he would remain alive until he saw the Messiah with his own eyes.
Can you imagine having information like that?
Your wife says, “Honey, aren’t you eating kind of a lot of cholesterol lately?” 
“I won’t die!”
“Should you really be free climbing up that cliff with no ropes?”
“I haven’t seen the Messiah yet, so I know I won’t die.”

By the way, this tells us something about how God speaks.
There are many people today claiming that God has spoken to them based on gut feelings they have – or dreams or thoughts that pop into their head.
They have a sense that something is right or wrong, or they discern God’s guidance by whether they feel a sense of peace or lack of peace.
That is not how God speaks.
The voice of God is not vague.
God is the greatest Communicator in existence and He is capable of speaking in complete sentences with crystal clear language.
And that’s what happened with Simeon.
It wasn’t a vague sense, it wasn’t a feeling, it wasn’t a thought that popped into his head, it wasn’t a quiver in his liver…
 – it was a very clear communication directly from God that said something very specific – “You will not die until you have seen the Lord’s Christ.”

So the Holy Spirit was upon Simeon, had spoken directly to Simeon, and was about to speak through Simeon in prophecy.
This was a man who was responsive to the influence of the Holy Spirit, which is how he ended up coming to the Temple on this day.
27 Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts.
Clearly something very special and very important is about to happen.

Those are the qualifications of the man who is about testify about who Jesus is.
He is reliable as the Holy Spirit Himself.
So much proof
It’s amazing how much of God’s Word is devoted to verifying who Jesus is.
The second attribute we see about Christ is that He is revealed.
God the Father has revealed Him to us with certainty.
There isn’t any question as to whether He is the Messiah.
He’s not the maybe Jesus. 
Think of all the proofs God gave about who Jesus is.
Fulfilled prophecy – Christianity is the only religion in the world supported by fulfilled prophecy…
 – with specific times and names and places all fulfilled with 100% accuracy.
On top of that, the testimony of the angel.
On top of that the miracle of the virgin birth.
In addition to all that, the testimony of the great company of angels that appeared in the sky outside of Bethlehem…
, and the testimony of John the Baptist leaping in his mother’s womb.
And beyond all that now we have additional proof.
A righteous, godly, Spirit-empowered, Spirit-controlled man who loved the coming of the Messiah was told directly by God that he would live to see the Messiah. 
And that man was directed by the Spirit to Joseph and Mary in the Temple.
That’s not like running into someone at church.
The Temple complex was a huge area – 35 acres, more that 16 football fields.
It could hold 200,000 people at one time.
And of all the thousands of people, many of them would be young couples just like Mary and Joseph with their newborn babies going through the purification rituals. 
And contrary to what the artists might think, neither Jesus nor Mary had a halo above their heads.
Jesus was just a regular looking baby with regular looking parents who would have just been 2 faces in the crowd…
 just like if you went to a football game and picked out one couple at random.
Baby Jesus was not wearing a nametag that said, “Hello, I’m the Messiah.”
This stranger ends up face to face with this couple and their baby and immediately knows that this is the Messiah.
And he speaks to them about their child…
, and everything he says coincides exactly with what they had heard from the angels. 
In one of the early Star Wars episodes there is an ancient prophecy about a child who would come and bring balance to the force.
After a lot of investigation they have a conversation about how this child just might be the one.
I imagine that’s supposed to resemble the story from the Bible, but there really isn’t much resemblance.
27 Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: 29 "Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. 30 For my eyes have seen your salvation.”
He takes one look at the baby and he’s ready to die.
He doesn’t need to go on living one more day.
His whole life’s desire is now fulfilled.
Not maybe fulfilled.
Simeon didn’t see this baby and say, “Hmm, I think he has potential.
I’m going to keep an eye on him.
I’m going to follow his career and see if he pans out as a Messiah.”
If there’s a 75% chance that this is the Messiah I don’t think he’s going to be that ready to die.
There isn’t any doubt.
The baby Jesus isn’t the maybe Jesus – God has revealed without any question that this is the Messiah.

Frankly that would have been plenty of proof if God had stopped right there, but He was just getting started.
After Simeon comes Anna. 
Later comes John the Baptist, whose whole life was devoted to nothing but showing the world that Jesus is the Messiah.
Then at His baptism heaven cracks open, the Holy Spirit descends visibly in front of everyone…
, and God the Father speak audibly and confirms that Jesus is His Son.

After that, the miracles.
Jesus turns water to wine. 
He heals people – anyone He wants – going around healing folks by the thousands at will.
When He encounters demon possessed people the demons shake in fear and beg for mercy.
And these miracles aren’t done in a cave somewhere – they are done right in front of the masses.
Even Jesus’ bitterest enemies acknowledge them. 
He feeds 10 to 20 thousand people with a few loaves and fishes.
He walks on water, commands the wind and waves, stills the storms, and raises the dead.
Then He describes how and when he will die, and that three days later He will rise from the dead and that’s exactly what happens.
Then He spends 6 weeks going around giving many convincing proofs…
 – so convincing that all His Disciples, who did not believe when they saw the empty tomb…
, when they spent time with Him after His resurrection believed so completely that they were transformed from…
 cowering in fear in a locked room to being willing to die to preach about Jesus’ resurrection.
Then He ascends into heaven in the clouds before their eyes.

Every other religion asks its followers to follow on blind faith.
There are only 3 religions in the world that stand or fall based on historical claims – Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. 
All the rest just ask you to take their word for it that their religion is true.
They just say, “Trust us, it’s all true” and you have to buy into it with blind faith (which is irrational by definition and extremely foolish).
Only three religions stand or fall based on historical evidence – Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. 
All three of those religions teach that if their version of history is wrong, then their religion is wrong.
And so you can look at history and see plainly that neither Judaism nor Islam can be true because they both make historical claims about Jesus that don’t match up with the facts.
They have to deny the overwhelming evidence of the fulfilled prophecies, the miracles, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
But God has revealed His Messiah, and when God reveals something it is unquestionable. 
Application: Confidence
So what does all that mean for you this Christmas season?
What does it look like to enjoy the revealed and confirmed Christ?
For one thing you can enjoy that attribute of Christ by living with confidence.
You don’t have to live with the nagging question about whether maybe some other religion is the true one.
And in an area where Christ has spoken you don’t ever have to try to figure out which direction would be best.
If Scripture says to forgive in a certain circumstance you don’t have to rack your brain trying to figure out whether it would be a good idea to forgive.
You don’t have to try to calculate whether it might be OK in your case to live together with someone you’re not married to.
In every issue of life where Christ has spoken in His Word we can enjoy 100% certainty as to the right way.

For people who don’t know Christ, nothing is certain.
We all make hundreds of decisions every day, and the non-Christian can never be sure about any of them – not one single one.
They will never know if some other decision might have been better.
They are speeding down the highway of life completely blind.
There are people in mental hospitals because of the fact that the economy is so uncertain and the future is so uncertain and all of life is so uncertain.
And for them it is – but for us the future is 100% certain.
I don’t know if I’ll have a job next year or a family or my health, but I no without a shadow of a doubt that I’ll have Christ…
, and that He will supply me with absolutely everything I need to do His will and fulfill my calling and everything I need to be happy in Him…
, and I know with certainty that He will return in the clouds just as He promised and take me to be with Him in paradise forever.
These may be uncertain times for the unbeliever, but there are no uncertain times for the child of God.

So this Christmas season enjoy the revealed, confirmed Christ.
Enjoy serving a God who doesn’t ask you to believe on blind faith.
Enjoy being able to come before His throne of grace boldly in prayer.
Enjoy being able to rest your soul on any of His great and precious promises with full certainty that it’s all true.
Instead of just enjoying the Christmas season this year, use the Christmas season as a tool to help you enjoy the revealed, confirmed Christ.
Man (THE Man)
Born under the law
We need to jump backward a month to when Jesus was just one week old.
21 On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived. 
The Law of God required that every Jewish male be circumcised on the 8th day after he was born. 
And it was always on that day that they named the child.
And typically a first born child would be named after his dad – or sometimes after some other family member.
But they don’t name this baby Joseph.
They don’t name Him after a family member, they don’t get the Big Book of Jewish Baby Names and pick out something that sounds good…
; they name the baby exactly what the angel told them to name Him way back before Mary even became pregnant.
Luke 1:31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
The fact that they obeyed and named Him Jesus shows that they believed all that the angel said.

So Luke gives us a quick look at the day Jesus was named, then skips ahead a month to that day in the Temple.
22 When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed (that’s 33 days later), Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord"), 24 and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: "a pair of doves or two young pigeons."
Why is Luke giving us all this information about Joseph and Mary following the details of the Mosaic Law?
One of the keys to interpreting passages in the Bible that tell the story of an historical event is to watch for the things the narrator emphasizes. 
If one theme is repeated several times, that’s a clue as to the writer’s point.
See if you can spot a theme in this section:
22 When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord"), 24 and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: "a pair of doves or two young pigeons."
27 … When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, 28 Simeon took him in his arms…
39 When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee 
Five times Luke mentions the Law of God.
The entire passage points back to the Law, but just so we don’t miss that Luke states it explicitly five times.
Jesus was born under the Law.
The fact that He was the Son of God did not exempt Him from any requirements of the Law.
He was obligated to follow every detail.
This is the same point Paul makes in Gal.4.
Galatians 4:4 when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5 to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. 
The phrase born of a woman was a common idiom to refer to humanity.
It points to Jesus’ humanness. 
He was 100% human.
That’s important, because part of His work of saving us required Him to come and live a perfect life as the ultimate Human.
The phrase born under law points to His Jewishness.
Not only did Jesus need to be the ultimate Man; He also had to be the ultimate Jew.
In order for you and I to ever be able to go to heaven God’s purposes for Israel had to be accomplished.
Look again at v.5 – you and I cannot receive the full rights as sons of God unless THE Son of God comes…
, is born of a woman, and born under the law to redeem those under the Law.

So if God’s purposes for the nation of Israel are not accomplished, no one can be saved – no Jew and certainly no Gentile.
So Jesus was the ultimate Man (the last Adam), and the ultimate Jew (accomplishing all of God’s purposes for Israel).
At no time was He ever at odds with the Law of God - not even in His birth.
Everything surrounding His birth followed the Law of God to the letter.
Application: True Humanity
Christmas is the celebration of the incarnation of God the Son – when God took on human flesh.
But He didn’t put it on like a costume; He actually became human.
This Christmas season, every time you see God the Son depicted as a little baby in a manger, think about the implications of God becoming man. 
And don’t just think about the death Jesus died in your place – think also about the life He lived in your place.
He fulfilled everything mankind is supposed to be.

We all groan over the fact that we aren’t what we ought to be.
Deep down inside us we all have a sense of what we should be, and we look in the mirror and groan.
We look at our history of breaking the Law of God and we groan.
We see our lack of love and our pride and our selfishness and we grieve.
We find ourselves loving evil and despising good and being attracted to what is ugly and being indifferent to what is beautiful…
 and all of it puts distance between us and God and it fills us with sorrow.
We’re just not what we ought to be, but praise be to God who sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law…
 to perfectly fulfill all of God’s purposes for humanity and for His own special people on our behalf so that in Him we can become children of God!

One of the popular colloquialisms of our day when we want to give someone a compliment is to say, “You’re the man.”
(Or to be a little more colloquially correct, “You ‘d man.”)
That means you are the man of the hour, the man who really came through on something important or impressive.
But it’s a huge overstatement.
No matter how often I come through in a clutch I am not the man – the best I could ever hope to be is a man.
Jesus Christ is THE Man – the ultimate human being who fulfilled everything mankind is supposed to be in your place…
, even fulfilling all of the Law in your place so that you can be adopted as a child of God.

If you’re a Christian you are a child of God.
And Jesus’ perfect life is credited to your account in God’s eyes.
That’s called justification.
However – there’s still a problem when we look in the mirror, isn’t there?
I may be justified in God’s sight but I look in the mirror and I can say if this is as far as salvation goes, it’s not even close to far enough.
I was reading this week about a heresy known as full preterism. 
A full preterist is someone who believes all the end times prophecies are already fulfilled.
The Second Coming has already happened and we are now in the Eternal State.
This is heaven.
They say that when God created the world it was full of evil and sickness and suffering and sorrow and disease and death…
, and now everything has been restored to that beginning state.
And so this is it – this is the best God can do.

You would have a tough time convincing me to worship a god who created a world of sin and suffering and death and said…
, “Behold it is very good” and the world we have now is the extent of his ability to redeem mankind.
Could that be true?
Could it be that on Day 7 of the creation week when God said, “Behold it is very good” that He was looking at a world riddled with design flaws?
Let me bounce this proverb off you and see what you think: “To err is human. To forgive is divine.”
Is the first part of that true?
Are errors and mistakes and mess-ups an essential component of what it means to be human – part of the way we were originally designed?
Most people think so.
That’s why when they sin they defend it by saying, “I’m only human.”

There are certain characteristics that are essential to humanity – and others that are not.
If I lose an arm or a leg I’m still just as human as ever.
If my skin color is dark or light that has no bearing on how human I am.
On the other hand, if I have the DNA of a chimpanzee then I’m not human at all – not even a little bit.
If I don’t have a soul then I’m not human.
Some of our characteristics are essential to humanness and others are not.
So what about sin and error?
Are those things essential parts of what it means to be human?
NO! Just the opposite.
They are corruptions of what it means to be human.
Making mistakes, messing up, believing wrong things, committing sin – if anything those things make you less human.
They destroy your humanity in some measure.
When someone says, “To err is human” that’s like saying, “to be a cake means to be burnt…
,” or “For something to truly be a car it has to have a flat tire.”
If you want to know what it means to really be human, look at the ultimate Human - THE Man Jesus Christ.
The standard for what defines humanness is not the average of what you see when you look around at people.
The standard is God’s original design, which is seen perfectly in the last Adam – Jesus Christ.
1 Cor.15:45 calls Him the last Adam (or man) not because He was the last human being to ever be born, but because He is the ultimate human being.
He is what God designed humanity to be, and if you have been born again you are headed in that direction…
 – to be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Every time you see a manger scene, or hear a song about the baby Jesus – think about the fact that He is THE Man - the ultimate and supreme Human being…
, and someday, if you know Him by faith, that’s what you will be like!
What you see in the mirror is temporary.
You won’t always be a rusted out jalopy with flat tires.
You and I have never experienced all that it means to be human, but when Christ returns, we will.
Depending on how old you are you might feel like your best years are behind you – at least physically.
If you know Christ, they aren’t.
All your best days are still ahead of you, as you are conformed more and more to the image of THE Man, Jesus Christ.
Conclusion
I know some of you fight with depression over the holidays because you don’t have a good family situation…
 and you see everyone else having a great time with family and you become envious.
If that’s you – if there is something missing in your life that threatens to bring you grief rather than joy in the holiday season…
, remind yourself that as Christians the source of our joy is not our families.
Our happiness is not dependent on our marriage or our children or parents or siblings.
Our fulfillment is not resting on whether we get what we want under the tree.
No family situation can ever steal our joy because our joy isn’t dependent on family or friends or gifts or circumstances.
It rests completely on enjoying Christ.
We don’t enjoy the season; we enjoy the Savior.
We enjoy serving a Messiah who has been revealed with certainty by the Father, and who became man…
, was born of a woman just like us, born under the law…
, and who perfectly fulfilled all of the law and all the God intended for humanity so that…
 we might be redeemed from the curse that comes from our disobedience and we might be saved from the corruptions of our humanity.

Benediction: 1 Timothy 3:16 Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.