The Heart of Anna: Serving God Amidst Loss

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,

where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to

this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen

you in the word of God.

Now come along.

Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

You know, traditions are a good thing.

Does anyone else have one before?

I.

Traditions are a good thing.

I.

I think that one.

One of the reasons that traditions are fun is because it

might not be necessarily really unique or it might not even

be something that other people find interesting, but they're special

to us because we continue to do them, and it.

It holds a special place in our hearts.

And when you.

When you think about scripture and you think about, you know, different

things that people did and how they reacted to things, you know,

people reacted to Jesus in many different ways.

And, and it was a lot of times people reacted to Jesus with awe.

Many people reacted to Jesus with.

With anger.

Some people reacted with.

With Jesus in great joy.

And I think that's how sometimes at Christmas time, we,

you know, different people have different perceptions of different

things that happens.

And, you know, for many people, Christmas is a time of joy.

Many, many people, you know, they're looking all year towards

Christmas, and maybe family's coming together.

This might be the one time the family gets together in the year.

And so there's great joy with that.

But, you know, for other people, Christmas time can be difficult,

you know, when.

When certain elements of the life has changed.

Maybe a person has gone on to be with the Lord or maybe there was

an instance around that Christmas season where there was

a difficulty.

You know, sometimes people have a different perception.

And, And I think that that's important for us to understand as,

as Christians, we can see the very same thing and have a different

viewpoint on it than somebody else because of our experience.

And we're going to talk about an individual here this evening.

Her name is going to be Anna.

And Anna has a reaction to Jesus that really was unique.

There were really only a few people at this time frame that were

recognizing Jesus as Messiah.

We know at this point the shepherds had recognized Jesus as

Messiah.

We know that right before this, Simeon had recognized Jesus

as Messiah.

You know, at this point, Mary and Joseph are certainly understanding

not completely the implications of who Jesus is, but

to some degree they're understanding this.

And we see Anna reacting in a very unique way here.

There's not a lot to be said about Anna in This passage.

And, you know, I.

I wonder sometimes in Scripture, sometimes I wonder why.

Why was this mentioned?

Why was this little snippet mentioned in Scripture?

And I think that if something's mentioned in Scripture,

it's there for us for a reason.

It's there for us to learn.

It's there for us to maybe learn from a good example or a bad

example so that we don't follow that path.

You know, there's some passages of scripture that are just

descriptive, just describing something that happened so that we

can tie that together with reality, so that we can tie it together

with history.

So, so we know at this point in time, Jesus is born.

His parents take him to the temple.

And Simeon there, as we saw last week, followed the Holy Spirit.

So he was a man led by the Spirit.

He worships Jesus.

He.

He recognizes the truth of God's word.

And we see there in verse 29, he says, now the Lord, now, let us

now serve and depart in peace according to Thy word.

So he's essentially saying, I have now seen my Savior.

I can depart in peace.

I can be done.

I fought the good fight.

I finished my course.

And so he says, the reason why, for mine eyes have seen thy

salvation, which thou has prepared before the face of all people

a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people,

Israel.

And so, really, in that passages of Scripture where Simeon

is talking, we see a lot of really interesting points.

One point is that Jesus is not just coming for Israel, even though

he came for his people.

He did come, as it says there, to lie in the light of the Gentiles.

And so we know that Jesus's message of the Gospel is for all.

And we see that Simeon is led by the Spirit to proclaim this truth.

But at the end of this, we see in verse 36, a new character come

onto the scene.

And this is the individual named Anna.

And it says, and there was one Anna, a prophetess.

Now, if you see that, you might not understand, really.

I.

I don't understand the implications of what that phrase

means.

We don't see a lot of that in Scripture, that phrase prophetess.

But it does kind of shine some light on us this morning as we looked

into that word prophet or prophecy.

We believe many people, many biblical scholars believe that Anna

was someone who was proclaiming the truth of God.

She was proclaiming the truth of God to those around her.

So she's only in a handful of women in the Bible that have the

title of prophetess.

The others were Miriam in Exodus chapter 15, and Deborah in

Exodus 15 · chapter mention

the book of Judges.

And, and we, we see that there are a few others in Scripture, in

the book of Isaiah, I believe that there's one mentioned.

And, and so what does that mean?

Did that mean that she was holding the office of a pastor?

No, we just believe that she was someone who was there to proclaim

the truth of God.

And it even is seen here as she proclaims the truth of God in

this culmination of Jesus's birth.

And so it says that there was one Anna, a prophetess, a daughter

of fuel, of the tribe of Asser.

She was of great age and had lived with an husband seven years

from her virginity.

And she was a widow of about four score and four years, which

departed not from the temple, but served God with fasting and prayers

night and day.

There's a lot that we can learn from the life of Anna.

Right here we see that she was an elderly woman.

She had only been married for seven years.

And the Bible doesn't tell us exactly what happened, but we know

that her husband passed away after that short amount of time.

And the Bible says that she remained a widow for the rest of

her life.

Now, that might not jump off the page to you too much, but at

that time frame, someone who was a widow was, was really the outcast

of society.

She would not have had someone providing for her like the other

women that were there.

And the Bible says that at that point in time, she made a decision.

And you know, that's an interesting decision because a lot

of people have allowed heartache in their life to draw them

away from God, to, to lead them away from God.

But Anna does not respond that way.

What does Anna do in the midst of loss?

She turns to God.

And it says here that after this happens, she departed not from

the temple.

She wanted to be in the presence of God.

And I think that there's a lot that we can learn here from her life

because no doubt the loss of her husband was not only an emotional

loss, but it, but it was a, is a physical loss, a material loss.

She lost her security.

She lost probably her standing in society, unfair as that is.

And ultimately what happens here is that she could have allowed

that to lead her to a place of going away from God, maybe even questioning

God, getting to a point in her life where she was bitter, maybe

even angry with God.

But instead, what does she do?

She clings to God in the midst of that loss.

She says, lord, I want to be with you.

I want to be in the temple.

I want to serve you.

And it says that she was there in the temple.

She departed not from the temple.

That shows her desire to be close to God.

But it says there more.

It says, but served God.

We spoke about that importance this morning about serving God with

the proper motives.

Serving God in the midst of difficulty.

Instead of getting angry with God.

What did she do?

She served God.

And then it says that she served God with fasting and prayers.

And this shows dedication night and day.

This shows the time frame in which she did this.

It wasn't when it was convenient to her.

Now her faith had become her life.

This indicates that Anna was, Though she was elderly at this point,

she was still busy serving the Lord.

And so she was busy serving the Lord.

But we also see here that she was looking, she was looking for

hope.

Verse 30.

And she, coming in that instant, gave thanks likewise unto

the Lord.

So very similar to Simeon.

She gives thanks to the Lord.

She, she's looking for opportunities to give thanks to the

Lord.

You know, I think so many times in our life we miss opportunities

to give thanks to God because we're so focused on the issues that

are around us.

You know, if we just opened our eyes, I think we would be very,

very, it would be very, very obvious for us to give God thanks

for many things around.

And so here in this case, she's, she's ready.

And she comes in that instance and she gives thanks likewise unto

the Lord and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption

in Jerusalem.

And so she gives thanks to the Lord for this opportunity to see

Jesus.

And it says that she spake of him to all of them that looked for

redemption.

Now, what we know is that there are people at that time frame

looking for redemption.

They were looking for someone to redeem them.

That word redemption means to be bought back.

And so people were looking for a redeemer.

And what she did is she recognized Jesus is the Redeemer.

Jesus is the one to bring this redemption.

And so what does she do?

She proclaims that to all the people who were looking.

That's a great example for us as believers.

We, we should be proclaiming the redemption of Jesus Christ in

our life.

And I want to take you to a passage of Scripture that talks a

little bit about that.

We're going to come back to Anna here in a few moments, but I

want you to turn there to Titus, chapter two.

I, I, I was really pondering as I was studying the life of Anna.

One of the words that jumped off the page for me was that word

redemption.

Redeemer what does that mean for us?

What?

What does that mean for us when we are trying to share our faith

with other people?

Well, we're going to see here in this passage of Scripture in Titus

chapter two, the opportunity to explain what redemption looks

like and how we can live in light of that to those around us.

Let's look at Titus chapter 2, and we're going to look at verse

Titus 2 · chapter mention

number 11 says, for the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath

appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly

lust, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present

world.

And so, in light of the grace of God, so.

So the same grace that Anna experienced all those years ago,

the same grace that you experience in trusting in Jesus Christ

as your Savior and knowing his gift of grace in your life, that

should bring us to a place that we should deny ungodliness,

things that are not reflective of the word of God.

We should deny these worldly lusts.

We should live soberly.

We talked about that this morning.

Righteously and godly in this present world.

So the Bible says, to live a life focused on the redemption of

God is a life to live differently in this world.

A life that lives in opposition to ungodliness, a life

that lives in opposition to worldly lust.

A life that leads us to a place of sobriety.

Not just sobriety.

When it comes to alcohol, a lot of times we use that word, sobriety.

We think of, well, they're abstaining from alcohol.

No, it's more than that.

It's living a life unaffected by the cares and the whims and the

sins of this world, to think seriously about the things of God,

to live righteously, to live godly in this present world.

It's very easy for us to be swayed by this present world and

not to be thinking about the redemption that God has extended

in our life.

And I think that so many times we get our eyes off track of the

true message and we get so clouded up with all these things

of this world, and we do end up living lives of ungodliness, lives

of worldly lust, lives that are not sober, lives that are not

righteous, lives that are not godly in this present world.

And then he says, how do you get back to that?

How do you get back to living that life of sobriety?

How do you give.

How do you get back to living that life of godliness and that focus

in the truth of redemption?

Well, it says, looking for that blessed hope and that glorious

appearing of the great God, our Savior, Jesus Christ.

It's looking to that culmination of it all one day, looking

to the end, keeping our eyes fixed on those things which are eternal.

Colossians chapter three says, keep your eyes fixed on those things

which are above.

And, and I would say that so much so that we must, we must be

vigilant in living a life with that eternal perspective.

I know that's a phrase that we use quite frequently here.

But if you cannot allow yourself to live your life and, and

think on and believe in those things which are eternal, we're going

to be stuck.

And those things which are in the here and now.

Anna could have very easily, when she lived that life for those.

Those years, those years she's, you know, in her 80s, 90s

years years old.

She's old at this point in time.

She has gone through a lot of stuff in her life, and she could

have used a lot of different things to cause her to live like

the world, cause her to live like the people there in Jerusalem.

But no, she says, I'm going to live differently.

I'm going to keep my eyes fixed on redemption.

I'm going to look to Jesus Christ.

And that's.

We as Christians have to follow that same path, looking for

that blessed hope.

You know, there's a lot of Christians that are walking around

not looking toward redemption, not looking toward being restored,

not looking forward to these things.

They're looking forward to tomorrow, they're looking forward

to Friday night.

They're looking forward to that vacation.

They're looking forward to getting that bonus.

And our eyes are just fixed on the wrong things.

And so they said, look to Jesus, look to Jesus.

Here Paul is saying to Titus, if you want to live this life of

difference, if you want to live this life focused on redemption,

look to Jesus, verse 14, who gave Himself for us.

Folks, we can never get used to the gospel message.

Never become callous to the fact that Jesus gave his life for

you.

Sometimes when we think about in the corporate sense, we kind of

remove ourselves from the equation.

We say, yeah, God died.

You know, Jesus came and God died for the sins of the world.

But.

But yes, he did.

But he also came and gave his life for you.

And I think so many times we miss that connection.

So he gave himself for us that he might, here's our word for the

night, redeem us from all iniquity.

It was God's plan for him to send his only begotten son so that

we could be bought back with a price.

The Bible says That we are bought with a price to redeem us

from iniquity, to live differently from the world.

Folks, the truth is, is that I think so many times, and I'm included

in this, we recognize that we can't be sinless.

And so we just don't fight that battle against sin.

We say, you know what?

I'm just human.

Aren't we all just human?

But the Bible does say here that we are on that path of living

more righteously.

And it says that God has redeemed us from that sin.

The book of Romans is all about this fact that you were, before

you were saved, a servant to sin.

You were in bondage, but now you have the freedom to choose the

path of obedience.

You had the freedom to choose the path of the Spirit.

So he says that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify

unto himself a peculiar people, a different people, zealous

of good works.

This is describing what a person who is set on the redemption

of God.

This is what it looks like here.

It says that they are set on living a life differently from the

world.

They're.

They're unique people.

They're not conformed to this world, but they're transformed, zealous

of good works.

Now, the good works don't come before that because some people say,

well, you got to start working hard for Jesus Christ, and then you'll

understand all these blessings.

No, the blessings come in faith.

And then we see us zealous of good works.

And so what I would encourage you to think about is this.

To live a life focused on the redemption of God is a life focused

on the eternal, a life focused on the gospel.

Now, Anna obviously didn't know all the implications of everything

that was going to happen with Jesus, but she did know that he was

the redemption, that he was the One who would be the Redeemer.

And so we go back and we look at Anna and we see that she proclaimed

that to all the people that were around her, verse 38.

And she, coming in the instant, gave thanks likewise unto

the Lord.

So it's the thankfulness in her heart for the Redeemer that allowed

her to tell other people about the redemption in Jerusalem.

So I would challenge you to think about it this way.

It's the thankfulness of what God has done for us in our life that

causes us to tell other people about Him.

Are we going to be willing to be so thankful for what God has done

that we're willing to tell other people proclaiming the truth

of God?

Are we willing to serve him night and day?

Are we willing to say, you know what?

I want to be around Him.

I want to be in his presence.

I want to spend time with him in his word.

Now, I would tell you that a lot of people will say, well, I love

the Lord.

I want to be around Him.

Well, how can we be around Him?

Well, I'm going to tell you that you're not going to get any

closer to God by being in this building.

This building is not the temple.

Believe it or not, this is not the temple.

God.

God isn't in that.

I, I, There are some kids running up here today.

I was like, guys, you're not allowed to come back here.

We, we didn't stop them from coming back there because that's

the holy of holies, okay?

It's not the holy of holies back there.

And so how can we be in the presence of God now?

Now, for Anna, she was living in a different time frame.

And so there was the temple and there was the presence of God.

And so there was that challenge for her to be close to

the presence of God.

But for us today, it's not about being in a specific place now.

It's not about allowing ourselves to be in a sacred, holy

cathedral.

The Bible actually says that our bodies are the temple of the

Holy Ghost.

And so you can have that access to God anywhere that you are.

So it's not about the location of your body.

It's about the location, if you will, of your heart, about where

you stand before Him.

And so you say, I love God.

I want to be with Him.

How do we spend time with God?

We spend time.

And this is basic.

This is basic Christianity 101.

We spend time with God by reading His Word, by studying His

Word, by communing with him in His Word.

Folks, if we love God, I'm going to tell you a statement.

And if you don't like this statement, you can throw tomatoes

at me.

But the truth is, I think I can back this up in Scripture.

If you love God, you will love His Word, okay?

You might not be able to understand everything in His Word.

I, I don't understand everything here.

You might not be able to read it as much as you'd like to read

it every single day, but there should be a desire to know His Word,

to grow in it, to understand it, to meditate upon it.

Folks, I would encourage you not just to do your daily reading

and walk away, but to dive deep into that.

What is there for me today?

What, what, what is God?

Saying to me in this passage of Scripture, folks, he wrote this

so that you could learn.

He wrote this so that you could grow.

And so the way that you hear from him is through His Word.

You know, it would be nice if.

If we could get a phone call and he could tell us directly what

he'd like us to do.

But that's not the way that God communicates with us.

The way that God communicates us is through primarily Scripture.

Now, he does speak to us through the conviction of the Spirit,

but the conviction and the comfort of the Spirit will always

be aligned with His Word.

And so I would say to you tonight, if you want to be that person,

like Anna, that wants to commune with God, be in His Word,

spend time in it, don't rush through it.

Alicia and I just went out for our anniversary to dinner.

And, you know, I'll be honest with you, sometimes when I'm out

to dinner, I'm thinking about other things.

But I tried my best during that meal, during the anniversary

to set my intention on her, right?

And, you know, we were able to have some good conversation.

Our parents are here to.

My parents are here to watch the kids.

And so we were able to go out and not have a lot of distractions,

you know.

But would it have shown my love for her if I was like, all right,

I got to get out of here.

We got an hour.

I got to get.

I got to get somewhere.

I got things on my mind that's going to indicate to her, like, hey,

he loves something else more than me, right?

He's trying to get past this and trying to get through.

And so isn't that sometimes how we read the Bible, though?

Isn't that sometimes we're like, okay, we got to get stuff done

today.

We got a busy day, so let me just get through this real quick.

I.

I think the challenge for us, obviously, we live busy lives, but

to allow ourselves to spend more time in His Word and the, The.

The psalmist will put it, you know, this way, you know, to meditate

on the Word day and night.

That's that idea of just being in it, spending time in it, and,

And.

And then thinking about it throughout our day.

Um, so.

So His Word now, Now how do we speak to Him?

We speak to him through prayer.

Spending time in real prayer.

I think that's one way that we can commune with God.

There's many other ways.

Uh, we.

We even see Anna gives us the demonstration there.

She was there with fasting and prayers.

I would encourage you to do the same thing.

I would encourage you allow yourself to be so focused on God

that you're not pulled away by other things.

You know, we.

We sometimes think of fasting when it comes to food, which it does

in context.

That's what it's talking about there.

And, and this isn't a message on fasting.

I won't get there tonight.

Wouldn't have enough time.

But what I would say is that some of us might need to fast from

other things as well in our life.

Just.

Just transparently.

Again, this thing that's standing before me with my notes

on it can be a great tool for the Lord, but it also can be a great

distraction.

And some of us can be scrolling on our phones and miss

out on many things that God would have us to do in our lives.

And distractions can come from all different places.

And so.

So sometimes we need to remove things from our life so we can have

our eyes set on the Lord.

Now, I don't think that fasting is something that you have

to do to continue in on your salvation, but I think it would be

something that we do recognize in our life as a need.

There's something that I need to get rid of in my life so that

I can be more focused on the cause of the gospel.

That's what Anna was doing.

She was praying and she was fasting, and she was communing with

God in this waiting period.

And you know what?

For, for many of us, those decades passing by, she might have

been tempted to say, is this really worth it?

But we see a lifetime of faithfulness for some of us when

the answer doesn't come right away.

For me, when God's answer doesn't come right away, I'm tempted

to think, well, maybe he's not there.

Maybe I'm asking in the wrong way.

Maybe I'm asking for the wrong thing.

But let me tell you, sometimes God has us waiting.

And we see here, Anna waits a lifetime for this to come to pass.

And, and she continues on, staying faithful.

And so I would say in the midst of prayer, in the midst of

Bible study, in the midst of service, have that godly patience

in your life.

And that that word patience is sometimes a bad word for many people.

I don't want to pray for patience.

I don't want to have patience in my life because I don't want to

be tested.

But I'm going to tell you that patience is a necessity in the spiritual

life.

Patience isn't.

It's what we talk about this morning, the fruit of the Spirit.

It's One of the fruits of the spirit, right?

It's, it's.

It's the fruit of the spirit.

We have those things.

And so I would say that.

That patience is something that we should strive for in our

life.

If God isn't doing what we expect him to do.

Patience, trust, allow yourself to say, you know what God,

it's, it's, it's in your timing.

It's not my own timing.

And so we see Anna was, was faithful.

We see that Anna was committed.

We see Anna was a devout follower of Christ.

Not in her actions as much as her heart.

Her actions matched her heart.

The Bible is very clear to say that we are supposed to do things.

There's this phrase that I've been studying out a lot recently.

It's called the spiritual disciplines.

Now.

Now, the spiritual disciplines are things that we are to do in our

life that the Bible tells us to do and that we are called to grow

in.

So some examples of the spiritual disciplines, prayer, fasting,

Bible study, service.

These are all things that don't necessarily come naturally

to us, but we are to grow in because the Bible tells us now.

So what I would say is that.

Do spiritual disciplines make us more spiritual?

Does just reading your Bible make you any closer to God?

Well, not necessarily.

I know a lot of people that are unsaved that can read the Bible.

So reading the Bible in and of itself is not enough.

It's reading the Bible with the understanding that this is bringing

me closer to God.

There's many people that pray, but they're praying in the flesh.

There's many people that read Scripture and they're reading in

the flesh.

There's many people that serve, but they're serving in the

flesh.

And so it's not so much that the spiritual disciplines is the

end.

The spiritual disciplines is a means to get to the end.

It's a means to become more and more God, Godly, more and more

Christlike.

And so the goal for a Christian is not to, you know, hey,

you know what?

I just need to read my Bible two hours a day instead of three,

or I need to read my Bible five hours a day instead of, you

know, it's not about more, more, more.

It's about, I need God more.

And if God wants me to read more, I'm going to read more.

If God wants me to serve more, I'm going to serve more.

And so we see Anna's faithfulness here, and we see that

she's willing to go through those spiritual disciplines.

Now, spiritual disciplines are difficult.

That's why they're called spiritual disciplines.

The world is pulling us away.

How many times have you tried to sit down and try to read the Bible?

And things happen, right?

Phone goes off, distractions happen.

Like the list goes on and on, right?

And, and so all these things can happen.

And I personally, I.

I firmly believe that, that Satan is at work even on Sunday mornings.

How many of you, if, if you don't believe that, how many of you

try to get your children in the car and you're, you know, there

are things happening, right?

There is a force that's against us to grow in our spiritual

disciplines.

And, and what I would say is that's not a reason to stop.

That's a reason to push forward and to trust God even more.

And, and so what we can see here in the life of Anna is Anna

was someone who was dedicated to God even in the midst of great

loss.

She was faithful in service.

She was faithful in prayer.

She was faithful in fasting.

She was faithful in proclaiming the truth of God to other

people around her.

And when she sees this come to pass, and I think verse 38 sums it

all up, and so when she comes and she gives thanks to God for this

opportunity to see Jesus, and then she has that thankfulness stir

her heart to the place of proclaiming the truth to those in

Jerusalem for redemption.

And so are we going to be the Christians that are excited about

the redemption of God in our lives?

You've been bought with a price.

Think about what Jesus Christ has done for you.

Are you willing to say, you know what?

I am going to live a life that is proclaiming, proclaiming God's

redemption in my life.

Are we going to be those distinct, distinctly different people?

That's what it says in Titus chapter two, that we're different.

It doesn't mean so.

So the Bible speaks of us being a strange people, a peculiar

people.

That's.

That doesn't mean that we're weird.

That doesn't mean that, like we try to be contrarian to the world.

It means that we live for Christ.

And us living for Christ makes us different from the ways of the

world.

Folks, if you live for Jesus Christ in this world, you are going

to stand out.

People are not going to like that.

Trust me.

Try raising your children in the nurture and admonition of the

Lord publicly.

People will balk at that.

People will say, I can't believe you.

Don't let your children do this.

I can't believe you.

Don't do this.

Right.

Just live differently.

People will see the difference.

And people will say, like you're talking about Brother Frank,

you live differently in front of them.

It will make a difference.

Now, we don't just live by deed.

We live by word and deed.

So it's sometimes not enough just to live differently, because

people might say there's something different about those people.

But why?

So it's living differently and then connecting that to Jesus Christ.

And that's.

That's the sharing of the Gospel.

So I live differently so people can see the change, so that

people can see Christ in me.

But then I proclaim the truth of God.

So my talk and my walk match up.

Because there's some people that proclaim the truth of God, but

their walk is not anywhere close to that.

And so someone goes, well, you say Jesus, but you're not living

Jesus.

You say faithfulness, but you're not faithful over here.

You say you live by the Word, but your life doesn't match with

that.

So there are people who talk it, but they don't walk it.

And then there's other people that live differently, but they say,

you know what?

My.

My actions speak louder than words.

And I think that is true.

But.

But the Bible does say, this is not.

Pastor Josh.

It says, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of

God.

It's connecting our different actions to the why behind it, our

word behind it.

If someone comes up to me, okay, let's say, you know, Pastor

Josh, why don't you do this?

We're at a party.

Why aren't you joining in with us and all this?

And we.

And I go, well, you know, it's just not good for my health.

I'm trying to.

Trying to be different.

You know, I'm just.

I'm can't touch this stuff, whatever.

Right.

Is that really explaining my personal conviction?

No.

My personal conviction is, no.

I believe biblically that I cannot do this.

Right.

It's sharing the truth of God, and it's connecting the difference

to the source of the difference.

And so being different is fantastic.

We should be different, but we should also connect that with the

proclamation.

So in Word.

And indeed, we live our lives for Christ.

And I believe that's what Anna did.

Anna proclaimed the Word, but she lived differently.

She lived in the temple.

She was faithful in her fasting.

She was faithful to her prayers.

And so what I would say is this, as a Christian, it's being

faithful to God in those actions and in our proclamations.

Now, are all of us called to preach the gospel?

Publicly?

No, but all of us are Called to preach the gospel by the way that

we live our lives and by what we say and by what we do.

And folks, I can tell you I have failed on that.

I have failed in many ways on that.

Because as a pastor, for me, it's a lot easier for me to get behind

a pulpit and preach something in scripture, but it's a lot harder

for me to practice that when someone does something wrong to me

in public, right?

I'm out at the store and someone mistreats me, okay?

Am I going to proclaim Jesus Christ in that situation?

Am I going to live soberly, righteously, godly in those situations?

I don't think most of you that are here tonight and most of you

that are watching online are tempted to lose your testimony while

you're in church.

Most of you aren't.

Sometimes that might be a temptation for you, but most of you

have enough self control, say, you know what?

I'm not going to cause a ton of issues here at church, okay?

But sometimes we're tempted to live a different way here than we

do out in the world.

I, I've been tempted.

I, I, I've been challenged by this when I'm dealing with our children,

like, hey guys, you can't do that at church.

Instead of saying that, why don't I say, you can't do that anywhere.

You can't do that at church.

You shouldn't do that in your school.

You shouldn't do that in our house.

And so it's that idea of connecting the lifestyle that, that

you see that Anna was not a person who was like a Sunday morning,

only Christian.

It wouldn't have been Sunday morning for her.

It would have been the Sabbath day.

But she wasn't someone that was coming once a week and just saying,

oh, I'm going to do my due diligence today, I'm gonna, no, it

was her life.

Now, I'm not saying that you need to come to church every day

of your life.

What I'm saying is that you should live that relationship that

you have with Christ out every day of your life and not just a Sunday

morning.

And so the challenge for us is to say, you know what, am I going

to live like Anna and give my life to Christ?

Am I willing to say that I want to be in his presence at all

points in my day?

All points of my life should point back to Jesus Christ.

And so this is exciting for Anna.

She sees her savior face to face.

You have experienced Jesus in your life.

The question is, are we going to let that change us for the cause

of the gospel?

Or are we going to allow that to just let us stay unfazed, stay

the same, be like the world, just like that.

Titus 2 passage says, to be different, to live soberly, to live

righteously.

In this present world we live.

We can't get out of the world that we live in.

I think there's a lot of people that will say, you know what?

If we could just live in this Christian utopia and create all of,

like, hey, everybody's Christian around us, we're not going

to have any issues.

Well, if that was the case, no church would ever have an issue.

But the problem is, is that churches still have issues.

Why?

Because we're made up of human beings and we still have sin in our

lives, and so we cannot get out of the world that we live in.

And I will even challenge you to say this.

There are going to be people that live in this world that.

That are unsaved, that are going to act.

Believe it or not, an unsaved person is going to act like an unsaved

person.

A person characterized by their sin is going to live out their

sin.

We can't expect an unsaved person to live like Christ because

it's just impossible.

So what we say is this.

We don't try to avoid all of the evil in the world and say, okay,

let's go ahead and just hedge ourselves in and never be exposed

to evil in this world.

What we do is we infiltrate, we go after it.

We as Christians say, how can we publicly influence people for

the cause of the gospel instead of trying to hide in our

little shells and going, well, if someone finds out I'm a Christian,

maybe they'll get mad at me.

No, we proclaim it to the world.

And I think what happens is, for many Christians is that we're

afraid to actually proclaim what we believe because someone might

judge us.

But I've said this before.

The.

The opposition, the.

The side of evil has no shame in producing and providing what they

believe to us.

And so I would challenge us, like I believe Anna was.

Was willing to do, is to proclaim the truth of God to a world

that is evil, that is dark.

Because how do we get rid of darkness?

What's scientifically, how do you get rid of darkness?

Light.

Darkness is the absence of light.

And so we shine the light into the dark world so that these people

can make decisions for the gospel, for the cause of Christ,

and so that we can see hearts changed, hearts change, then their

minds change.

We can't change their minds without changing their hearts.

And so what I would encourage you to think about as a Christian

and as hopefully someone like Anna, that you are willing to proclaim

that, to speak of him to all them that looked for redemption.

Now, some people probably rejected what she said.

It's because it says here all them that looked for redemption.

Some people aren't looking for redemption.

So they probably weren't really interested in what Anna was

saying.

But what I will say is speak to people.

It's not your job to see who's receptive and who's not receptive.

It's your job.

It's my job to proclaim the truth of God to people around us.

You know what?

There are some times that talking to somebody and I can realize

if they're interested.

And there's times, other times where I'm talking to someone, I'm

like, they're, they're a million miles away.

I've lost them.

Okay?

And I think that sometimes we, we worry about that when we're preaching

the truth and we're proclaiming the truth.

Does this person really want to hear this?

It's not really our job to decide whether or not they want to

hear it.

It's, it's something that they need to hear.

Right?

And so I, I, I don't think that it's something that we all have

to do 247 by getting out on the street and preaching.

But what I will say is that, like Anna, she proclaimed it to all

those around her.

And I think that we should proclaim Jesus in this world.

So that is Anna.

I think that there's a lot more that we could learn about her

if we knew her more.

But that's all we have in scripture, and I know that.

Certainly I would like to know more about Anna.

I would, but there's a lot of individuals in scripture I would

like to know more about.

But God, for his wisdom, only gave us what we need to know from

these folks's life.

But when I get to heaven, there will, I don't know, I don't

know how true this is.

I've always said that when I get to heaven, I'm gonna ask questions.

I don't know if I'm gonna do that or not.

Right now.

In my mindset, I will, but things might change when I get there.

But there are certain individuals that I want to go know

more about.

I, I, I, I want to go and, and ask Anna, hey, how, how, how were

those years?

You know, that you're in the temple and sometimes These folks

can get just glossed over in the Christmas story.

And so that's why I wanted to take some time for those two weeks

to talk about Simeon and Anna.

I think that they are there for a reason for us to learn from.

And I think that there's a lot that we can model in our lives after

them.

So, hey, you know what?

I know it's the Christmas season.

I know that you're busy, you know, and I think there's a common

theme with people that I talk to these days.

For the most part, we're busy.

We're busy people.

It's not just Christmas time.

Like, after Christmas, we're like, hey, it's New Year.

And then, you know, it's getting to this time.

It's like we live in a society that is.

Is we fill ourselves with busyness.

And.

And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

But if the problem comes where we're so busy that we can't spend

time with God, that's a big issue.

We gotta.

We gotta recognize that.

I have to recognize that there have been times in my life where

I've been so busy that I'm like, I.

I put my spiritual disciplines on, like, hey, a checklist.

I gotta get this done today.

I gotta put it.

If.

If I have to put.

I mean, here's the thing.

Practically speaking, yes, put your Bible time and your prayer time

on a calendar.

But if you have to put your prayer time and your Bible time on

a calendar, it might.

It might be time for you to inspect and say, am I too busy for

Jesus right now?

Because you know what?

If I had to say, okay, Alicia, let me.

I'm really busy.

What day of the week can.

You know, and then maybe some of you would appreciate that, hey,

maybe there's a calendar there.

That's a good thing.

But.

But if we.

If we delegate, if.

If we put Jesus as a.

As a mark on our calendar, we've.

We've missed.

I think the point.

I think we missed the fact that Jesus wants everything from

us.

He wants our heart.

Now.

It's a good place to start.

Because if you're so busy and you're like, I don't have any time

in my day for Jesus.

Mark out some time for it.

Put it.

Put a specific time in a place.

And so, so, so don't.

Don't hear me wrong.

I'm not saying don't schedule a time, but what I'm saying is, is

that if we're so busy that we have to say well, I'll give Jesus

five minutes today.

My calendar, that's.

That might be an issue because I would encourage you, you can, you

can talk to Jesus anywhere.

You can talk to the Lord anywhere.

Some of the best convers, conversations, prayers that I've

had with the Lord have been in unorthodox places.

I'm just going to tell you that they haven't always been on

the steps right here or in my office or in my prayer closet sometimes.

Some of, some of my realest conversations with the Lord have

been in a vehicle on a long trip.

And I, I'm going to tell you, I didn't close my eyes while I was

driving, but I.

But I've just been in the car by myself.

And I said, lord, you know what?

I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna talk to you today and I'm just gonna

take this whole long drive to talk to you.

And it was a wonderful time.

And I think so many times we think of prayer not as that.

We think of prayer as this formal thing that we have to do in

a certain way for a certain amount of time.

But what does the Bible say about prayer?

That we should pray without ceasing should be our lifestyle.

And I encourage you to think about what that means for you.

That means to continue in that prayer life constantly.

And so I would, I would, I would.

I'm challenging myself with that here in 2025, that I want my

prayer life to be different.

I don't want it to be relegated to, to a moment of the

day, but that it's my life.

And so I encourage you to be challenged with that.

Well, we're coming to the Christmas season here.

Now.

I will say that this Tuesday we're going to be over at Lighthouse.

I would encourage you to be there if you can.

I'm going to be preaching a message from Romans, chapter five,

Lord willing, about the free gift of grace and how that is a wonderful

gift, much better, infinitely better than the gift of the world.

We had one individual named Adam.

Adam brought us the great gift of sin in our life.

That's not a good gift.

Okay.

It says, by one man sin entered the world.

But there was a second Adam in Jesus Christ who by his one gift

of sacrifice cleansed us from all of our sin.

And so that's an awesome picture to see the contrast between

the world and what Christ brings us.

And there's a lot of things that the world brings us.

Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life.

But what does the Lord bring us The Lord brings us salvation,

forgiveness, eternal life.

And so we're going to look at the contrast between the gift of

God and the gift of the world.

And hopefully by the end of the night, none of us want the gift

of this world because it's not a.

It's not a great gift.

So we're going to go ahead and close with a word of prayer, and

then I'll have announcements and it will be dismissed.

Lord, I thank you for this time.

Thank you for this opportunity to study your word tonight.

Thank you for the life of Anna and Simeon, Lord, and their wonderful

testimony of looking towards a Savior and celebrating the Savior

and proclaiming the Savior to the world.

Lord, thank you for the redemption that you've extended to

us.

Lord, we're thankful for the opportunity to serve you and to love

you and to be growing in those spiritual disciplines that you've

called us to grow in.

Lord, I pray that you be with all these families in the Christmas

season.

Lord, help us to take a few moments out in our day this week

to just meditate, to ponder upon the gift of your son.

And so, Lord, I thank you for your love and your grace.

Keep us safe as we go our separate ways tonight.

In Jesus name I pray.

Amen.

All right, thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist

Church podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

You.

If you would like to find out more information about our church

or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org

or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at Josh Massaro, Middletown BaptistChurch.com

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Thank you so much.

God bless.

Have a wonderful day.