Questions

1. Fill in the blanks below from Luke 2:29-32: “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in ______, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your ________ that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for __________ to the _______________, and for glory to your people ________.
2. What does the text emphasize as the foundation of our walk with Christ?
3. Our emotions
4. What we see
5. Faith guided by Scripture
6. The traditions of the church
7. TRUE or FALSE:  The Holy Spirit is mentioned three times in Luke 2:25–27 concerning Simeon’s experience.
8. The Holy Spirit revealed to Simeon that he would not see ________ before seeing the Lord’s Christ.
9. What normally was required for a purification offering under Moses’ law?
10. Two pigeons
11. A lamb
12. A goat
13. A bull
14. Simeon describes Jesus as “a light for revelation to the Gentiles.” This emphasizes that salvation is:
15. Only for Israel
16. Only for the righteous
17. For every nation
18. For temple leaders
19. TRUE or FALSE:  Waiting on God teaches us dependence rather than control.
20. Simeon teaches us to remain ________ while we wait for God’s fulfillment.
21. TRUE or FALSE:  Simeon’s praise reveals that God fulfilled His Word exactly as He promised.

Discussion

1. Read Malachi 2:25-35 and discuss the following questions:
2. Why is the 400-year silence between Malachi and Matthew significant?
3. How does Simeon’s recognition of Jesus challenge our expectations of how God fulfills His promises?
4. What role does the Holy Spirit play in Simeon’s experience?
5. How does Advent shape our understanding of both the first and second comings of Christ?
6. What personal areas of your life require faithful waiting, and how can Simeon’s example encourage you?
7. What disciplines have you put in place to remind of God’s promises that have been fulfilled and our need for waiting for complete fulfillment of His promises?
8. How can we rest in these promises so that we can share His peace?
9. How does Simeon serve as a model for Christian witness today?
10. Why does the text say that Jesus is both a comfort and a sign that is opposed?
11. In your groups, read  Isa 40:1-2, 40:11, 41:10, 49:15-16, Isa 51:12, Isa 61:1-3
12. Discuss how each of these verses describe a promise or comfort that God provides to His people.
13. Discuss the following in your groups:
14. Discuss in your groups the promises, comforts, or peace God fulfilled in your personal lives.
15. How can you prepare these personal stories of God’s deliverance in your life to share with others.. to display light in darkness?

Sermon Outline

God is faithful to His Word. Whatever He declares, He will accomplish. As followers of Christ, we walk not by what we see but by faith, guided by the light of Scripture. The brightness before us comes from the radiance of God’s promises—promises He will never fail to fulfill. We have just concluded our series on the Minor Prophet Malachi, where we were reminded that a simple turn of the page—from Malachi 4:6 to the opening verses of Matthew—spans four hundred years of silence. Four hundred years during which God’s people prayed, waited, and trusted. They waited because they knew the character of the God they served: if He had spoken it, He would bring it to pass. He had promised redemption, salvation, and the renewal of His covenant through a Messiah, and so they waited—generation after generations in steadfast faith.

As we enter the Advent season, we now turn to the Gospel of Luke, where we encounter God’s faithful saints who with their own eyes, witnessed what their ancestors had only hoped for: the long-awaited promises of God coming to life. Their response was praise, for God’s Word is true, and only He can accomplish what He declares.

Over the weeks ahead, we will meet individuals who saw, experienced, and worshiped the Lord as His promises unfolded. This morning, we focus on one such figure—an older man, though his age is not explicitly stated. The way he is introduced and the words he speaks make it clear that he is advanced in years, a man who had spent a lifetime waiting for God to fulfill a personal promise. When that promise is finally realized, he erupts in praise. His name is Simeon.

This is the season of Advent—a word rooted in the Latin term for “coming” or “arrival.” For Simeon, Advent was not a tradition but a personal reality: he was waiting for the coming of the Messiah, and the Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not taste death before seeing the Lord’s Anointed with his own eyes. We too are Advent people. We look back with gratitude and praise for Christ’s first coming, the incarnation of our Lord Jesus. Yet we also look forward with longing and hope for His return—His second Advent—when He will come as King of kings and Lord of lords to consummate His kingdom and renew all things in a new heaven and a new earth. Just as Simeon waited, we also wait and as we consider Simeon’s life, my prayer is that each of us will see something of ourselves in him—an example of faithful, patient expectation as we await the fulfillment of God’s promises. As we look at Simeon, we want to see first, that he is faithful in the waiting and to be reminded that God is faithful in the fulfillment of His Word. So as we cry out to the Lord, we cry out in faith, knowing that God will fulfill His Word. Simeon is faithful in his waiting, but he's also faithful in his proclamation. He is faithful as a witness to the work of God and the salvation of Christ.

Faithful Waiting

What does it mean to remain faithful as we wait? Scripture explains that Simeon was waiting specifically for the consolation, the comfort of Israel.

Luke 2:25 – ²⁵Now 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.

The prophets had promised that God would bring renewal and redemption—that He would forgive His people, restore His covenant, and establish an everlasting one. This new covenant would replace hearts of stone with hearts of flesh so that God’s people would remain faithful, and God Himself would never cease doing good to them. Simeon lived in that hope. He prayed and waited, standing in a long line of generations who sought the fulfillment of God’s promises.

What are you crying out to the Lord for? What comfort do you long for Him to bring? What consolation do you hope to receive? Scripture is full of people who cried out to God, and one of them is the prophet, Jeremiah. He faced deep suffering—his writings give us a window into a troubled soul—and the book of Lamentations captures his pleas for comfort in the midst of devastation. Yet in chapter three, we hear his cry of faith: “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will hope in Him.”

Whatever we face, we wait and cry out in faith because God is our treasure, our portion, and our hope. Not money, not technology, not status—only the Lord. Jeremiah reminds us that God is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him, and that it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

Prayer teaches us how dependent we truly are. We often fool ourselves into thinking we have more control than we do. But if we were really in control, why would we need to pray? In prayer, we remember that God alone is the one we rely on. Simeon understood this: only the Lord could bring the consolation of Israel. And only the Lord can provide for which your heart is longing.

So what do we do as we wait? How do we posture ourselves as we cry out? Simeon wasn’t simply passing time—it says…

Luke 2:25 – ²⁵Now 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.

Simeon didn’t approach God with the attitude, “Lord, I’ll be faithful once You do this for me.” Instead, he was devoted to God and pursued righteousness because the Lord Himself is our treasure—worthy of our praise, good in all His ways, and the only one who can meet us in whatever consolation we seek. Simeon stands as an example for us today. Be encouraged to keep seeking the Lord and to keep waiting on Him, for only God and His power can bring true deliverance to you and to me. Simeon was faithful in his waiting, and God was faithful in fulfilling His Word.

Faithful Fulfillment

Simeon had been promised that he would not see death before beholding the Lord’s Messiah. And in verse 29, he bursts into praise and declares,

Luke 2:29-30 – ²⁹“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; ³⁰for my eyes have seen your salvation.”

Simeon takes the infant Jesus into his arms and declares, “My eyes have seen Your salvation.” Whatever you are waiting for—whatever consolation you long for, whatever burdens you carry—the deepest need of your life, and of every person you love, is more of Jesus. Our greatest need is salvation itself: to grow in holiness and be shaped into the likeness of Christ. Jesus is salvation—He always has been and always will be the salvation of His people. It doesn’t come from money, status, education, or anything else. Salvation is found in Christ alone.

What’s striking is how unexpected this moment is. We easily miss the shock of it. Simeon had been promised that he would see the Lord’s Messiah before he died. If you were a first-century Jew, what would you expect? The Psalms describe the Lord’s Anointed as a mighty king—enthroned on Zion, ruling the nations with authority, breaking His enemies with a rod of iron (Psalm 2). You would expect a son of David arriving with trumpets, perhaps a leader like Judas Maccabeus from just a century and a half earlier.

And yet Simeon stands in the crowded temple courts, looking not at a warrior or king, but at two poor, young parents—likely teenagers—offering the sacrifice of the impoverished: two young pigeons. In their arms is a forty-day-old infant. And Simeon looks at this humble, poverty-stricken family and proclaims, “My eyes have seen Your salvation.”

How could he recognize salvation in such unlikely form? There is only one way: by the power of the Holy Spirit. And Scripture tells us that Simeon was a man who was righteous and devout, led and taught by the Spirit of God.

Luke 2:25-27 – ²⁵Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon...and the Holy Spirit was upon him. ²⁶And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. ²⁷And he came in the Spirit into the temple...

Scripture says that Simeon was promised he would see the Lord’s Messiah, and that this revelation came specifically through the Holy Spirit.

Luke 2:25-27 – ²⁵Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon...and the Holy Spirit was upon him. ²⁶And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. ²⁷And he came in the Spirit into the temple...

And when he entered the temple that day, he came led by the Spirit.

Luke 2:25-27 – ²⁵Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon...and the Holy Spirit was upon him. ²⁶And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. ²⁷And he came in the Spirit into the temple...

In just three verses, we see three references to the title, name, and work of the Holy Spirit—because the only way anyone comes to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ is through the Spirit. As the Apostle Paul reminds us, “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3). God is faithful to fulfill His Word, and He brings that fulfillment to our lives as we believe in Jesus and receive salvation through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Faithful Witness

Simeon is also faithful as a witness. As he gazes down at the infant Jesus and declares, “My eyes have seen Your salvation,” he is testifying to the vast scope of the salvation this forty-day-old child—born into poverty—will bring. He says…

Luke 2:30-32 – ³⁰for my eyes have seen your salvation ³¹that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, ³²a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”

This infant Jesus has been revealed to all as the One who brings salvation to every tongue, tribe, and nation. He comes as the consolation of Israel, and He comes so that all who believe—Jew and Gentile alike—might be united into one family, with Christ as the head and we as His body, His children. Through the Holy Spirit, God offers a salvation that is truly for all.

And just as we live in our own season of waiting, our own “advent,” we too are sent as witnesses to who Jesus is and what He has done. Simeon not only proclaims that Christ’s salvation is universal; he also declares that the Prince of Peace brings a salvation that divides. Turning to Mary, he says…

Luke 2:34-35 – ³⁴“Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed ³⁵(and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

The word rising here refers to resurrection. This Child is appointed so that those who believe in Him will be raised, while those who reject Him will be brought low to the dust. He is a sign that provokes opposition. Belief in Jesus—or the lack of it—reveals the true state of our hearts. It lays bare our souls, showing whether we have been drawn near by the Holy Spirit through the work of Christ or remain far from Him. The Apostle Paul bears witness to this truth.

1 Corinthians 1:23-24 – ²³We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, ²⁴but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Each of us is called to be on mission wherever God has placed us. Like Simeon, we are to remain faithful in our waiting, trusting that God will fulfill His Word, while also being faithful witnesses to who Christ is. As we approach the Christmas season, a time of family gatherings and celebrations—we are reminded that our mission extends to every place we go. Often, the people God has sent us to witness to are those closest to us: family members, those who share our last name, the ones we love and care for.

Simeon also reminds us that not everyone will receive this message. Jesus is a sign that is opposed, and we should expect resistance. Our responsibility is to be faithful in bearing witness; it is not our job to convince or change anyone—that work belongs to the Holy Spirit alone.

In closing, it’s worth reflecting on this: salvation comes only through who Jesus is and what He has done. When Mary and Joseph entered the temple, they did so to offer a purification sacrifice according to the law of Moses. This was done when the child was forty days old, the appointed day for such a sacrifice. The text tells us they brought two young pigeons. As noted, this offering was allowed under the law for those who were poor, and Mary and Joseph, being poor, brought what they could.

But consider this: what was normally required for a purification offering? A lamb—a pure, spotless lamb. While Mary brought two pigeons, I want to suggest that in a deeper sense, she brought her Lamb: the perfect, spotless Lamb of God. As Simeon foretold, a sword would pierce Mary’s heart. Her Lamb—Jesus—would lay down His life so that her sins, and the sins of all who call upon Him in faith, would be purified by His blood. This Lamb of God, pure and infinitely precious, brings cleansing, renewal, and adoption into God’s everlasting family.

Even now, in this season of waiting—our own advent—we anticipate Christ’s arrival, trusting that God will fulfill His Word. And just as Simeon bore witness, we too are sent as faithful witnesses to all that Jesus is and all that He has accomplished.

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