Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Find Your Place in God’s Story | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 2.21-40

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. Right now, we're learning what it looks like to follow Jesus by working our way through the gospel of Luke. Someone once pointed out to me that the beginning of Luke is kind of like a musical. The narrative of Jesus's conception is peppered with sudden musical interludes. But the songs, they aren't just there for fun. They're programmatic.

Starting point is 00:00:34 They're telling us something critical about Jesus and the story that Luke is intending to tell. Today we're going to hear one of my favorite songs out of this musical section of Luke. And I don't know that it's a hit single, but it's a song that I'd like to put on repeat in my life. Okay, so let's set up the music. In Luke 2, 21 to 40, we read the story of Joseph and Mary, taking Jesus after he's been born to be circumcised in the temple. This is what it says. on the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived. When the time came for the purification rights, required by the

Starting point is 00:01:14 law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem and presented him to the Lord. Now, this might sound like a throwaway set-up statement, but it's not. Luke is making a point. He's trying to double underline the fact that Mary and Joseph were good law-abiding Jews. Now, that word law, which is used in Luke, and I just used it, it refers to the first five books of the Bible, which were called the Torah. And what most people don't realize is that the Torah is not made up primarily of laws and regulations. Those certainly end up making up a large portion of these five books, but the majority of the Torah is actually narrative. In other words, being a good Torah observant Jew wasn't merely about following the letter of the law. It was about seeing yourself in a grand story.

Starting point is 00:02:03 where God is the main character. And a result of seeing yourself in that story, as a result of giving your allegiance to God, the result of seeing yourself in that story was that you began to walk in God's ways. You began to follow His Torah. You began to live in and live out His Torah. Imagine it like this.

Starting point is 00:02:23 Let's say that Christopher Nolan died. And it came out that he was working on a new movie right before his death. He said it was going to be his best movie yet. He'd written the script and he'd recorded the first act, the second act, and the fourth act of the film, but not the third. And there was no trace of the third act whatsoever, no script, nothing at all. No one knew what was supposed to happen in this act. So what do you think people would do?

Starting point is 00:02:51 Well, I think that people would do their best to recreate the third act. They'd have actors who played the roles, analyzed the first two acts and the last act, and they'd have Chris Nolan scholars come in, they'd have season directors come in and look at his work, and together they would improv the third act over and over and over until they thought, you know what, this is it. This is as close as we can get. That's kind of what it would have been like to be a Torah observant Jew. God had given them the first two great acts, and he was promising an act still to come, and it was their job to play the role of Israel as faithfully as possible in the third act. So what was the story that Mary and Joseph saw themselves in? Well, it was the story of a good God,

Starting point is 00:03:38 creating a good world with good humans to rule over it. In the Garden of Eden, God dwelt with humanity, and humanity lived in his presence. But those humans, they rebelled against God. They rebelled against this new kingdom that he was establishing. And they wanted to rule their own fate. They wanted to rule their own way and to rule for their own glory. And in the process, they ended up losing their true glory, falling into a corrupt, sinful mess, which really characterizes the world around us today. But God refused to give up on his world. And so he ends up picking one family, the family of Abraham. And he says, through them, he's going to reboot his original plan to dwell with humans and give them responsibility for his kingdom. The family of Abraham ended up growing

Starting point is 00:04:27 into the nation of Israel. And through that nation, God planned to draw people from every nation, the Gentiles, the non-Jews, he was going to draw all of them to himself. Israel had the special privilege of walking with God in his new Garden of Eden, which was called the Promised Land. And by walking faithfully with God, they were going to be able to reflect his glory to the watching world and draw them again into relationship with God. You see, Israel was meant to be a light to the nations, the means of God's salvation plan. Through them, God was going to defeat death and sin and make one big international family of Jews and Gentiles alike. But Israel, they end up utterly failing this calling. Instead of drawing the Gentiles to God,

Starting point is 00:05:13 they lived lives that ended up putting God to shame. Instead of sharing God's blessings, they made it into a personal privilege for themselves. And as a result, they were exiled from God's promised land. And yet, God refuses to give up. God always refuses to give up. He promised not only to bring them back from exile, but to finally accomplish his original plan through Israel for the sake of the world. Joseph and Mary, they found themselves as actors in that story. They were characters in a story awaiting an ending. They were awaiting a day when God would finally save Israel from exile and through Israel, rescue the world from sin and death, turning Israel into a beacon of light, drawing the Gentiles into God's family.

Starting point is 00:05:59 that's the story that Joseph and Mary found themselves in. So imagine, just imagine, how they felt when they come into the temple with little eight-day-old Jesus, and they're observing the Torah. They're living out the story by walking in God's ways, by having Jesus circumcised on the eighth day. And then this happens. Verse 25. Now, there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who is righteous and devout. and he was waiting for the consolation of Israel. In other words, he was living in a story too, and he's waiting for the moment when God was going to console Israel, take them out of exile, and through them, saved the world from sin and death, and turned them into a light to the nations to bring people to God. The Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die

Starting point is 00:06:53 before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple, courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the customs of the Torah required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, and here's our musical moment, Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory of your people, Israel. Wow. I mean, can you imagine how they felt? They're at the temple, acting out the Torah story, only to find out that through them, the Torah story is definitively moving forward. The last act is about to begin. God is about to console Israel. God is about to rescue them from exile. God is about to draw the Gentiles into his own family and to announce forgiveness for all people, Jew and Gentile alike. And God's going to do it. through Israel, the way that he'd always promised to do it. Or we could be even more specific.

Starting point is 00:08:05 God is going to do this through one faithful Israelites, the eight-day-old infant sitting in their arms. Do you realize that we are in a story too? That Jesus has saved all creation from sin and death, you and me included, and that he is sitting on the throne of heaven, and that he's called us to go out as lights to the world to proclaim good news that he is king, that sins are forgiven, and that anyone who believes in him can participate in that final chapter of God's story when he returns and makes all things new. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps other people find this podcast more easily. Also, ask yourself, who could you share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or a family member is a great way to help them grow

Starting point is 00:09:01 spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Find Your Place in God’s Story | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 2.21-40

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