All right, thank you for that singing this morning. Luke chapter two is where our text will be. Seems a little anticlimactic when we sing these Christmas songs after Christmas day, but then again, I've been known to sing them in July, so doesn't bother me. And I think any opportunity we have is a good opportunity. We are going to look at a passage today that immediately when I say Luke chapter two, you say, well, wait a minute. You just said it was anticlimactic to sing Christmas carols. Boy, I'm getting all tongue-tied here this morning. And now you're gonna speak from Luke chapter 2? Yes, but it's not a Christmas message. I'm actually going to look at a portion of Luke 2 this morning with you, and my desire is for us to consider looking at a three-verse portion of the chapter, and looking at it from the standpoint of the new year. So this is really a new year's message and a new year's challenge but from a passage that we might not consider to be for the new year because in our minds we always associate it with Christmas. I'm speaking this morning about a particular person that is mentioned This person is not quoted in this chapter. Only three verses and then this person drops off the pages of Scripture. And yet I think it's significant that this person is mentioned at all especially when we consider this person's circumstance and the function that I believe that they are serving in this passage which is, it makes it even more remarkable that if that is true that this person is mentioned at all. Now I'm being a little bit Vague here because I'm wondering if you are trying to figure out who is he talking about in Luke chapter 2. You're probably looking at the first part of the chapter and you're thinking about Augustus and Quirinius and all of those folks, right? Well, actually, I want to draw your attention further into the chapter verse 36. Verses 36, 37, and 38. We're going to look and want to read here in just a moment about a lady by the name of Anna. We're gonna talk about Anna this morning. Three verses, she isn't quoted in these verses, and yet I think there's a lesson for you and me that her life speaks to for life in general, but especially if we think about the opening of a new year, perhaps a challenge for us as we consider 2025. So follow with me as I begin reading here in verse 36. And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age and had lived with her husband seven years from her virginity. And she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day." And she, coming in that instant, gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of Him to all them that look for redemption in Jerusalem." Let's pray together. Our Father, as we bow our hearts and we come into Your presence on this Lord's Day, Lord, we know that Calendars are something that we designated to measure time because we live in linear time and we measure days and weeks and months and years. And yet, Father, this is an appropriate time as we are turning the calendar, as we are moving to a new year. It is appropriate for us perhaps to consider our lives, to take just a moment and anticipate the new year. And Father, if there is perhaps some area of weakness in our lives, this would be a good time for us to recognize it and to bring it before You and by Your grace to make whatever changes are necessary. But Lord, what we're talking about this morning is not necessarily a resolution that someone might make because of the turning of the calendar. It speaks more to the attitude of our hearts and to the motivation of our lives. And I pray, Father, as we consider Anna, as we consider her life, as we consider the lessons that I believe we can draw from her life, Lord, may we find it beneficial Lord, may it be a challenge to our hearts. And I pray, Father, that by your grace, as the Holy Spirit uses her life, may you speak to our hearts. And Father, may we follow suit with her. May we live lives devoted to you. And we'll give you the glory for all that you accomplish in each of our lives as we pray this in Christ's name and for His sake. Amen. So this morning I wanna talk about this very simple idea of being devoted to God. living a life of devotion. 2024 is practically in the books, right? 2025 is an open chapter for each one of us. Its pages are yet to be written. But my challenge is that each one of us, perhaps this is true of you already, I trust that it is, but to whatever extent it might not be, I trust that we each today would rededicate ourselves to living a life in 2025 that is truly devoted to the Lord. You know, life is short and it is uncertain. Those of us that have lived long enough have come to know that quite well. And we all know that life is short, no matter how much time we may have allotted. We know from the history of all of our forefathers what ultimately awaits us. And so there's a question that we should want to answer. Is my life worthwhile? Am I living a worthwhile life? Or to put it more from the negative side, am I wasting my life? It's interesting, John Quincy Adams Of course, he was our fourth president, the fourth president of the United States. His father, John Adams, was the second president of the United States. And recently, we made reference to John Adams and his family, the brothers and sisters of John Quincy and his nieces and nephews. We made note of what a mess that family was. But John Quincy stuck out. He was unlike his alcoholic brothers or step-brothers if you will. He held perhaps more important offices than anyone else in US history. He served with distinction as president, senator, congressman, minister to major European powers. He participated in various capacities in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the events leading up to the Civil War, and yet at the age of 70, with much of that behind him, he wrote this, and I quote, my whole life has been a succession of disappointments. I can scarcely recollect a single instance of success in anything that I've ever undertook, end quote. Can you imagine a man who had been president, senator, congressman, ambassador, a man whose dad was president and one of the founding fathers? Can you imagine someone like that at the close of his life or in the latter years of his life at least saying, you know, I can't look back and see anything in my life that I would deem successful? It's kind of sad, isn't it? But, you know, the older I get, the more I find myself asking a very simple question. Have I spent my life in such a way that one day when I stand before my Lord, will I hear Him say, well done, good and faithful servant? You know, when I was 20, 25, you know, that was so far into the future that I just knew that I would live that kind of life, right? The exuberance and the positive outlook of a young person. But looking back now over all the decades from the 20s until where I am now, decidedly no longer in my 20s, that's a valid question. How have I lived my life? So many of the chapters of my life have already been written. Now by God's grace, there may be many more pages to go, I don't know how many more pages are left. The fact is none of us do whether you're in your 60s or you're in your 20s or somewhere in between. But the question is still valid. Do you live a worthwhile life? Are you living a life that matters? I think that John Quincy Adams' testimony was that for whatever reason, he did not think his life was spent in a way that really mattered. As sad as that is, you and I still have pages to write. And no matter whether you look backward and say, well, you know, I lived a life of dissipation. I lived a life that really didn't demonstrate that I understood what really mattered. Or whether you can look back and say, I have lived a life of devotion to the Lord. Fact is, today is a new page. Come Wednesday, we'll start a new chapter. And my challenge for myself and for all of us is, You and I need, by the grace of God, to yield ourselves as living sacrifices unto Him, that by His grace we might be able to say, I have lived a life that matters. And a life that matters is a life that is devoted to God. Now, that begs another question. Is it even possible for us to know whether we've lived a life that is wasted or whether we live a life that really matters? Well, that really depends upon the measuring rod that we use for success in life. How do we determine what is successful in life? Have you ever thought about that? How do we determine it? Well, generally, we determine it by what our culture defines as successful. Well, here are some measuring sticks that you will find people use to define success in life. One is pragmatic. It's simply the idea of usefulness. The idea is that if a person does something useful for society, their profession, their trade, then he or she is spending their life well. So is that the determining factor for living a life well, that you have a vocation, you have a trade that is somehow beneficial for society at large? As long as my job is something useful in society, then my life is a life well lived. Is that our barometer for success in life? Secondly is the idea of busyness, sheer activity. This is the idea that if I just sit around and do nothing, then I've wasted my life. So I need to fill my life with activity. I need to be busy. Sheer activity, just doing stuff. And the more stuff I do, the more things that I pack into my days, then the more successful I will be. Is that a fair barometer on success? Well, I suppose that would boil down to, well, what are you spending your time doing, right? I mean, there are some things that might be more well looked upon and some things that aren't well looked upon, but busyness in itself, is that a barometer? My life was full of stuff. And when I came to the day that I died, I was happy simply to say I lived a busy life. It was a good life. Is that the barometer? How about the third one that has been suggested? Adventure. If you live a life of excitement, then you are living a successful life. Now this could be broken down in two ways. Personally seeking for excitement, personally being an adventurous person, and you can define that however you want. What is adventure to you? Is it rock climbing? Is it climbing the Mount Everest or what is adventuresome to you. But as long as you're living that life, you're seeking adventurous goals, then your life is successful. Or you're living it vicariously. I think this is where most people come in. They live an adventurous life vicariously. What does that mean? Your heroes are people you look up to and you live an excited life by reading about their lives. You know, the football stars. movie stars or whatever today may have replaced them in our modern internet culture, right? But you are living your life through them. And I think that much of what happens today with the influencers, people are living their lives through the influencers. That is the sum total of their life. Is that a life well spent? If you have adventure in your life personally or vicariously, Will you then reach the end of your life and say, my life was a good successful life because of all the excitement that I either enjoyed personally or I enjoyed vicariously through someone else? How about a fourth one? This is one maybe that should resonate a little more with us. And that is personal relationships. Maybe this is the heart of a life well spent. If you read an obituary, what do you find? Well, you'll find a person's work. This is their vocation. You'll find hobbies often listed. They enjoyed X, whatever that might have been. And then there are the people, the people that were affected, the people's lives who were touched by the life of this person. As Christians, I think we would be in agreement with the idea that loving relationships with family and friends are an important measure of a life well spent. We've made reference to that through the years, that ultimately when our last breath is ready to be breathed, as we review our lives, it will be the relationships that mean the most to us, not how much money we made or where we lived or what our titles might have been. It'll be the relationships that we share with our family and with others. So that is one that should resonate with us, but it still begs the question, is that solely and only the basis of saying, I have had a successful life? Well, I think what ties all of these together is perhaps another concept, and that is the concept of personal happiness. That whether you're seeking an adventurous life or a busy life or whatever it might be, that it all boils down to personal happiness. If a person dies poor and unknown, but they were happy, they were contented, then that's all that matters. Is that fair? Is it fair to say, well, you know, when I come to that last day, if I look back and say, well, you know, I was happy. I had a happy life. Is that all that really matters? Now, obviously, we all would prefer to be able to say that, right? So I'm not denigrating the idea of personal happiness. But what I'm saying is, if we look at these yardsticks, these barometers of happiness, I want you to think about them now in terms of Anna, as we come down to the text. All of these yardsticks of a life well spent. Now consider this woman named Anna. We meet her here in this narrative about the dedication of the baby Jesus in the temple. So these are the first early days of the Lord Jesus Christ. As I said earlier, she's mentioned in three verses. She isn't quoted directly and then she disappears from scripture. All we know about her is contained in three verses. And in these verses, we do not hear her speaking for herself. In fact, if we met a modern-day Anna, my suspicion is we would think she's a little odd. Her values, I think, for most of us in our lives, the busyness and adventuresome lives that we seek to live, we probably would think she was just a little bit odd, out of sync with everyone else. I mean, consider if you had been there that day and you saw this young family, Joseph and Mary and the newborn baby Jesus, and they're walking across the temple platform, and you saw Anna speak with them, and you decided to speak with Anna, you might say, hey, ma'am, what is your name? My name is Anna, daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. I'm a Jewish. I'm Jewish. Then you might say, well, how old are you? I'm 84 years old. You might say, well, 84 years, that's a long life. I imagine you've lived a full life. for 84 years. What have you been doing in your life? What did you accomplish in your life? Can you imagine being 84 years old, the twilight of your life, and somebody saying, what did you do with your life? And she would say something like, well, like most Jewish girls, I got married in my teens. My husband died when I was in my early 20s. We had no children and from that day to this, for over 60 years, I've been going to the temple almost every day since then. That's her life. 84 years summed up in being married as a teenager, husband dying young, No children. And for the next 60 plus years, she is a widow who almost every day is going to the temple to pray and fast. No major accolades. No great vocation. Nothing important. Just an old lady going to the temple every day to fast and pray. Would that be exciting? Would you go away after talking to her and say, wow, I met an old lady today who for 60 some years has been going to the temple to pray and fast? Or would you kind of say, right, well, okay, thank you very much. And then you wanna go find somebody else whose life might be a little more exciting, where you could learn something a little more interesting than that. What does her life teach us? Well, I think and I hope to demonstrate in the next little bit that her life demonstrates a life that is not wasted. Now, let me say that again. married as a teenager, widowed young, spending 60 plus years going to the temple, praying and fasting, never remarrying, never having any children, living in a culture where there is no safety net, and her life is summed up, those 60 plus years summed up in praying and fasting. Was her life wasted? Wouldn't it have been better if she could have said something heroic like, my husband died when I was young and I set out and I built a business and I built an empire and I got rich and I mean those are the kinds of stories that books are written about. But how many people would look at an old 84-year-old lady who's accomplished seemingly from the world standard of success, nothing. And yet, she's included in the pages of scripture. That says something, doesn't it? Our standard? Not much to speak about with this lady. Her life is seemingly unimportant. And she really had no influence on anyone else. And obviously, from our viewpoint, that might be the case. but God commends her life to us. Consider with me for a moment. In the scripture we are told that facts, truth, is determined by the testimony of two or three witnesses. Who are the witnesses to the birth of the baby Jesus, Messiah? Well, in this chapter we find the angels. Okay, we can understand that, right? I mean, the angels were witnesses. They gave testimony to who this baby really is. And then we find, secondly, a man by the name of Simeon. And the Scripture says of him in verse 25, toward the end of the verse, that he was a man who had the Holy Ghost upon him and it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came by the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, so do for him, to do for him after the custom of the law. And then we find that Simeon gives testimony, having been led by the Spirit of God, a man who God had made a promise to, that he would see Messiah, and he gave testimony. that this baby Jesus is indeed Messiah. The angels, wow, what a source for testimony. Simeon, well we've got respect for Simeon because clearly here's a man of God. Who is the third witness? Anna. You see, that should elevate Anna in our estimation. We might think An unimportant life. A life that really didn't matter. She didn't accomplish anything earth-shattering. She didn't really change anybody's life. And yet, God deemed her worthy to be the third testimony as to the reality of who the baby Jesus is. Her life was well spent. So I have four things I want to share with you this morning about this kind of life. Here's the first point. All that really matters is being devoted to God. All that really matters is living a life devoted to God. In 2025, there is no goal that you could set that should be more important and that should be higher than this. I want to live my life devoted to Christ. Every day, in every conversation, in every relationship, whether I'm at work, or at school, or at home, wherever I might be, I want my life to be devoted to Him. What else matters? Think about who was there in the temple precinct as this passage is unfolded before us. The Pharisees would have been there. The Pharisees and the scribes thought that their religious duties were all that mattered, right? I mean, we see that as the Gospels unfold, that you have the Pharisees and the scribes, and they scurried around the temple precincts. They're performing their rituals. They were oblivious to the baby Jesus, that He was Messiah. Can you imagine? These men who would have held themselves up as the spiritual pillars of their society. Everyone should look up to them because they are the spiritual heroes and leaders. And yet they are totally blind. But not Anna. The Pharisees would have said, all my life I have kept God's commandments. But they missed Messiah. How about the Sadducees? The Sadducees were the priestly caste. They were the priests. Obviously they were important to the function of the temple, right? The high priest and all of the those who perform their priestly duties. But the Sadducees were not really a spiritual party. It's kind of odd for us to think that those who were tasked with the spiritual duties of the sacrifices in the temple could actually have been far more political than they were religious. But that would be the Sadducees. The Pharisees, they were the religious people to a fault. So much so they missed the Messiah. The Sadducees were the political party. For them it was all about power. They were always involved in political machinations. That's what they wanted. How can I have more power? How can we overcome Rome? not for the glory of God, but for their own benefit. I can only imagine a few of them passing by within just a few yards of the baby Jesus and totally blind as to who he was. because they're too busy debating about the last thing that Rome would have said, some political viewpoint. A third party that was likely there that day would have been the merchants. In about 30 years, the merchants are going to meet this baby. And they're gonna understand something about him that will be unmistakable when he cleanses the temple, right? But on that day, as a young baby, a few days old, about eight days old, coming to the temple for the purification, on that day, they're totally blind. They're hawking their temple money. They are selling their approved sacrificial animals. Undoubtedly, the baby Jesus could have heard them as they would have called out about, come here and change your money at my table. Remember, we've talked about this before. You could not give the taxes you owe to the temple in Roman dollars. You had to do it in temple money. So you had to exchange what money you had for temple dollars. And of course, there's always a markup because, you know, the overhead, right? So they made it all about money. For them, it was all about income. That's all that motivated them. It was a job to make money and live a good life. and a good life they lived in comparison with others. All of these missed God's Savior. But in contrast to all of these, Anna knew that devotion to God is all that mattered. And she recognized the child as God's promised Messiah. She was wiser than all the religious leaders in Jerusalem. An 84-year-old lady who had been a widow for 60-some years, no children, who undoubtedly had lived a rough life. I'm reminded of what Jesus would say later in the Sermon on the Mount when he said, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? I knew a man who said he was going to live to be 120. He was a preacher. And he had found the secret in the Bible to live to be 120. He didn't make it. Just this past week, I was reading about a false teacher, Prosperity Gospel, who made a statement that God had promised him that he would live to be 120. He wasn't worried about dying because he knew he was going to live to be 120. But let's face reality. Even if he succeeds, then what? Even if we could somehow figure out how to live a thousand years, would that be exciting? What could you accomplish if you lived a thousand years? I mean, think about all the projects you would finish in a thousand years that you haven't finished in 50 years. I mean, think about it. Couldn't you do so much in a thousand years? But what will happen after a thousand years? You're still going to die. And there's still eternity. And that's what I'm driving at this morning. It doesn't matter whether you live 50 years, 80 years, 90 years, 120 years. What matters is the character of your life. She lived 84 years. She lived a successful life. I think God gives testimony to that by using her as one of the testimonies to Jesus. What matters is living a life devoted to God. Don't waste your life dissipating your energy and your time on ambitious things that do not include, fundamentally, a life devoted to Him. That has to be the foundation for everything else. That brings me to my second point. So yes, the most important thing that matters, or should matter, is that we live a life dedicated to God, a life devoted to Him. But secondly, and here's the important point, point in part, you try to say those at the same time, it comes out funny, doesn't it? Here's the important point. you can choose to live a life devoted to God. In the words of Paul, you can yield yourself as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. After all, it's your reasonable service. It is only reasonable that we worship Him by offering ourselves as living sacrifices. You and I, under the empowering of the Holy Spirit of God as the children of God, we can live 2025 devoted to God, no matter what your station in life might be. you can live a life devoted to the Lord. Let's again turn to Anna. Anna was a woman. Put yourself back 2,000 years and think about the lot of women 2,000 years ago. We would say that from the perspective of the culture of the world at large, Jewish women enjoyed more respect than women in other cultures in the day, but there was still a fair amount of discrimination against women in that day. As an example, the rabbis didn't approve of the same amount of instruction given to the girls as to the boys. The boys got to learn more. Why? Because they regarded that the mind of ladies is not well adapted to investigations. Sorry ladies, from their viewpoint, your brains weren't strong enough to handle it. So you could get some basics, but we taught the real stuff to the boys, because they could handle it. Anna is a woman. Women were restricted to an area of the temple called the women's court. They could not enter the inner court where the ceremonies were performed. They could only go so far. According to Josephus, women and slaves could not give evidence in court. Now we can understand why slaves couldn't give evidence in court, right? Because if you're a slave and your master says to lie, what are you going to do? You're going to lie. Why wouldn't a woman be able to give testimony in court? Well, after all, their minds are so weak. Now, ladies, I hope you understand I'm talking from 2,000-year-ago perspective, so don't get mad and throw your hymn book at me or something. This was their viewpoint. And yet the Lord was pleased to include the testimony of Anna. Think about that. She could not testify in a court, but God used her as one of the three witnesses to the veracity of who that baby was. God is no respecter of persons. He is pleased with the devotion of any person, male or female, a woman. She's also a widow. And she'd been widowed at an early age. So can I say it this way? Could she not have grown bitter toward God? I mean, think about it. She's widowed in her early 20s. And she lives over 60 years as a widow with no children. How easy would it have been for Anna to have blamed God? You took my husband and you didn't even give me the solace of a child before he was taken. She could have grown bitter toward God. She could have complained about her loneliness. Can you imagine being alone for 60 some years? You know, I've said it before, it's just Jan and I at home now, you know, we're the empty nesters, right? And it's nice. And you know, there are those occasions when I'm home by myself. And you know, it's nice sometimes being alone. You with me? Don't say amen too loud, guys. But I have to tell you, it doesn't take long when I'm home alone before I start looking around for Jan. I have things to tell her. Just having her nearby. I cannot imagine what some of you have faced in your life being widows or widowers. I know it's not easy. I can't empathize too much from the reality that I know Jan will be back. She's out visiting with one of the kids or maybe the store or maybe helping someone in the church. But I know she's coming back. Can you imagine being alone for 60 some years? In that culture there was no safety net. There was no social security that would pay her a stipend because her husband had worked and died and now she would get so much a month. How would she live? Widows, ladies in general, but widows weren't given the opportunity to learn a trade, to be involved in business for themselves. They were often the target of unscrupulous people. No doubt Anna experienced a difficult life. We don't know much about her other than the fact she's been a widow for 60 some years, but clearly a widow in that culture is someone who suffers. In fact, we know the scripture says in Psalm 68, God says that he is a father of the fatherless and a judge of widows. He has a special place for orphans and for widows. She could have turned her back on God because of her circumstances. She could have blamed God for her circumstances. She didn't do that. She took refuge under God's protective care. Let me put it another way. Her trials drove her to a deeper devotion to God, not away from God. Can we learn from that? You know, life is full of trials. And the older you get, The more trials you're going to have, right? It's inevitable. Your body is going to grow old and weak and feeble. Will your trials drive you away from God or into a closer walk with Him? Not only is she a widow woman, she was elderly. Now the elderly were more respected in that day in that society than they are perhaps in ours, but they were still subject to abuse. In our pragmatic society, the elderly, you know, they're kind of a drag on the country, right? Financially, what would our country be like if you could just get rid of all the elderly people? How much money would our economy save? The reality is She was an old lady in a society where she would have been taken advantage of more so than anything else. She had no children. Who took care of you in your old age in that day? Your children. There was no other safety net. So you raised your kids ultimately so that in your old age they could move you into their house. She had no kids. Maybe she had a niece, maybe she had a nephew, maybe she had a brother or sister. They would now have been old if not dead. Thankfully, we see that God took care of her. Psalm 116.15 says, that precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. And I think that that verse encapsulates the idea that for God, the life and the death of His children is precious. So it was precious, the life that Anna was living was precious in the sight of God. From the world standpoint, may seem wasted. What could she have done in her life if she had found another husband and had some children and she had none of that. But she was devoted to God. The point is this, no matter what your station is in life, male, female, young, old, rich, poor, you can devote yourself to God and he will be pleased with your devotion. you can devote yourself to God. The world may ignore or despise you, but God always has that godly remnant, the salt of the earth. They preserve the mass from corruption. You can be counted among them. So all that matters is living a life devoted to God. You can choose to live that life. Number three, what does this devoted life look like? Well, very quickly, It has a Godward focus. We might use the word worship. It has a Godward testimony. We might use the word witness. And it has a Godward dependence. We might use the word waiting. So let's think about that very quickly. A Godward focus. Now, Anna did not live in the temple. But she was there all the time. If anybody were to say, where's Anna? She's up at the temple. This would be the first place anybody would look for her because this is where she would spend all of her time. It says that she served God in verse 37 and the nuance of that word is worshipful service to God. And the form of her worship in verse 37 was fastings and prayers. Fastings usually means going without food for some period of time for the purpose of seeking God in prayer. For the Jews, the most common fast was from sunrise to sunset, although the Bible mentions longer fasts. Day of Atonement was an annual national fast. Otherwise, fasting was done in times of personal national distress or preparation for special times of seeking the Lord. Anna fasted. She's seeking to walk with her Lord. Number two, she prayed. She had time to pray, perhaps, because she didn't do much else. But the fact is, the main thing that you and I can do is to commune with God in prayer. Whatever else you set out to do in 2025, if you aren't bathing it in prayer, then you are seeking to do it in your own strength. A Godward focus recognizes that we need Him and that He is the one who empowers us and that we can accomplish nothing in ourselves. So we need to pray. We need to spend time in devotion to the Lord. Read His Word, alright? I'm kind of condensing this part of the message because we know what this entails. Read the Bible. Sing hymns of praise. Pray. And let me say this, I have found that if I don't schedule it, it's not going to happen. I mean, there's so many things in life. I mentioned that busyness before. Well, if we go by busyness, I have a lot of things throughout the day that can take away my time. If I don't schedule it, it's not gonna happen. How about you? Have you scheduled a time to read your Bible, to pray? Secondly, a Godward testimony. This is our witness. Notice verse 38, at the end of the verse it says, "...and spake of Him to all them that looked for redemption in Israel." She spake of Him. She couldn't keep it to herself. If you think of it this way, if you take a cup and you fill it to the very top, what happens when you start walking around with that cup? Can you keep any from spilling out? No, it's going to naturally spill out because there's no room for any movement in that cup. Well, let me put it this way. If you fill your life with that Godward focus, it's going to slop over onto other people. That's what our witness is. Oftentimes we think of our witness, you know, well, I don't really talk about it much, I just try to live the message. Well, that's great. Living the message is part of it. But if you have a Godward focus, you will be speaking about the Lord. We talk about the things we love, right? Now, I could easily here point out how many of you talk about the Buffalo Bills? Did you see the game yesterday? Did you see that play? But I was thinking about this and I thought about the church that Jan and my family and I were in before we came here in Virginia. Most of the people in that church, there were some football fans. Washington was the closest team to us. But most of the men in that church were NASCAR fans. And they would talk about the race. And they would say, did you see so-and-so on lap 50? And I'm thinking, man, lap 50. It was a race, you know? I mean, what happened on lap 50? I don't know. But they were so tuned to it. I remember the day that Dale Earnhardt died on the race track. I remember going to church after that. I remember being in a church full of guys and most of them were acting like they had just lost their best friend. They didn't know him. He was a stranger, but he was a hero because he was, if not the best, one of the best, at least from their viewpoint. I'm not that big in a NASCAR, but they are, just like people are into football and things of that nature. And here's the point I'm making. You could not keep them from talking about it. They would talk about the race. They would talk about events in that race. They would break it down because they loved it. Well, can I say this about this Godward testimony? If you love the Lord, you're gonna talk about Him. It's gonna be normal and natural. You come across a young guy who has found the love of his life. You know what he talks about? Her. And his buddy starts to say, look, it's okay. We've heard enough about her. We know you really like this girl. You're really into her, right? We're talking about hunting right now, not guns, not girls, all right? Or a young couple has their first baby. What are they talking about? My son, my daughter. It's sort of like, look, I know my child was the smartest and best-looking baby that was ever born, but you're all, you know, your kids, you know, they're okay. That's the way we all feel, right? You talk about what you love. If we love the Lord, if we're devoted to Him, if we have a Godward focus, then we're gonna have a Godward testimony. The thing that we should desire for people to know about us is not, well, he was a Cincinnati Reds fan, Yeah, I know most of you would say, if baseball comes up, oh yeah, Pastor Klein, he really likes the Cincinnati Reds. Great! Is that what I want on my tombstone? He watched the Cincinnati Reds. Don't know why, but he did. No, I would rather my legacy be to my family and my friends and the lives that I've touched. He lived a life devoted to the Lord. And if that's true, then I'm going to be talking about it. All right, very quickly. Thirdly, a Godward dependence. This is waiting. 38, to them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem acknowledges that there were others who were looking for redemption. This is nationalistic and overtone, but it refers to the spiritual redemption that God had long ago promised and now was bringing to fruition. One commentator observed this, "'Although these people lived in a wicked city, they were not carried away by the flood of worldliness, formality, and self-righteousness around them. They were not infected by the carnal expectations of a mere worldly Messiah in which most Jews indulged. They lived in the faith of the patriarchs and prophets, that the coming Redeemer would bring in holiness and righteousness, and that His principal victory would be over sin and the devil.'" There were those faithfully looking for Messiah for all the right reasons. And here is one of them, Anna. And she cannot stop talking about this baby. Which brings me to our final and last point, and I'll not spend a lot of time on this. Devotion to God is devotion to Jesus Christ. We shouldn't have to say that. We are Christians after all, but important for us to take note. Anna was devoted to God. She lived a life for 84 years devoted to God, but when she saw the baby, she couldn't stop talking about Jesus. God the Father are inextricably joined. I and the Father are one. He who has seen me has seen the Father. That's John 10 and John 14. The mystery of the Incarnation. We just came out of Christmas and we talked about the Incarnation. Matthew 1, Emmanuel, God with us. We may not fully understand the nature of the Trinity, but we acknowledge that God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, one God. And when we are devoted to the Father, then we're living a life devoted to the Son. Secondly, He is our Redeemer. That's the third word from the end here in verse 38, redemption. He is our Redeemer. What does redemption imply? Well, three things. Redemption implies bondage, A free person doesn't need redemption. Slaves need redemption. Every person is born enslaved to sin under the curse of judgment by God's law. We were enslaved. Redemption implies a cost. The price must be paid to buy a slave out of bondage. And since the wages of sin is death, the price of redemption is death. A sinless substitute had to die in our place to satisfy the justice of God. Christ did that on the cross. And then redemption implies the ownership of that which is redeemed. Since Christ bought us with His blood, we are not our own. And so, 1 Corinthians 6, verse 19, what? Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have of God, and ye are not your own? For you are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." We have been redeemed, we have been purchased, which means we are now His. We see God's great love in that He sent His Son to this earth to meet the demands of holy justice. What God required, He provided at great cost to Himself. He is our Redeemer. And that brings me to the conclusion. Matthew Henry. How many of you have ever heard of Matthew Henry? Good, good. He wrote the commentary for the whole Bible over 300 years ago. I still have it in my library today. Perhaps many of you do as well. At the age of 52, on his deathbed, it's a rather short life when you think about it, isn't it? He was speaking to a friend and he said, and I quote, you've been used to take notice of the sayings of dying men, this is mine. That a life spent in the service of God and communion with Him is the most pleasant life that anyone can live in this world, end quote. A life of service and a life of communion with Him, dedicated to Him. Anna would agree. A life devoted to God is not wasted. It is a life well spent. Doesn't matter whether you accomplish anything from the world's view that the world would call successful. You may not be well known by the world. You may not become famous in the world, but God has taken notice of your life. That's all that matters, isn't it? All that matters is God knows you. He purchased you personally. You have a personal relationship with Him and you personally can live a life devoted to Him. And one day you can hear Him say, well done, good and faithful servant. The President of the United States could invite you to the White House in July to celebrate July the 4th with him and all the important people in Washington and put your name on a banner and you would say, I am so blessed. But that would not matter. What matters is one day hearing your Savior say, well done. If you live a life devoted to Him, then you will hear him say, well done. By the grace of God, 2024 was one such year. It may or may not have been for you, but 2025 is an open book. Empty pages in the chapter. By the grace of God, would you pray with me as a church that it might be known that we are a church devoted to God? As a family, would you pray for you and your spouse and your children that you will be a family in 2025 devoted to God? Would you pray for your own personal relationship with the Lord? I want my life in 2025 to matter. and it will only matter to the extent that I live every day devoted to Him." Would you do that? Let's bow our heads. Father, we are thankful for the life of Anna. Lord, we don't really know much about her, and I hope we haven't exaggerated too much about her life, but I think the reality of your including her as one of the witnesses to the reality of who that baby Jesus is, Lord, I pray that seeing that her life from a human standpoint that might have seemed to amount to little, amounted to much with you. May that be encouragement for us. It may seem that we don't make a big difference on the world stage. It may seem like our lives don't matter because we don't have the influence that other people have in vocation or whatever. But Lord, if we live every day devoted to you, then we're living lives that matter. Our lives have real meaning and you can take us and who we are and even though we lack so much in our absolute total dependence upon you, you can use us. Lord, I pray individually for myself and for my brothers and sisters here. May we individually, by your grace, yield ourselves as living sacrifices that 2025 would be a year characterized by devotion to God. And Lord, may that be true of every family. May that be true of our church. May we be a church devoted to you. And Lord, may you then use us as you please to bring glory to yourself. Thank you, Father, for who you are and for all that you do and for loving a people like us. We thank you in Jesus' name. And for his sake, we pray this. Amen.