Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed that clip by Rob Bell. Again, that powerful  image of a child who's afraid, but isn't aware that the Father is closer than  probably at any other time at that moment and more concerned about his safety  and his comfort. Again, I just, that's the type of thing that resonates, with people  telling a story like that. Now, if you do something like that, make sure you quote  Rob Bell. Again, you've got to be a little bit careful if you're in the United States  context of the church, because Rob Bell has kind of abandoned church at this  point, He's not abandoned faith totally. But certainly a theologically he's on a  different planet than I am. So be careful about that. Well, today, I want to go on  just one more time to talk about this story, kind of sermon or narrative preaching. And what I want to do is give you a taste of a first person message. Now, if you  look online, you're going to find all kinds of examples of this. And as I was  looking, I found that most of them were either too long or too short, or they were  just really bad. Found one or two good ones, that the sound wasn't good and  that sort of thing. So I decided to share one of my own from many years ago  now. sermon that I preached about Simeon. You remember Simeon, he is the  man who was in the temple and the Lord had revealed to him that he would not  die until he saw the Christ. And so what I had happening with this message is  that the other people were leading the service that day. And there were a variety  of settings that I put on that first of all, the room darkened at one point, and there was just one light showing in the middle and it was still rather dim. And I had  someone come up and read the section in Luke, where this story is found. And it goes like this. When the time came for the purification rites required by the law  of Moses, Joseph and Mary took Him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.  As it is written in the law of the Lord, every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord, and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the law of the  Lord, a pair of doves, or two young pigeons. Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the  consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to  him by the Holy Spirit that He would not die before he had seen the Lord's  Messiah, moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts, when the parents  brought him the child, Jesus to do for him what the custom or the law required,  Simeon took him in his arms and praise God's sovereign Lord, as you have  promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen  your salvation which you are prepared in the sight of all nations, a light for  revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people, Israel. The child's father  and mother marveled at what was said about him, then Simeon blessed him and said to Mary his mother, this child is destined to cause the falling and rising of  many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts  of many hearts will be revealed and a sword will pierce your own soul too. Now,  picture the setting, I was in costume for that, and I had a large walking stick, and I tried to become in some respects, Simeon and so I hunched over as an old 

man, who was somebody who was stuck in Jerusalem, but stuck in this old aged body, and yet with hope, and I began to tell the story. Again, someone else read  the Scripture. And so join me now, as I tried to become for a short period of time, Simeon. It was a dark time, was a very dark time. Of course. Isaiah, the prophet  told long ago that the time the Messiah would come would be a dark time. He  

said, The earth is covered with darkness and a deep gloom has come upon the  people. Most of my life was lived in that dark time. It certainly was a dark time in  my country, as the vibrant worship of God's people, the singing and the  sacrifices and the joyful anticipation of the presence of God had devolved. Now  there were sacrifices, but they were done because they were prescribed,  prescribed songs were sung the prescribed anthems were raised up to prescribe offerings were made. But it was done without joy. It was done without a sense of the intimacy, the presence of God it was done without hope. It was dark. Now  there were many reasons for the darkness. And I've come to tell you about  them. You may have heard about me I was connected with the coming of the  Messiah. My name is Simeon. And I have come to tell you my story today. And  I'll tell you why later. The reasons for the darkness were many one for the  religious leaders in our country, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they have  taken the Almighty God of Exodus, the God who did the unexpected, and the  incredibly powerful, and they've reduced him to a little box. And they want  people to obey all these little minut commands that weren't even in the Law of  Moses. But if you obey all these hundreds of little commands, then God will love you, then God will care about you, then God would care about our nation. That's how they'd reduce the God of the universe. They had taken the God of Moses  and Joshua, the great general. And they said that this God is really pretty  impotent, when it comes to the Romans. And so we should accommodate them  rather than try to try to work against them. So our religious leaders contributed  to the darkness. There was not a sense of hope for the people of God making  any major difference. And the Romans were the other big factor in the darkness  of that time, the Romans had conquered the then known world almost. They  constantly were trying to enforce their own morality. In fact, Caesar Augustus,  Emperor of the Great Empire, was concerned about the morality of various  people in his empire. And so he had determined that if he could turn people  back to the old gods that would give them more traditional family values, men  and women weren't marrying, children weren't being born, and so he wanted  them to turn back to those values. And so return to the old gods was the call  return to the old gods. And then he had himself declared a god as well. So  temples were being built throughout the empire, in worship of the old Roman  gods and their worship of Caesar Augustus himself. And in the process, they  began to send out disciples of one kind or another, who said, be like us, like us,  Romans, and many, many young men and young women. In my country, in the  covenant people of God listened, and became like them, their values, reflecting 

theirs. Then of course, the Romans also drained us, they taxed our food, they  taxed our land, they taxed our income, they taxed our, our agriculture, they  taxed everything, and they sucked us dry financially. But beyond that, they took  things from us they took our women and our young men to be slaves and  servants. They took our children sometimes to be brought up in understanding  the Roman way to influence our country, and they contributed to the darkness. It was, indeed, a dark, dark time. It was so dark, but there were times I cried out to God is oh, God, now now send the Messiah, because I knew from the promises  of Isaiah, that God didn't just say that there was going to be darkness covering  the Earth, but that there was going to be a light that comes he says, Arise, shine for your light has come as he talked about the time when the Messiah would  come. So I lived with that hope. I've got to tell you, the darkness got so deep,  and so thick. I felt like I was in a cave and didn't know where to turn. They kept  bumping my head against the walls. And gradually, I began to lose hope, myself. But then the day came. I was praying, I prayed every day, many times a day.  Most often I went to the temple to pray, prayed in my home, but I prayed in a  temple. And that day I was in the temple. And I was praying for the Messiah to  come. As I watched people, crowds coming through, and they were offering their sacrifices. And they were going through the motions of religion. And I was  beginning to feel like I must be the only one left in the country, the only one left  in the nation of God's people who still loved him and wanted to serve Him. And I  was crying out, oh, God, come now, Messiah, or destroy us. The darkness is too deep. I heard God speak. Now, I pray often, as I said, and often I wait  sometimes to listen for God's small voice inside of me, but this time it was  spoken aloud. In fact, I turned around and I was looking at the crowd and I was  saying, who said that? Who said that? The people were looking at me like I lost  my mind. And for a moment, I thought, I lost my mind myself. The voice said,  Simeon you will not die until you see the Lord's Christ. And I do, it was the voice  of God. Well, from that time on, I had an exciting mission in my life. In my time,  there was a tradition, there was a custom, that when somebody who owned a lot of property or have a lot of influence, went away for a period of time, he would  entrust his property to a servant, his best servant, most trusted person. And that  person had responsibility, that person would get people up at the crack of dawn,  they would rise as the light struck on the east. And he would get them up and  he'd say, today, the master may return. So we've got to be ready. We've got to  be about our work. We've got to be prospering the Master's kingdom. And I  became that person, trying to wake people up trying to get them to be ready for  the Messiah to come. Because I know he's coming. I know he's coming. He's  spoken to me down deep. And so I began to tell people get ready, get ready, get  ready. They didn't listen. In fact, I know they talked about me, rather than talking  to me, sometimes those who hadn't been in the temple and sometimes would  find me coming up to them and looking in their eyes, trying to determine is this 

the Messiah? Because I wasn't told what kind of person to look for. Is it an old  man is it a young man? Is it a boy? What am I looking for here? And so I would  check out every newcomer carefully, is this the one? Is this the messiah? And  those people will then go ask those who are commonly in the temple and would  watch me and they say, Who? What's with him? And they say, Oh, that Simeon I knew they would say it, that's Simeon. He's a little senile. He thinks he's seen a  vision. But you know, that's what keeps him happy. He keeps believing this kind  of thing is going to happen. And so just don't pay him any attention. I know. They said that, but I know God had spoken to me. I kept on, every day. Is this the  day? Is this the person? Every day going into the temple courts. And then the  day came, I was eating the first meal of the day. All of a sudden I sensed within  my spirit today is the day, there was a good thing because I'm getting old. If I'm  going to see the Lord's Christ it better be soon. I lived with my daughter, I was  eating the first meal of the day. And all of a sudden I said, this is the day and I  went rushing out of the house to the Temple of a man and my condition can  rush. I went to the temple in that day with great anticipation, I was looking from  one to the other is this the one is this the boy is this the man is this what Who is  this? Who is the Messiah who is the Lord's Christ here? And then I saw him, the  young man, younger woman carrying baby, a baby. I rushed over to them. I can  hardly speak. And I asked if I could hold him and I took this child in my arms. I  said, sovereign Lord, you may dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have  seen your salvation. I held the child, tears streaming down my face. The Lord fill  my mind to the presence of the Spirit of Prophecy. I have seen your salvation  which you have prepared in the sight of all nations a life of the Gentiles and  glory for your people Israel. I have this vision. It's not only the Israelites, it's not  only the Hebrew, the people of the covenant, he's going to be a ruler of the  world I pictured in my mind the light spreading from Israel and spreading to the  surrounding countries and spreading over all the maps that I knew of the world  at that time. I saw that all in my mind. I was amazed. My heart swelled and joy.  But then I began to look ahead. God gave me a vision of the future. And I saw  this man coming as the light. Now light is a strange thing. Now at this point, I  have to tell you that I lit a candle and the one light that was onstage went out so  the only light that was on in the room has this candle and I went to reflect on the  power of light in darkness. Isn't it fascinating, the POWER OF LIGHT in  darkness. How one small candle can begin to dispel darkness. Isn't it something that when you're in darkness and some lights a light, how everyone's attention  goes to the light. That's what I saw as I look to the future. I saw this boy in my  arms become a man. And I saw him walking the streets of Jerusalem and the  streets of the country. And I saw him touching people and healing them, I saw  him teaching others. And I saw the light being passed from one to another,  especially to these close followers who are with him. And I saw the light going  from one to the other to the other until it began to spread and grow. But then I 

saw amazingly, that some did not choose the light. I'm looking at this child. And I see what's going to come. I turned to his mother, and I said, This child is  destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that  will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. I  saw even as the light began to spread the darkness began to deepen. I saw as  he was spreading the truth about God, and giving people hope, and intimacy  with God again, I saw others who were plotting his death. I knew that people  when they meet the light have to make a choice. Am I going to choose  darkness? And then I saw his death. Oh, Jehovah. Why do you get to give this  vision to me. I saw this young mother, this young mother, now at the foot of the  cross, the Roman cross, and watching her son die. And for a moment, my  despair returned until the next image in the story. A wounded Christ alive and  sending disciples out. I turned to the mother and I said, the sword, will pierce  your own soul, too. So I'm fulfilling my purpose. I've been sent to tell people.  God keeps his promise, the Messiah has come. The Messiah gives life. But you  have to choose. You can choose darkness. But if you choose life, you become  part of the process of extending the light on to others. I now depart in peace. I'm  fulfilling God's purpose for me. That was just a quick rendition of how this one  could go. You can make other points out of this message as well, I suspect or  any kind of narrative Bible story, you could tell in a powerful, meaningful way. As  you try to be careful about the textures and the colors and the story and the  characters. You develope one character in some way. And I just want to  encourage you to do this. Try it sometime. Later, we're going to look at how you  evaluate whether your congregation is ready for these kinds of things. But this is the kind of thing especially on the higher high holidays of the church, or special  kinds of services in the church. These are the kinds of things that will plant in  people's minds. Something that is true that come back to it. I'll come back to  this, I suspect you will. After I preached that sermon preached in the church I  was serving in California, I can't tell you how many times people came and said  to me now when you put that candle, all of a sudden, I realize it's true that all the attention is turned to the light when the light is shining in darkness. And that's  what we've got to be. I didn't have to explain that a great deal. I just mentioned  it. And people began to put their own application into it, which is the work of the  Holy Spirit, right. And people who had no hope that they reached the end, and  began to talk about telling me about the fact that you know, their experience of  that was this person who had become almost hopeless. And they felt that way  they were in a dark tunnel. And all of a sudden they said, there's light. And so in  the discussion with questions that are provided for people after that, you know  what they talked about? Where Where do we see the light to the world around  us? Where do I need to see the light and where can I spread the light? So this is the last in this whole idea of working on kinds of styles of messages. Next time  we're going to start working on what does it mean to develop the sermon, not 

just how are you preparing to preach, but how do you develop a sermon? And  so next time we're going to do that look forward to seeing you then 



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