Title: Man of Hope! (Luke 2:21-35)
In fact, there are times in life when you win and there are times when you lose. There are times when you succeed and times when you fail. However, when you accept failure calmly and try again with new hope, your chances of success increase. There is no way in the world to succeed regardless of failure. Because success grows from the root of failure. Therefore, it is necessary to train to be friendly with failure and to have hope without being frustrated even if it fails. This is also the ‘know-how’ for success. There is nothing more important in life than to have hope.
1. Because the Holy Spirit was with us.
That is, when the Holy Spirit is with us, we become people of hope. When the Holy Spirit came upon Simeon, he could have hope and became a man of hope. That is why the Bible says that the more difficult the world becomes in the last days and the more desperate events occur, the more the Holy Spirit gives us hope. “Afterward I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions” (Joel 2:28). Please believe it. I hope that the Holy Spirit will be with you and become people of hope.
2. Because they believed the Word.
“He was instructed by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he saw the Christ of the Lord” (verse 26). This means that God gave the word of revelation to Simeon through the Holy Spirit. In other words, Simeon's tireless hope was based on the Word of God. A person of hope is a person who believes as God's Word tells us, holds on to the Word and waits. We must base our hope on the eternally unchanging Word of God's covenant, and find hope in the Word. Now we must have hope. No matter how dark and gloomy the reality is, and no way forward, we must not despair and have hope. Because we believe in the power of Almighty God, who created something out of nothing and created all things. Today is the last Sunday of 2003. If you have experienced failure and setbacks over the past year, please do not lose hope. Hope you have.