Luke 2, Verse 19, But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And Verse 51 …and His mother treasured all these things in her heart. 
	We have just read the account of the birth of Christ Jesus as recorded in the Gospel of Luke. There is very much that we could look at in this passage. Last year, Greg gave an excellent message regarding the appearance of the angelic host to announce the birth of Jesus and the shepherd’s response of wonder at this glorious message. As I was reading it, I was struck by the very words of Simeon in verses 29-32. "Now Lord, Thou dost let Thy bond-servant depart In peace, according to Thy word; For my eyes have seen Thy salvation, Which Thou hast prepared in the presence of all peoples, A light of revelation to the Gentiles, And the glory of Thy people Israel." Consider the fact that Simeon, a devout Jew could see the salvation of God, not just for the Jews, but through the Christ Child for the Gentiles. This was unheard of within the Jewish community and yet Simeon had the very clear and accurate picture of exactly that heart of God placed upon His Only Begotten Son.  
	This morning, the key aspect that we want to consider is that of the true manner in which we are to regard the work of God in Jesus Christ. Simeon, Ana, and Mary had learned what it meant to hold the truth of God close in their hearts. This was not just something inherent in their make-up. It is the correct manner of dealing with the Word of God that is in force throughout all those who value the working intimacy that is shared with the Lord God Almighty. It is a training and an attitude that is part of those cherished dealings with God that is to be passed on from generation to generation. 
	It is encouraged by the Lord, through Moses, as we read in Deut 6:6-8, And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. This is at the very heart of how we are to receive and consider the wonderful working of God in our lives. He is to be valued and treasured in our hearts with every sense of joy and regard for Who He is. We are to consider Him and His Word to and in us with awe and reverence. The things that God opens unto us in our understanding of His tremendous work of salvation in Jesus Christ are to be cherished as very special and very personal and of utmost importance. 
	Notice that we are to diligently teach them to our young as the means whereby they will come to appreciate and understand and value Him as do we. We have recently spent many weeks looking at the diligence that God requires from us in our worship, and this is no less a concern to God. He wants us to know the value that He has placed upon the death and resurrection of His Only Begotten Son. That means that we are to treasure all these things in our hearts as did Mary in this morning’s readings. When she was shown something of the vast importance of God’s work in her son, she kept it, as if in a safe deposit box in her heart. She pondered before God, not before man, the full course of what God was doing by the child that she had borne unto Him. She valued the work of God and did not regard it with anything less than utter amazement.
	How many of us can say the same with our regard for God’s Son, Jesus Christ in our hearts? Do we treasure every thought of Him and what He is doing in our lives on a continual basis? That is the point of the frontals of which we read in Deuteronomy. This is repeated as an encouragement for our dealing with the things of God. Deut 11:18+19, "You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. And you shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up. 
The Word of God is to be impressed on our hearts and souls. There is to be the complete recognition that what we do must always be in line with His Word. It should take the priority in our manner of living before God and before man. It should be cherished and valued as the source of our every manner of operation on this earth. It is to be treasured as the promise of all that God has in store for fulfilling every single one of His great promises to His glory throughout this entire creation. As Jesus Christ shows Himself in the light of the glory of God, so is His Word made life into us and should be valued accordingly above all else.  
The same is to be true of everything we do with our hand. As we work, as we play, as we do anything, the sign that is on our hand must be that of the consideration of the Lord. He should be the conscious awareness of our every action and deed. There is no leeway for doing something without first considering Him in the every detail. All that we do for ourselves and for others must be gauged by the manner in which it will reflect Him in our actions. If we are truly attuned to this fact, we will find that we are very much under the control and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, our every deed will be a mere reflection of our obedience to His Word and direction. 
As well, we are told that His Words are to be as the frontals on our forehead, which simply means that they are to the very first thing that enter our minds. Everything we do or think should be settled in the view of Jesus Christ. How does it affect our testimony of Him? How is He glorified in this action or in that thought? Everything is to be considered with Him at the forefront of our motives and thought process. 
Again, notice that this is so important that we are to teach the value of the Living Word of God, Jesus Christ, to our children at every opportunity. There is no getting around the significance of this duty. As He is precious and cherished in our hearts, so are we to instruct and to teach Him to our young. We are to show, in our lives, by our talk and walk and testimony every moment of every day just how much Jesus means to us. That is how we instruct our children and our young. It is not just in talking about Him, which is very important, but it is in the manner in which we interact with Him in our lives. It is in the way that we show forth just how much He means to us, that our children will get the sense of how important it is to know and to learn of Him.
Think about how we teach our children the way in which they should go. If we value something, we try to pass that same care and concern on to those who are important in our lives. We practice and we live in line with the dedication that is required to establish the place of honor that is reserved in our hearts by that which we hold valuable. How many of us treat Jesus with that entire focus of attention? How many of us center our entire life around Him and His service. He is the Great servant, and we are called to be fully enveloped in His service unto others. But how many of us truly place ourselves before Him in such a manner? If we do, then our children will see the full extent in the manner in which we treat others. They will learn to value His service unto others by the way they have been taught to live their lives in service unto others. It will become a natural aspect of their hearts as it needs to be in our hearts.
Deut 30:14-16, "But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it." See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. 
As we live by the Word of God, by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten of the Father, so will our every manner of life be affected. He will encompass our every waking moment. Our every energy will become focused on Him and His glory. He will encase us in Himself and become the every motive of our lives. There will be no avenue of our daily walk that will be exempt from His mighty hand of operation. 
As He shows Himself mighty in our lives, we will find more and more opportunity to cherish Him in our hearts. We will soon recognize that we are finding more and more joy in our relationship with Him on a most personal level. We will guard His every whisper in our hearts and value His every revelation in our lives. We will find ourselves pondering the mighty hand of God in His every operation and we will rejoice in His fullness of life. 
	As Jesus is the living Word of God, so will we find the reality of Ps 119:9-16 active and powerfully at work within us. How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Thy word. With all my heart I have sought Thee; Do not let me wander from Thy commandments. Thy word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against Thee. Blessed art Thou, O Lord; Teach me Thy statutes. With my lips I have told of All the ordinances of Thy mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of Thy testimonies, As much as in all riches. I will meditate on Thy precepts, And regard Thy ways. I shall delight in Thy statutes; I shall not forget Thy word.
By Jesus Christ, we will be transformed in our every aspect of what we thought was life. We will find true contentment and joy in the working grace of God as He manifests the truth of His Son into us. We will come to know in reality what it means to live by the faith of Jesus Christ. We will find ourselves delighting in our every contemplation of the Great love with which God loved us in His Only begotten Son. Our every day will be a celebration of the birth of Jesus, not just a seasonal recognition. All that we are will be wrapped up in the life that He is in and through us unto others. We will be daily learning what it means to live forth in the Purity and the Righteousness and the Holiness that Jesus is already in our hearts.
	We will be living on the resurrection ground of God’s salvation, as recognized by Simeon those more than two thousand years ago. Rom 10:8-10, But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" —  that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. 
Jesus is the Savior of both the Gentiles and the Children of Israel. We will know this in all reality if we will but proclaim Him with our mouths and treasure Him in our hearts. This was the manner in which His mother came to believe upon Him, just as everyone needs to believe upon Him. There is no other way of coming into the great grace of God’s salvation. It is not enough to know, in an intellectual fashion, that Jesus was a great prophet, even the greatest of all the prophets. It is not enough to say that Jesus was a wonderful teacher, extolling a marvelous way to live our lives. We need to confess that He is the Only Begotten Son of God who was sent to die for our sins. Not only that, but because He was the perfect sacrifice for our sins, taking them upon Himself, He Who knew no sin, He was raised from the dead by the Omnipotent power of God. He was resurrected for you and for me to give us life. 
	In stating this truth, we call upon Him to save us and to raise us up into His life. Then we learn to cherish Him in our hearts and to live by His eternal life that now indwells us through His Holy Spirit. This is our life in Christ. This is our salvation that was planned before the eternal ages even began. God so loved us that He sent His Son to redeem us unto Himself. That is what we hold forth on Christmas morning and on every morning of every day for the rest of the eternal ages to come. So be it!
	Rom 5:1-10. Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Col 3:15-17. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. Amen.