DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE HOLY SPIRIT LOOKS LIKE--WHEN HE ENTERS & LIVES IN YOUR LIFE?

well let's open our bibles to luke chapter two and uh we've been talking about the doctrine of the holy spirit uh going through uh a format of discipleship and kind of uh me trying to in a large group get into a small group context of how i would communicate the truth of the christian life and we started uh going through the elements of the holy spirit doctrinally and the epistles and what christ taught but what i thought for the next two or three weeks i would like to illustrate what these doctrines look like in a person uh you know the holy spirit is a spirit he's invisible how do you illustrate someone that's invisible you show the effects of the invisible spirit that we can see in their life and that's what we're going to see over the next few weeks the holy spirit in normal people what he does and so what i've entitled this is simeon and that's luke 2 if you want to get there and we're going to start in verse 25. simeon is a living illustration that you can look at and imagine and think about because there are enough details that you can actually see this scene going on he is a living full-color living and breathing illustration of what a spirit-filled life looks like that god offers to us now again i mentioned i think last week and i know well two weeks ago but last sunday night in the q and a time i said that in the old covenant the holy spirit only came upon now he regenerated anyone was saved but he only came upon and empowered certain individuals most of them we know about because the ones that were empowered they burst into the pages of the scripture but the rank and file normal people did not have what we have this morning all of us have resident within us if we're born again the same spirit that energized simeon paul and christ himself the same spirit waiting every day to energize us to fill us to lead to empower to use and and that working that he wants to do is illustrated in simeon's life so we're looking one by one it's spiritual living lessons that new believers need to have personally taught to them by older believers that's what discipleship is and we've looked at we're in the third first is saved now i've repeated this but i'll repeat it again the reason i call save the first lesson is and that's why i went all the way through the book of acts with you and looked at the salvation lessons is over the last three and a half decades that i've discipled people i have numerous times had people sign up to be discipled i've met with them gotten all alone with them started talking to them the longer we talked we both realized that they were trying to live the christian life and they weren't even plugged into the outlet it's kind of like think of any appliance you have you know your toaster you can put the bread in and out and pop it up and down it doesn't toast if it's not plugged in right i mean that's a simple illustration i see a lot of christians they they're trying to do the christian life and they're popping in and out but the toaster is not working and when you sit with them you say well when did you get plugged in and they go i didn't even know i had a plug see they're not saved and i i've had the privilege of leading people to the lord in lesson one of discipleship because the first part of this whole process is you have to be saved you have to be supernaturally it's not how hard i try and i'm going to try a little harder next week it's whether or not you have been born from above whether or not i have living within me god himself there's only two kinds of people in the world those that have the sun and those that don't and those that don't there's some that wish and some that hope and some that trying their hardest but they don't have the sun save people have the sun and they have life secondly the evidence of salvation is scripture fed that like newborn babes we desire we have an internal hunger i mean a baby either is crying and screaming or it's got the bottle it's either being fed or it's sleeping or it's being changed you know i have a lot of experience in this remember my i can't tell stories anymore i've gotten so old i told about how i used to put the you know the uh i don't forget the baby powder you know the big white big tall thing you know a big cloud of smoke and i had parents in the lobby go bad for their lungs i said how did anybody grow up you know we everything's bad nowadays and i love baby powder but you know what i learned from babies is either change them sleep them or feed them when they're little if they're not hungry they're sick if a person isn't scripture fed they're sick or they're not saved see if they're the bible says as newborn babes desire the sincere milk and james says you receive the engrafted word which is able to save your souls thirdly that's where we get then the plug the power starts showing up the the power of the spiritual life is the spirit of god filling us that means that we're he's flowing through us he's energizing everything that we read about in the bible only works if he prompts and energizes and empowers it to work and the greatest thing in life is seeing everything god designed it's kind of like i get this magazine from england it's called i think it's called mac format i think that's what's called something along that lines it'll have 122 things you never knew you know you can do with this or that i mean i love getting a cup of coffee getting a magazine getting my whatever the articles about ipad iphone or you know i whatever and i sit there and i look at it and i i do all the little things it works i know i know if i follow the instructions this works did you know everything in here works if you're connected to the spirit of god and what we have to do is we have to learn to allow him to do these things in our life and that's why luke and i let's go to chapter 1 verse 15. i'm going to walk with you and what i'm going to show you is the holy spirit is revealed in many ways in god's word 80 times in the old testament in fact after first service someone came up and they asked me how they could start studying the bible and i said why don't you just look these things up i'm only touching on them i said why don't you start by looking at everything the holy spirit does in the book of luke and i said when you get done with that look at all the 12 times jesus prays and what he prayed for in the book of luke and just things like that this this what i'm doing right now with an individual that i'm discipling i i'm not trying to give them a seminary education i'm trying to get them started seeing the process of how you grow and so the book of luke shows us the amazing holy spirit at work and here i'll give you the references for i wrote them all down for you this is a typical pneumatology pneuma spirit ologia or lugia is the study of so the study of the holy spirit is a pneumatology so i read the book of luke and i marked each time i could find the holy spirit at work and and just examined what it was he was doing and then tied it to what the epistles like paul's epistles and peter's epistles and what james said i tied it and so i did an entire study of the holy spirit at work and and so i sit with them in a in a not to reproduce seminary but to get them stirred and i usually wait until one of the passages that we cover you can almost see it when you're working with someone to go well i didn't know it said that in bible say that again how does it work so let me show you what i mean verse 15 of chapter one it was the holy spirit that gabriel announced would fill john the baptist as he prepared the way for christ's coming so john the baptist an old testament prophet was filled with the spirit to do his ministry and so that's interesting go to verse 35 it was the holy spirit who caused christ's conception in mary now think about that the holy spirit communicates or is the actually is the conduit through which all the things that god does happens god the father is is overall as first corinthians 15 says until christ delivers all things back to the father who is overall god the son is the agent through which god has revealed himself as the the visible representation of god is is christ the holy spirit is one that does everything and part of his doing everything is he doesn't want us to be paying attention to him he wants us to look at christ but he's the one that does everything you notice as we go through this list jesus doesn't do all this stuff he does it in the power of the holy spirit and the more we understand that the holy spirit doesn't want to speak of himself he doesn't want to glorify himself and that's kind of a little problem we have in christendom nowadays people are fanfaring the spirit when the holy spirit says i don't talk about myself i point you to christ and if the holy spirit is working it's pointing everyone toward christ for what he accomplished well the holy spirit caused christ's conception right there in verse 35. now look at verse 41 it was the holy spirit that prompted elizabeth i mean look what it says and it happened when elizabeth heard the greeting of mary that the babe leaped in her womb and elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit it was the holy spirit that revealed to elizabeth that mary was burying bearing within her god the son the christ and he revealed that and and that's when we have this uh verse 42 onward one of the five songs of christmas that that luke records the the exclam of it it's called blessed are thou among women all that keep going to verse 67 same chapter the holy spirit's really busy in verse one or chapter one now his father zacharias was filled with the holy spirit and prophesied by the way this is the first spirit-filled family in the new testament and it's zechariah elizabeth and john the baptist and and all three of them are filled with the holy spirit it's fascinating it's the only completely spirit-filled family we ever have chronicled in the bible and and will come to them another week but it was the holy spirit that spoke through zechariah announcing that god's son christ was going to be heralded by their son john the baptist i'll keep going to chapter 2 that's where we're going to be this morning and i love verse 25 onward it was the holy spirit that led simeon to find jesus a six week old jesus being carried by his parents the holy spirit led simeon to find him and and we'll cover that in detail uh look at chapter three uh the holy spirit is at work in verse 16 john answered and said i indeed baptize you with water but there's one mightier than i who's coming whose sandal strap i'm not worthy to loose he will baptize you with the holy spirit and with fire and and that's parallel to the fact of what paul later says that it's the holy spirit that baptizes every one of us the instant of our salvation into the body of christ it's very fascinating our water baptism behind you know that screen there in the baptistery is only an outward act reflecting what the holy spirit has already done inside of us that we're baptized by the spirit into the body of christ as first corinthians 12 13 says it's the holy spirit in verse 22 if you look down a little further and the holy spirit descended bodily like a dove and came on christ and and jesus being filled with the spirit in verse 1 of chapter 4 was led out to be tempted it's the holy spirit that led christ out into his desert temptation it's the holy spirit look at chapter 4 verse 14. this is fascinating and usually they pause for this i mean this this one usually is when when they go women what did you just say when we're marking this in our bibles then jesus returned in the power of the spirit to galilee and news of him and verse 15 he taught did you catch what that says how did jesus go all over the place and teach in his own strength no it's clearly portrayed that christ's ministry was accomplished not by him independently but he always did the will of the father and the will of the father is that jesus christ would serve in the power of the spirit and by the way that's the will of the father for us too and everything jesus did he didn't do on his own in fact what did jesus say about us he looked at his disciples he says greater things you're going to do than i did and we go huh that's because jesus fulfilled god's will for him god the father's will forgot the son jesus christ we are supposed to accomplish god's will for us you see there's something each of us were designed equipped and called to do that only we can do and someday we're going to stand in front of the father and the son and the spirit the son will say i bought them and the spirit says i waited within them to accomplish all your will oh father and god's going to look at us and say and did you do what i designed you to do did you allow my spirit to work through you or did you spend your life you know collecting widgets that are all still burning up on earth right now or did you do what i called you to do usually that's where they start squirming in their seats that's what see the power of discipleship you start talking about this and you look up at the person you're discipling and saying do you know what you're designed to do you know i have a snowblower i can't wait till we get snow that stays so i can use it you know i love my snowblower but i had to move it the other day and i asked the boys to move it because you know that's what you have boys for and that thing must weigh hundreds of pounds and it's a two-stage and it's this massive thing and if the motor is not running it is so hard to move it was not designed to operate without the motor running even the little tires seem to resist and and even when i hold the unresistor things they still resist you know they're kind of like people you know resistant and and what i thought about is a lot of people go through their christian life not that snow blower i can jam it into every snow bank possible but if the motor's not running it doesn't do what it was designed to do during the big snow i don't know which one we've had two that have disappeared on us but i was happily i had my big um ear muffs on and all my snowballing stuff and i was going and i love to get it angled so it just blows over in my neighbor's yard i love doing that and i've got it you know i look at the trajectory and do the trigonometry it's just a grapevine i mean it doesn't he i'm watering his grapes but i'm just going along and i kept hearing this loud sound louder and louder i thought we're snowed in here it took me three hours to snow blow the driveway i thought who is honking and i turned around there's a gigantic ups truck and he's right right there beep beep beep beep and i had to go into the snow bank to get out of his way and i thought that snowblower if the motor wasn't on could never make the way for the ups truck it was designed to do that but only if the motor is running are you doing what you were designed to do and that's what discipleship is all about and i could go on and on but i won't keep going to chapter 10 verse 20. it's the holy spirit in chapter 10 verse 20. and we're just doing a pneumatology uh study of the spirit in 10 20 it says nevertheless don't rejoice that the spirits are subject to you but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven and by the way when you look at the parallel passage to that which is in romans 8 9 who's the one that writes us in heaven it's the holy spirit and jesus goes on to say look at verse 21 and jesus rejoiced in the spirit and said i thank you and do you know what gave christ the joy and rejoicing remember he's described in matthew as being a man acquainted with sorrows he's meek and lowly in heart remember that he jesus was kind of a a melancholic at least in matthew 11 28 30 describing him but what made him so full of joy look at verse 21 the spirit of god prompted him to joy and we could go all the way through this but go to the end with me chapter 24 there are others but i want to get into simeon's life but look at 24 49 and and what i love about this last one is uh this is fascinating the holy spirit is called the promise of the father you know god the father has promised us everything that christ accomplished but he promised that only comes through the conduit of the spirit of god and that's what that's why we study the holy spirit so basically what we're doing this morning is we're going to look at how the spirit works in normal people did you know america is primarily made up of normal people someone was talking about the fact that that we spend so much time looking at there's some sports person that just got paid i don't know 300 million dollar contract i don't even know what sport but i i wonder if they're going to get how much they're going to charge in tickets i wonder how many years this guy is going to have to earn that back but whoever it is i'm glad he's making it but we look at these abnormal people it's abnormal to be paid 300 million dollars to play a sport that's abnormal when normal people you know work their tails off for nine dollars or 950 or 750 or whatever you know is the going rate did you know that the world is basically 99 normal people you know the normal people that plow and deliver and you know the tanker trucks and the milk truck and you know the person that picks up the garbage can and if those normal people didn't do their work the extraordinary people wouldn't have any they don't even know what to do other than their little specialty you know and that's amazing and that's how it is in the church you know we know about the superstars but the vast majority of everything god does in the world is through normal people that allow the spirit of god to work through them and simeon is one of them look look at the text and we're going to read the whole thing in just a minute but as we look at simeon he's introduced starting in in verse 25 and if it wasn't for this introduction he would be like the untold billions of others through human history that were only known by those closest to them during their life and they died without leaving a trace most people have ever lived we don't even know their name we know simeon's name but that's all we know about him other than the fact of what we're going to see that simeon was a spirit filled believer and that's what catapults him above the people of his day simeon was chosen because simeon had the spirit of god at work within him did you know that's what god wants to do with all of us simeon sends a message from his life that extends far from the christmas scene and it reaches all the way to the very end of each of our lives simeon was a spirit-filled spirit-led servant and he's a model and what's happening here jesus is a little six-week-old baby being brought into the temple and god wanted someone to intersect that couple coming in and he wanted to use simeon to meet joseph mary and baby jesus and to deliver a blessing and god says that's my will and there's simeon and simeon wants to do what i want him to do so i'm going to use him see that's what's so exciting about life just checking in with the lord and saying i want to do i want to be i want to say i want to go where you god have designed for me to go well let's read this amazing record it's starting verse 20 actually i'm going to start in verse 25. so you got it okay i'm at the coffee shop do you have it okay a few of you are at the coffee shop with me let's all stand now we'll see if you're here we don't do this at the coffee shop but you stand and i'm going to read in luke 2 well i'm still in 24. starting verse 25 all the way down uh through verse 35. here we go 25 and behold there was a man in jerusalem whose name was simeon and this man was just in devout waiting for the consolation of israel and the holy spirit was upon him and it had been revealed to him by the holy spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the lord's christ so he came by the spirit into the temple and when the parents brought in the child jesus to do for him according to the customer of the law he took him up in his arms and blessed god and said verse 29 lord now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word for my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared before the face of all peoples a light to bring revelation to the gentiles and the glory of your people israel and joseph and his mother marveled at those things which were spoken of him then simeon blessed them and said to mary his mother behold this child is destined for the fall and the rising of many in israel and for a sign which will be spoken against verse 35 yes a sword will pierce through your own soul also that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed wow let's bow together father i pray that you'd open this passage to us thank you for giving it to us thank you for the privilege of having you o spirit of god who illumines you o spirit of god who inspired this very word you are the one that can open it to us so that we can be even more looking like christ that's your goal to make us point at christ and reflect christ and that's that is what you wish to do more and more in every one of our lives and i pray that we would have open faces as paul called it be holding in this glass of the word of god your glory and that we would be changed into christ's image more today as we surrender to your work oh spirit in the name of jesus we pray amen you may be seated as you're seated what i want you to see is simply and there's two kinds did you know there's two kinds of ways of teaching the bible there's isagenitical teaching and exegetical teaching isagetical teaching uh is you already have an idea and then you search the bible to find some verses to support it that's reading into the bible your ideas exegetical teaching is where you find the ideas and exeggo means you bring them up out of the bible and you present them so look at this text and tell me what what is god trying to get our attention about and basically simeon's life is only chronicled here this is only time we know about him and what is it that god chooses to point out about his life well verse 25 look at the very last one two three four five six words of verse 25 the holy spirit was upon him so that's that's pretty clear look at verse 26 and it had been revealed to him by the holy spirit this i mean this is this is starting to get clear and verse 27 so he came by the spirit do you see how in such close proximity this man that we know nothing about is all about the working of the spirit of god inside of him walking in the spirit insured for simeon a life that mattered we don't know anything else about him he could have come and gone and and without a marker on a gravestone but what jumps off the page that records in his life is he had a life that counted because he walked in the spirit that's that's what what it means to walk in the spirit means to be on duty i mean have you ever gone to a store and you have this new generation of people that act like it's a bother that you came in and they have to stop talking to each other and texting each other they have to actually come over and do something you know it's kind of a new generation it used to be you were mobbed you know when i grew up you went into a store you were mobbed now you have to stir up someone to work you know and say excuse me do you work here they go why you know you say because i was like to buy something okay you know they put away their phone and and but but the old way was you were taught to be on duty and if someone came in the door you go hello hey can i help you you know do you need some shoes you know or whatever you're selling simeon was on duty see that's what it means to be having the spirit of god it means you check in for work and you're on duty knowing who you work for wanting to please him and saying what do you want me to do in life well god doesn't force this god wants to work through us but he doesn't force it upon us in fact someone in first service was showing me they had made a quilt for someone in the church and it was real pretty at two hearts but between it there was a little strand and it had two doves and what it was showing is the holy spirit knitting hearts together i think was the picture why is the holy spirit portrayed as a dove because he's not a bully have you ever seen a dove come up and say move out of the way you know that is not i mean when you have peace talks they show a dove with olive branches it's it's a dove is peaceful not belligerent not pushy not forceful how is the holy spirit described in the new testament well we're supposed to walk in the spirit and wait for the spirit and present ourselves and clothe ourselves and yield ourselves and surrender do you see the flavor of how the holy spirit works he invites us to yield to him see that's that's the essence of the spirit-filled life life as god intended to be for every believer is pictured by this simple humble obscure man as we study his life we need to ask ourselves am i offering myself to the lord to live like him i mean he only did what he did because the spirit prompted him i and you should want to live a life that would only work and people would say the only way i can figure that they did what they did is the holy spirit prompted him to do it okay let's go through the points of his life number one first look at verse 25 like simeon seek the spirit-filled life god offers and it says behold there's this man in jerusalem whose name is simeon and that i mean anna we know her husband and her tribe and how old she was this guy we know nothing just his name and this man was just in devout waiting for the consolation of israel and the holy spirit was upon him let me ask you a question now now we're back in the coffee shop and this is where the when you're discipling someone they can tell you look at him and say how do how would you get the holy spirit on you like that how how did simeon how do you think that happened did the lord knock him off his horse like paul how did simeon get filled with his spirit and then you look at him and say did you know that the bible explains this and 600 years before simeon god told everyone how they could have him filling their life take a moment now just stay your finger in luke but go back to jeremiah with me 29 and and if you don't know where jeremiah is go the middle psalms go to the right in my bible it's 210 pages back um from luke but jeremiah 29 so psalms proverbs ecclesiastes go the right song of psalm and isaiah jeremiah and then to the 29th chapter of jeremiah now what i want you to see here is how does anyone get god to enter their life god said long before simeon's day in jeremiah 29 and verse 13 in fact 600 years before christ's birth god explains how you get his attention okay and this is how we get the spirit of god upon us this is the secret jeremiah 29 13 and you will seek me and you will find me what does it say when you search for me what with all your heart thank you you just said it and i have them say it in fact i ask people the key parts i have them repeat i say say that again with all your what with all your heart and then i pause and and i ask them some questions now building up to this it means that simeon had sought god simeon had opened his life to god simeon had surrendered to god's control simeon wanted god's way he wanted god's control and when you want god's control god controls us through his spirit but he doesn't force himself he waits for an invitation and when we invite him in when we jeremiah 29 13 when we seek him and find him with all of our heart when we say god i want what you have promised in fact one of the passages we didn't look at in luke that is a wonderful passage says that god if a parent will give stuff to their children how much more will god give the holy spirit to anybody that asks him it's not like the lord's holding out for you to ask hard enough long enough you know if if we just desire him with all of our you ever talk to someone you tell you don't quite have all their attention they're going they're doing something or you can hear the keyboard in the background while you're you know they're still typing away or whatever they're doing god says i want you to stop everything and completely focus on me and want me with all your heart now this is when let's go back to luke 2 25 because this is when i pause and you see why paul told titus while he was being a missionary on the island of crete he said the only way you're going to transform these newcomers to the faith in christ is to send out a legion of a little bit older in the faith men and women to sit face to face with them see discipleship is best accomplished face to face and you start looking at people and ask them questions okay this is a typical question that i would ask to my person whoever it is i'm meeting with i smile at them i say can i ask you a question of course there's only two of us what would they say oh sure i say how long has it been since you asked god to take over the plans of your life like all your plans your financial plans have you asked god to take that over how about your education plans how about your relational plans you know your dating life how about your career you know the law how long has it been since you asked god to take over your plans and you spread them out before the lord there's this beautiful picture of hezekiah uh that that is uh both in chronicles and in isaiah and it's a picture of isaiah had a i mean hezekiah had a quandary and he took the the letter that was troubling him and he spread it out in front of the lord he said i don't know what to do how long has it been since you spread out your life's plan the lord and said is this what you want are these my plans or yours i don't want my plans and then you just pause and you go i think am i supposed to answer and they said i don't even know what that means how do you do that well then you explain it you say this is the the perfect example now do you remember jesus thrilled the common people because he talked about things they all could picture he talked about sowers and seeds they all had grown up walking around and having someone throwing seeds and some of it fell in front of them and they could just they saw that and the lilies of the field and fishermen and everything you know you have to bring the the first century or before stuff down to where they can see it in life so what's a typical example of surrender in our culture how about this how long since you parked the car of your life in other words we're driving through life going wherever we want and we pull over turn it off pull out the keys get out of the car and surrender the keys the steering wheel and the driver's seat to god now there is a concrete picture of what jeremiah 29 13 is talking about so you you look at them remember this is a question when was the last time you stopped everything in life parked turned everything off said god i don't want to go another foot in life in the driver's seat this is consecration this is surrender this is dedication but what's so interesting is life gets going so fast that we run out of the door and jump in the car and take off and the lord is riding either in the trunk the back seat maybe in the front seat you know depends on how important he was to us that day and we're just buzzing off and all of a sudden we go oh sorry and we have to consciously see this is this usually is accomplished in our devotional times after the lord after we pray and he starts opening the word to us and we are we're reading and we read long enough that all of a sudden we say oh lord how much of the last day or two or week or month have i just worked on my own it doesn't stop there i mean here's a couple more questions because you have to keep talking until they can connect how long has it been since you were personally aware of his presence in your heart and life each day that you were aware it's kind of like when you invite the lord into your life it isn't like you have to follow him around all day long looking for him if you invite the lord into your life you can still be a warrior like david or a farmer like most of the israelites were in in their ancient lives and david as a shepherd you don't have to just sit there and say oh lord i don't want to stop thinking about you he interrupts our day with his presence how long has it been since you were personally aware of his presence in your heart and life each day i mean i was a corporate salesman i worked for american home wyeth and heirs and all the drug companies and traveled crisscross the country and flew and you know just that whole fast lifestyle with sales managers on your back and vice presidents and and it's like they never give you a free moment did you know that the lord can it's almost like you're coming around the corner in your house and you bump into well that happens to me anytime i'm home i get so distracted i come around the corner nurse bonnie i'm immediately distracted when i see bonnie you know i mean it's just immediate and you know what it's because i love her and and i think sometimes she knows i'm so busy that she just kind of steps out so i you know bump into her and and it just the lord wants to intercept us all through life and it's not like you have to sit at your cubicle and think i'm trying not to think about general motors today i'm trying to think about the lord no think about general motors is that still a company i don't know you know went bankrupt a while back but you know what i mean just do your job and invite the lord in at the beginning and you will bump into him all day long you will become aware of his presence in your heart and life he'll remind you spontaneously of a scripture that you already read or you already learned and it will flow how long has it been since you cried out and told the lord you want to rely on him to lead and guide you see i'm these are all saying the same thing what we're asking is we're inviting the lord in okay now go to verse 26 and i won't take so long on all these verses some of you are getting nervous like the guy that fell asleep in first service and if you see someone tell me it's getting to a good part you know and uh wake him up but look at verse 26 and it was revealed to him by the holy spirit that he would not see death before the lord before he had seen the lord's christ next like simeon seek now look at the the title there on the screen the spirit illumined life you know what and i think i'm covering it tonight um last week we had so many questions we had a run on the microphones that i all i did the whole night is write the questions down barely answered any of them so i'm sorting back through i'm going to come back to him tonight and i think one of them was something about how do you know the lord's will and what i said is that's probably the most frequent question i get people are saying how do i know it's lord's will that i take that job did i marry that person did i even do this that i i have two choices how do i know the lord's will did you know that the lord has told us exactly how to know his will did you know that you know what verse if if you're sitting discipling someone and they ask you that where do you turn well let me show you it's back to the middle to psalm 16 and verse 11. because god has told us exactly how to know his will it might surprise you what he said most of you already know that verse but think about what it's saying psalm 16 and verse 11. simeon learned what god wanted to do in life how did he learn it how was he confident that god had a plan and how could he rest in that plan that calm assurance came from what simeon had learned as a good temple going observant jew because he regularly heard the 16th psalm and look what it says in verse 11. this is how you know the lord's will he shows it to us isn't that amazing have you ever thought about that people are out searching i mean it's like they've got spotlights and they're going i want to know the lord's will and the lord is standing there saying verse 11 i will show you the path of life my will only comes by me leading you into it if you stay behind me if you follow me my sheep hear my voice i know them and they what me follow god's will now i know that you know it's what we want to know is between this car and that car and what we want to know is from this person and that person but all of that is answered the same way god says i want to show you the path of life you know you're following me because you'll have fullness of joy as long as you stay in my presence the way we stay in the lord's presence is staying right with him now i'm terrible on this when we're following someone i'll get talking to bonnie and i'll get talking to the kids and i'll get thinking and i just bonnie will say you're you're passing them honey oh i'm sorry i didn't back up slow down stay behind them they're they're leading us somewhere that happens to us regularly in life will we just get going in life and pretty soon we're not following the lord in fact after first service someone met me in the aisle and they said we have been doing what you said this morning for years and the lord hasn't shown us the next step i said then his will is what you're doing right now you should've seen the look on their faces they said waiting is god's will i said yep did you know that there are eight different hebrew words the english word if you take a concordance that's a big book like strong's or young's and look up the english word wait underneath the english word they'll have hebrew word hebrew word hebrew word hebrew word hebrew word and then all the verses that are translated but what you find is there are eight different hebrew words that are all translated by one english word weight you know what that means god has a lot of waiting for us and his will is that we wait in fact the the three ways god answers yes no and wait in my life the most i get the weight one and i don't like that when i like yes or no [Music] do it or don't in its weight and that's because he said you all know this isaiah 40 22 those that wait upon the lord shall renew their strength and they shall mount up with wings like eagles you see god has so much and he wants to verse 11 psalm 16 show us the path do you have the calm assurance that you're following the plan of god if not it means that that you're passing the lord he says wait and follow me okay back to luke 2 and let's keep going so that's the spirit filled life we saw and you parked the car and let him in in the spirit of lumen life you follow him here's the next one i love this the spirit led life now in luke 2 27 look what it says and he came by the spirit into the temple now i'm not going to have you look this up but first i want to show you the daunting task i don't get to do this very often i mean i could talk about the holy land night and day i in fact i was meeting yesterday i shouldn't tell you this but i was meeting yesterday my sister is a missionary new tribes and they were driving through and i saw him at cracker barrel for about an hour and a half you know what they told me they're these geneticists i mean genealogists they're always looking back i think we're related to noah or something they found out and you are too but i mean they're looking in between and you know what they said they said we found out that that on mama's side in czechoslovakia they're all jewish and i said ah that explains it i've always loved jerusalem i think i'm jewish i doubt it but i think i am you know but so i love the holy land do you know what this is this is herod's temple this platform is 40 acres the dome of the rock is right there now but it used to be the holy of holies right here now there are two words for this structure in the new testament the first word is the word naos and it speaks of the holy of holies the other word is hitaran actually doesn't have an h but it has an h sound and that speaks of the whole square the whole precinct this is the word that is used in verse 27. and what what it was is this is 40 acres at some of the feasts and by the way has all kinds of intricacies only the the levitical workers could be in here the men could be inside of this square the women could be inside of this wider square right there and the gentiles could be in the periphery all the way around and so at the high point of the feast you could have a hundred hundred and fifty thousand people or more packed into this normally tens of thousands and simeon is going to find one couple they all kind of look they all dress to like you know robes men and women you know and they're holding a baby and everybody had to come and go with their babies uh for all the ceremonies and and most of the people came up this set of stairs the southern steps here and came in the double and came out the triple and all that but how would they find the how would he find the right ones well look look back at what it says the spirit led life how would you find someone here the same way we would find someone today or find anything the lord wants us to do you all know this verse psalm 119 105. do you know what it says thy word is of what yeah a light to my path in a lamp unto my feet what is that it's talking about walking in the dark that's what most of life is like we're walking in the dark we don't know where we want to go and the israelites would have these little plates and they had a oil lamp and they had a usually two or three cords or chains or strings and they would hold it and it would hang down and they would walk along like this and that light see immediately this communicated in there were no street lights but there were scorpions and vipers and everything else and sharp stones and in drop-offs they didn't have guardrails back then and so people that went out at night had this little lamp that threw a circle on their path and showed them where to put their feet and that's all they got they didn't have you know halogen you know argon lights you know low green lights you know that are in the parking lot they just knew the next step they could see the path the next step they could see the path the next step that that's what the spirit led life is like most of us want a triptych we want to go to triple a and we want the whole thing all the way the destination we wanna know and we're gonna look and decide if we really like it got this huh i want you needing me so much that my word that you're into every day did you know when we're not in the word we're walking in the dark down the path and people are tripping and falling off the edge and getting bit by everything god wants us to have the spirit led life and what that does is look at verse 28 and i'll just finish this up this is so good then he took him up in his arms and blessed god this is simeon and said lord now you're letting your servant depart in peace wow there's so much right there he called himself god's servant and he he considered his life on earth ending with what he called departing and he said i would be peaceful and if i had the time and i usually take a little time on this i do a word study with the people from this verse the word depart in your bible the word depart is used all the way through the new testament in three different ways it talks about in john 8 that the lord sets us free from the slavery of sin so the first thing simeon was saying is i've departed slavery to sin i'm not going to be condemned for my sins i'm never going to pay for them he understood the the the salvation of the lord paul loved this one and peter too they called life living in a tent see and this word is used for someone taking down the tent of their temporary dwelling and what simeon said is i only lived on earth a temporary time the permanent thing is what i'm looking forward to i'm only in the temporary tent now i've told you so many times the story of my friend remember the investment banker that went on camping trip with bonnie and with me and all their kids and all of our kids and he'd never camped for and he bought this palatial tent and he brought a mallet and i i when he got that out of his car i knew we had problems a big wooden long-handled mallet i said what rick what are you doing he said i don't want the wind to blow my tent away i said i said rick i would not use the mallet i said you can just watch and i showed him you just push it in with your foot the tent stick just like that and leave them out so you can pull them nope he said i went i read the package you couldn't see them they were buried under the sod i mean he just buried those things at 3 30 in the rain going to the ferry from prince edward island i went out pulled mine wrapped it up put it in the car all the kids were warm motor running and we were watching with the windshield wipers rick he was straining a half hour on the first one he was trying everything he almost got a shovel to dig the thing out finally everyone got out of the car we all got wet we all tugged on his tent and it collapsed and we just dragged the whole wet mess and threw it in his car there are two ways people go through life people that think this is all there is they're putting the mallet and living like this is all there is and they bury their stakes into this earth when it comes close to the departure they're the ones they aren't ready to go because they're tied here the lord says no if you're filled with the spirit you know departure is pulling that tent get those stakes out it's temporary and you and and this is this is such a picture this word is used for setting sail and in the ancient world you had a boat just lightly tied moored and you just unwrapped it and sailed off and that's what simeon said life was like for him he said i'm getting ready to go it's like going on a cruise and the reason he did that is in the next verse in verse 30 in luke 2 he said for my eyes have seen your salvation and you have prepared before me in the face of all the people verse 32 a light jesus said i'm the light of the world semen said you're the light you're the light that's lit my path you're the light of my life you are the one the light that i follow he made jesus his light and few metaphors capture jesus ministry as well light makes stillness come alive light settles fear light reveals mystery life light enables relationships jesus is god in the flesh and he is the light that broke into our dark worlds and let us know god and what happens look at verse 34 like simeon a spirit-filled life makes us praise god look what he says in verse 34 then simeon's already been praising god now he he blessed them and spirit-filled living makes us have a life that's a blessing to others so that's that's my lesson simeon illustrates the invisible spirit-filled life that god offers but then we come back to this how long has it been since you invited god to do this in your life you know before first service someone came up to me i knew they wanted to talk they were just kind of following me so i turned around and said hey good morning and they said i want to talk to one of those people at the end of the service which one's a good one i said you're serious what are you going to talk to about and they told me and i said i'll stand next to a good one and go like this i did in first service i stood there i thought what his need was and i stood next to one of the elders and i whispered to him i said i'm pointing to you because that man over there wants to talk to someone that's good and i went he was right on him and i saw him just before i came in second service he said thank you did you know the lord wants us to ask him to take over but some people don't know how to do that at the end of the service the men and women that come here stand the front in their bibles the elders and our tightest two women they would like to help you but if you don't want to do that right where you're sitting you can say lord i'm turning off pulling the keys out i'm getting out right now handing you the keys again would you take over my life let's all stand for closing word of prayer as you stand i invite you back tonight we're going to talk about god's will and a whole bunch of other stuff how to make sure how to have assurance of salvation those are some of the best seven or eight questions i've ever gotten on a sunday night but simeon illustrates the spirit-filled life he's normal average and god did something eternal you want to do something eternal with your life pull over turn it off surrender keep letting the lord drive every time you realize you're driving pull over again christian life is a series of pullovers and surrenders let's bow father in heaven i thank you that at the beginning of this exciting busy full hectic christmas season you remind us through simeon that we can have this very peaceful confident life following you at your speed at your rate on your path and you lighting the way and i pray that many of us would choose more and more regularly to let you be in the driver's seat of our life filling us by your spirit and letting us be spirit filled and illumined and led and rejoicing and doing what will never end in the name of jesus we pray and all of god's people said amen god bless you as you [Music] go

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Keywords: Bible, God, Jesus, Christian, teaching, biblical, teach, sermon, trinity, church, lesson, traditional, truth, true, divine, theology, freedom, guilt, testament, pure, interpret, spirit, holy, John, Barnett, christ, father, heaven, hell, doctrine, doctrinal, sinful, forgive, forgiveness, history, teachings, chapters, verses, discover, the book, ministries, dtbm, Dr. Barnett, controversial, repent, helpful, sin, the, book, dr, john, doctor, barnett, training, videos, series, resources, savior, god, jesus

Id: ucP9bfUhspw

Length: 56min 0sec (3360 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 26 2021