Like Simeon, God Offers To Us The Spirit-filled, Illumined, And Led Life

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FTF-09 Spirit Guided Living.docx

Biblical Exercises for Spiritual Health & Fitness in 2014 Series

Truth-3: Spirit-Filled

Simeon Illustrates the Spirit-Filled Life,

the Spirit-Illumined Life & the Spirit-Led Life God Offers

Luke 2:25-35

Transcript

Let’s open our Bibles to Luke chapter 2. We’ve been talking about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, going through a format of discipleship, and kind of me trying to, in a large group, get into a small group context of how I would communicate the truth of the Christian life. We started going through the elements of the Holy Spirit doctrinally, 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. The Holy Spirit is a spirit. He’s invisible. How do you illustrate someone who’s invisible? You show the effects of the invisible Spirit that we can see in their life. That’s what we’re going to see over the next few weeks: the Holy Spirit in normal people and what He does.

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’s 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 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 that 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 that work that He wants to do is illustrated in Simeon’s life.

So, we’re looking one by one at spiritual living lessons that new believers need to have personally taught to them by older believers. That’s what discipleship is. We’ve looked at it, we’re in the third, the first is saved. Now, I repeated this, but I’ll repeat it again. The reason I call saved 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 along 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. Think of any appliance you have, 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? That’s a simple illustration.

I see a lot of Christians, they’re trying to do the Christian life, and they’re popping in and out, but the toaster’s not working. When you sit with them, you say when did you get plugged in? And they go, I didn’t even know I had a plug. See, they’re not saved. I have had the privilege of leading people to the Lord in lesson one of discipleship because the first part of this whole process is that you have to be saved. You have to be supernaturally saved. 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 are only two kinds of people in the world: those who have the Son and those who don’t. And those that don’t, there are some that wish and some that hope and some that are trying in their hardest, but they don’t have the Son. Saved people have the Son, and they have life.

Secondly, the evidence of salvation is Scripture-fed that, like newborn babes, we desire, we have an internal hunger. 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. I have a lot of experience in this. Remember, I can’t tell stories anymore. I’ve gotten so old. I told about how I used to put the, I forget, the baby powder, the big white, big tall thing, and poof, a big cloud of smoke. I had parents in the lobby go, mmm, bad for their lungs. I said, how did anybody grow up? Everything’s bad nowadays, and I love baby powder, but 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, 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 that, then the plug. The power starts showing up. The power of the spiritual life is the Spirit of God filling us. That means that 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. The greatest thing in life is seeing everything God designed. I get this magazine from England. It’s called, I think it’s called Mac Format. I think that’s what it’s called. Something along those lines. It’ll have 122 things you never knew you could do with this or that. I love getting a cup of coffee, getting the magazine, getting my, whatever the article’s about, iPad, iPhone, or I whatever. I sit there and I look at it and I do all the little things. It works. I know if I follow the instructions, this will work. 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 lives.

That’s why Luke, and let’s go to chapter 1, verse 15. I’m going to walk with you, and what I’m going to show you is that the Holy Spirit is revealed in many ways in God’s Word. 80 times in the Old Testament. In fact, after the first service, someone came up and asked me how they could start studying the Bible. 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? 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, just things like that. What I’m doing right now with an individual that I’m discipling, I’m not trying to give them a seminary education. I’m trying to get them started, seeing the process of how you grow.

So, the book of Luke shows us the amazing Holy Spirit at work. Here, I’ll give you the references for it. I wrote them all down for you. This is a typical pneumatology, pneuma, spirit, ologia, or logia 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 just examined what it was He was doing. Then I tied it to what the Epistles, like Paul’s Epistles and Peter’s Epistles, and what James said, I tied it. So I did an entire study of the Holy Spirit at work. So, I sit with them, not to reproduce seminary, but to get them stirred. I usually wait until one of the passages that we cover, you can almost see it when you’re working with someone. They go, whoa, I didn’t know it said that in the Bible. Say that again. How does it work?

So, let me show you what I mean. Verse 15 of chapter 1. 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. 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 actually the conduit through which all the things that God does happen. God the Father is over all, as 1 Corinthians 15 says, until Christ delivers all things back to the Father, who is over all. God the Son is the agent through whom God has revealed Himself as the visible representation of God. The Holy Spirit is the one who does everything, and part of His doing everything is that He doesn’t want us to be paying attention to Him. He wants us to look at Christ, but He’s the one who does everything.

You notice that as we go through this list, Jesus doesn’t do all this stuff. He does it in the power of the Holy Spirit. The more we understand that the Holy Spirit doesn’t want to speak of Himself and doesn’t want to glorify Himself, and that’s 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. If the Holy Spirit is working, it’s pointing everyone toward Christ for what he accomplished.

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. Look what it says. 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 bearing within her God the Son, the Christ. He revealed that. That’s when we have this verse 42, onward, one of the five songs of Christmas that Luke records, the exclamata [Magnificat] it’s called. Blessed art thou among women, all that.

Keep going to verse 67, same chapter. The Holy Spirit’s really busy in verse 1 or chapter 1. 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 Zacharias, Elizabeth, and John the Baptist, and all three of them are filled with the Holy Spirit. It’s fascinating. It’s the only completely Spirit-filled family we have ever chronicled in the Bible. We’ll come to them another week, but it was the Holy Spirit that spoke through Zacharias announcing that God’s Son, Christ, was going to be heralded by their son, John the Baptist.

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. We’ll cover that in detail.

Look at chapter 3. 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 lose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 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 that screen there in the baptistry 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 1 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 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. Usually, they pause for this. This one usually is when they go, wait a minute, 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, 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. By the way, that’s the will of the Father for us too.

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. We go, huh? That’s because Jesus fulfilled God’s will for Him, God the Father’s will for God the Son, Jesus Christ. We are supposed to accomplish God’s will for us. There’s something that each of us was designed, equipped, and called to do that only we can do. Someday we’re going to stand in front of the Father and the Son and the Spirit. The Son will say, I bought them. The Spirit says, I waited within them to accomplish all Your will, oh Father. 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 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. See the power of discipleship? You start talking about this, and you look up at the person you’re discipling and say, do you know what you’re designed to do?

Yeah, I have a snowblower. I can’t wait till we get snow that stays so I can use it. 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. That thing must weigh hundreds of pounds. It’s a two-stage process, and it’s this massive thing. If the motor’s not running, it’s so hard to move. It was not designed to operate without the motor running. Even the little tires seem to resist. Even when I hold the unresistor things, they still resist. They’re kind of like people, resistant. What I thought about is a lot of people go through their Christian life…that snowblower, 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 happy, I had my big earmuffs on and all my snowblowing stuff, and I was going vroom. I love to get it angled, so it just blows over in my neighbor’s yard. I love doing that, and I’ve got to look at the trajectory and do the trigonometry. It is just a grapevine. It doesn’t hurt. I’m watering his grapes, but I’m just going along, and I kept hearing this loud sound, louder and louder. I thought we were snowed in here. It took me three hours to snowblow the driveway. I thought, who is honking? And I turned around. There’s a gigantic UPS truck, and he’s right there. Beep. I had to go into the snow bank to get out of his way. I thought that snowblower, if the motor wasn’t on, could never make a way for the UPS truck. It was designed to do that, but only if the motor’s running. Are you doing what you were designed to do? And that’s what Discipleship’s all about. 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. We’re just doing a pneumatology 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. By the way, when you look at the parallel passage to that, which is in Romans 8:9, who is the one who writes us in Heaven? It’s the Holy Spirit. Jesus goes on to say, look at verse 21, Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, I thank You. Do you know what gave Christ 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 melancholic, at least in Matthew 11:28 to 30, describing Him. But what made Him so full of joy? Look at verse 21. The Spirit of God prompted Him to joy.

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. What I love about this last one is that this is fascinating. The Holy Spirit is called the promise of the Father. God the Father has promised us everything that Christ accomplished, but He promised that only coming through the conduit of the Spirit of God. 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 we spend so much time looking at, there’s some sports person that just got paid, I don’t know, a $300 million contract. I don’t even know what sport, but I wonder if they’re going to get? How much are they going to charge in tickets? I wonder how many years this guy’s going to have to earn that back? But whoever it is, I’m glad he is making it. But we look at these abnormal people, it’s abnormal to be paid $300 million to play a sport. That’s abnormal when normal people work their tails off for $9 or $9.50 or $7.50 or whatever is the going rate. Did you know that the world is basically 99% normal people? The normal people that plow and deliver, and the tanker truck, and the milk truck, and you know the person that picks up the garbage can. If those normal people didn’t do their work, the extraordinary people wouldn’t have any, they wouldn’t even know what to do other than their little specialty, and that’s amazing.

That’s how it is in the church. We know about the superstars, but the vast majority of everything God does in the world is through normal people who allow the Spirit of God to work through them. Simeon is one of them. 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 verse 25. 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 who have ever lived, we don’t even know their names. We know Simeon’s name, but that’s all we know about him other than the fact that we’re going to see that Simeon was a Spirit-filled believer. 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. God wanted someone to intercept that couple coming in, and he wanted to use Simeon to meet Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus and to deliver a blessing. God says, that’s My will. There’s Simeon. 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.

Let’s read this amazing record. It’s starting in 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? Yes. 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, I’m still in 24, starting in verse 25, all the way down through verse 35. Here we go. 25, and behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. And this man was just and 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 custom 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, oh Spirit of God, who illumines You, oh Spirit of God, who inspired this very Word. You are the one who can open it for 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 is what You wish to do more and more in every one of our lives. I pray that we would have open faces, as Paul called it, beholding 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 that there are two kinds…did you know there are two kinds of ways of teaching the Bible? There’s eisegetical teaching and exegetical teaching. Eisegetical teaching is when 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 exageo means you bring them up out of the Bible and you present them.

So, look at this text and tell me, what is God trying to get our attention about? And basically, Simeon’s life is only chronicled here. This is the only time we know about him. What is it that God chooses to point out about his life? Verse 25, look at the very last 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 words of verse 25. The Holy Spirit was upon him. So, that’s pretty clear. Look at verse 26. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. 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 ensured for Simeon a life that mattered. We don’t know anything else about him. He could have come and gone without a marker on a gravestone, but what jumps off the page that records in his life is that he had a life that counted because he walked in the Spirit. That’s what it means,

To walk in the Spirit means to be on duty. 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, and they have to actually come over and do something? It’s a new generation. It used to be you were mobbed. When I grew up, you went into a store, and you were mobbed. Now you have to stir up someone to work, and say, excuse me, do you work here? And they go, why? You say, because I would like to buy something. Okay. They put away their phone. But the old way was that you were taught to be on duty. If someone came in the door, you would go, hello! Hey, can I help you? Do you need some shoes? Or whatever you’re selling. Simeon was on duty. See, that’s what it means to have 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?

God doesn’t force this. God wants to work through us, but He doesn’t force it upon us. In fact, someone in the first service was showing me they had made a quilt for someone in the church, and it was really pretty. It had two hearts, but between them there was a little strand, and it had two doves. 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 is not a bully. Have you ever seen a dove come up and say, move out of the way? When you have peace talks, they show a dove with olive branches. A dove is peaceful, not belligerent, not pushy, not forceful.

How is the Holy Spirit described in the New Testament? 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 the essence of the Spirit-filled life. Life as God intended it 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? 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 them 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. It says, behold, there’s this man in Jerusalem whose name is Simeon. Anna, we know her husband and her tribe, and how old she was. This guy we know nothing about. Just his name. This man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. Let me ask you a question. Now we’re back in the coffee shop, and this is where, when you’re discipling someone, they can tell. You look at them and say how would you get the Holy Spirit on you like that? 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 the Spirit? Then you look at them and say, did you know that the Bible explains this? And 600 years before Simeon, God told everyone how they could have Him fill their life?

Take a moment now, just stay your finger in Luke, but go back to Jeremiah with me, chapter 29. If you don’t know where Jeremiah is, go to the middle, Psalms, go to the right. In my Bible, it’s 210 pages back from Luke, but Jeremiah 29. So, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, go to the right Song of Solomon, 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 in verse 13, in fact, 600 years before Christ’s birth, God explains how you get His attention. Okay?

This is how we get the Spirit of God upon us. This is the secret, Jeremiah 29:13. 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. Then I pause 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. When you want God’s control, God controls us through His Spirit, but He doesn’t force Himself. He waits for an invitation. 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, which is a wonderful passage, says 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. If we just desire Him with all of our heart.

Have you ever talked to someone and you can tell you don’t quite have all their attention? They’re going and they’re doing something else. Or you can hear the keyboard in the background while you’re talking, 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, and let’s go back to Luke 2:25, because this is when I pause. Do 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. You start looking at people and ask them questions. Okay?

This is a typical question that I would ask my person, whoever it is I’m meeting with. I smile at them. I say, could I ask you a question? Of course, there are 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? Your dating life? How about your career? 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 that is both in Chronicles and in Isaiah. It’s a picture Isaiah had, or Hezekiah had a quandary, and he took 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 to the Lord and said, is this what You want? Are these my plans or Yours? I don’t want my plans.

Then you just pause and you smile. They go, am I supposed to answer? You go, mmm hmmm. They say, I don’t even know what that means. How do you do that? Then you explain it. You say this is the perfect example. Now, do you remember that 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 throw seeds, and some of them fell in front of them. They could just see that, and the lilies of the field, and fishermen, and everything. You have to bring the 1st 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. You look at them, remember this is a question. When was the last time you stopped everything in life, parked, turned everything off, and 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, depends on how important He was to us that day. We’re just buzzing off, and all of a sudden we go, oh, sorry. We have to consciously. See, this is usually accomplished in our devotional times. After we pray and He starts opening the Word to us, and we are 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. Here are a couple more questions because you have to keep talking till 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 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 their ancient lives, and David was 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 was a corporate salesman. I worked for American Home, Wyeth, and Airs, and all the drug companies. I traveled, crisscrossed the country, flew, and just that whole fast lifestyle with sales managers on your back and vice presidents. 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 something. That happens to me. Anytime I’m home, I get so distracted. I come around the corner, and there’s Bonnie. I’m immediately distracted when I see Bonnie. You know what I mean? It’s just immediate. You know what? It’s because I love her, and I think sometimes she knows I’m so busy that she just kinda steps out, so I bump into her. The Lord wants to intercept us all through life. 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, it went bankrupt a while back. Just do your job and invite the Lord in at the beginning, and you will bump into Him all day long.

You’ll become aware of His presence in your heart and life. He’ll remind you spontaneously of a Scripture that you have already read or you have 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? 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 who fell asleep in the first service. If you see someone, tell them he’s getting to a good part and wake them up. But look at verse 26. It was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before the Lord, before he’d seen the Lord’s Christ.

Next, like Simeon, seek, now look at the title there on the screen, The Spirit-illumined Life. You know what, and I think I’m covering it tonight, last week we had so many questions. We had a run on the microphones, and all I did the whole night was write the questions down, and barely answered any of them. So, I’m sorting back through and going to come back to them tonight. I think one of them was something about how you know the Lord’s will? What I said is that’s probably the most frequent question I get. People are saying, how do I know it’s the Lord’s will that I take that job, that I marry that person, that I even do this? 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? Do you know what verse, if you’re sitting discipling someone and they ask you that, where do you turn?

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, and it might surprise you what He said. Most of you already know that verse, but think about what it’s saying. In Psalm 16 and verse 11, Simeon learned what God wanted him 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.

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. It’s like they’ve got spotlights and they’re going, I want to know the Lord’s will and the Lord’s 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 what we want to know is between this car and that car, and what we want to know is between 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’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 at 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. Bonnie will say, you’re passing them, honey. Oh, I’m sorry, honey. Back up. Slow down. Stay behind them. They’re leading us somewhere. That happens to us regularly in life. We just get going in life, and pretty soon, we’re not following the Lord. In fact, after the 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 have 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 Strongs or Youngs, and look up the English word wait. Underneath the English word, they’ll have the Hebrew word, Hebrew word, then all the verses that are translated. But what you find is that there are eight different Hebrew words that are all translated by one English word, wait. You know what that means? God has a lot of waiting for us, and His will is that we wait. In fact, the three ways God answers: yes, no, and wait, and in my life, the most I get is the wait one, and I don’t like that one. I like yes or no, do it or don’t, and it’s wait. 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. 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 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 park the car and let Him in, and the Spirit-illumined 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. 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 could talk about the Holy Land night and day. I was meeting yesterday, I shouldn’t tell you this, but I was meeting yesterday, my sister’s a missionary with New Tribes. They were driving through, and I saw them at Cracker Barrel for about an hour and a half. You know what they told me? They’re these genealogists, they’re always looking back. I think we’re related to Noah or something they found out, and you are too. But they’re looking in between. You know what they said? They said, we found out that on Mama’s side in Czechoslovakia, they’re all Jewish. I said, ah, that explains it. I’ve always loved Jerusalem. I think I’m Jewish. I doubt it, but I think I am. 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 hieron. It 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 it was, this is 40 acres, and at some of the feasts, and by the way, it has all kinds of intricacies. Only the Levitical workers could be in here. The men could be inside this square. The women could be inside this wider square right there. The Gentiles could be in the periphery all the way around. At the high point of the feast, you could have 100,000, 150,000 people or more packed into this, normally tens of thousands.

And Simeon was going to find one couple. They all looked, they all dressed alike, robes, men and women, and they’re holding a baby, and everybody had to come and go with their babies for all the ceremonies. 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 he find the right ones? 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 what? A lamp. Yeah. A light to my path and 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, and we don’t know where we want to go.

The Israelites would’ve these little plates, and they had an oil lamp, and they usually had two or three cords or chains, or strings. They would hold it and it would hang down, and they would walk along like this. That light, see, immediately communicated. There were no streetlights, but there were scorpions and vipers and everything else, and sharp stones and drop-offs. They didn’t have guardrails back then, and so people who 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 halogen, argon lights, or low green lights 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’s what the Spirit-led life is like.

Most of us want a TripTik. We want to go to AAA, and we want the whole thing all the way to the destination. We want to know, and we’re going to look at and decide if we really like it. God says, I want you needing Me so much that My Word 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 bitten by everything.

God wants us to have a Spirit-led life. 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 considered his life on Earth ending with what he called departing. He said, I would be peaceful.

If I had the time, and I usually take a little time on this, I would 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 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. 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 who went on a camping trip with Bonnie and me and all their kids and all of our kids. He’d never camped before, and he bought this palatial tent, and he brought a mallet. 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, Rick, I would not use the mallet. I said, you can just watch. I showed him, you just pushed in with your foot the tent stake. Just go 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. He just buried those things.

At 3:30 a.m. in the rain, going to the ferry from Prince Edward Island, I went out, pulled mine, wrapped it up, and put it in the car. All the kids were warm, motor running, and we were watching with the windshield wipers, Rick. He was straining for half an 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 who think this is all there is. They’re putting in the mallet and living like this is all there is. They bury their stakes into this Earth. When it comes close to the departure, they’re the ones who aren’t ready to go because they’re tied here. The Lord says no. If you’re filled with the Spirit, departure is pulling that tent. Get those stakes out. It’s temporary. You, and this is such a picture, this word is used for setting sail. In the ancient world, you had a boat just lightly tied, moored, and you just unwrapped it and sailed off. 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.

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. 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. Siemeon 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. Few metaphors capture Jesus’ ministry as well. Light makes stillness come alive. Light settles fear. Light reveals mystery. Light enables relationships. Jesus is God in the flesh, and He is the light that broke into our dark world and let us know God.

What happens? Look at verse 34. 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 blessed them. Spirit-filled living makes us have a life that’s a blessing to others. So, 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? Before the first service, someone came up to me. I knew they wanted to talk. They were just following me, so I turned around and said, hey, good morning. 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, are you serious? What are you going to talk to them about? And they told me, and I said, I’ll stand next to a good one and go like this. I did, in the first service! I stood, 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 who’s good. I went [pointed]. Boom. He was right on him. 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 who come here and stand in the front with their Bibles, the Elders, and our Titus 2 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 and handing You the keys again. Would You take over my life?

Let’s all stand for a 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. The 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. 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 go.

Notes

We are looking one-by-one at the Spiritual Living Lessons that new believers need to have personally taught to them by older believers.

Saved: We have seen salvation as portrayed across the pages of Acts by those early Apostles & disciples.

Scripture-Fed: Then we examined the Scriptures and the link between salvation through the Word and spiritual nurture by daily feeding upon the Word.

Spirit-Filled: This is the whole realm of understanding all that God has given us through Christ that only comes to us by walking in step with the Holy Spirit. We have examined the Scriptural terms: Spirit-filled, Spirit-Led, grieving & quenching, and even seen the immensity of the Spirit’s work as portrayed in Romans.

The Holy Spirit is revealed in many ways in God’s Word: perhaps eighty times in the Old Testament, at least fifty times in the Gospels, nearly sixty times in Acts, and more than one hundred times in the rest of the New Testament.  But today we need to see how:

Luke Emphasizes the Amazing Holy Spirit @ Work

It was the Holy Spirit that Gabriel announced would fill John the Baptist as he prepared the way for Christ’s coming (Luke 1:15).

It was the Holy Spirit who caused Christ’s conception in Mary (Luke 1:35);

It was the Holy Spirit who prompted Elisabeth to announce Christ’s presence within Mary (Luke 1:41);

It was the Holy Spirit who spoke through Zechariah announcing that his son was Christ’s herald named John the Baptist (Luke 1:67);

It was the Holy Spirit who led Simeon to find Jesus carried by Joseph & Mary in the Temple area (Luke 2:25-27).

It was the Holy Spirit who baptizes believers into Christ’s church (Luke 3:16; 1 Corinthians 12:13);

It was the Holy Spirit who led Christ out into His desert temptation (Luke 3:22; 4:1; Mark 1:12).

It was the Holy Spirit who empowered Christ to preach the Gospel (Luke 4:14, 18).

It was the Holy Spirit who indwells us the moment we are saved by Christ (Luke 10:20; Romans 8:9); and becomes the engagement ring or down payment of our eternal redemption (Ephesians 1:13).

It was the Holy Spirit who empowered Christ to minister with joy (Luke 10:21).

It was the Holy Spirit who was given as a gift to those who ask for Him from God the father (Luke 11:13; John 7:37-39).

It was only by the Holy Spirit that Christ casts out evil spirits (Luke 11:20; Matthew 12:28).

It was the Holy Spirit who empowered the disciples to preach the Gospel with boldness (Luke 12:10, 12).

It was the Holy Spirit that was called the Promise of My Father by Christ that endued the disciples with power (Luke 24:49).

Seeing the Spirit at Work in Normal People

Today as we head towards Christmas, we begin a more personal look at the Spirit. Instead of seeing just the didactic, doctrinal writings of the Epistles, we are going to spend these weeks using the characters of Christmas as illustrations.

In the Gospels we see the Holy Spirit greatly at work in both Christ’s life and those around Him.  We can actually see how the Spirit can operate when we see what He does in those who surrender, yield, and seek to stay in step with Him.

Simeon is introduced to us by God in Luke 2:22-35, and if it wasn’t for that introduction, he would be like untold billions of others throughout human history that were only know by those closest to them during their lives; and who died without leaving a trace.

Even if God hadn’t added him to the Biblical record, and even if we had never read about Simeon, what he was will last forever.

Simeon was an Old Testament saint, who lived in hope waiting for the coming Christ by faith; and died in faith, ready to go whenever God’s time came.

Ready to go, what a way we all should live.

Meet Simeon a Spirit-Filled Believer

Simeon sends a message from his life that extends far from the Christmas scenes, reaching all the way to the very end of each of our lives. Simeon was a Spirit-filled and Spirit-led servant; and his life is a model for each of us.

In our text a nearly six-week-old Jesus was on His way in the arms of His parents to be dedicated in Jerusalem’s Temple. Joseph and Mary would undoubtedly been walking up the entrance called the Southern Steps. I love to teach this passage standing in the midst of a group of Holy Land pilgrims with Bibles opened. It is one of those moments when you can feel the very place the event happened in God’s Word!

Around Christ’s parents would have been the tens of thousands of pilgrims who each day streamed in and out of that astounding structure. The Temple Mount was a 40-acre platform that could easily contain a quarter-of-a-million people standing on feast days. Herod enlarged the platform Solomon had built and surrounded it with one of the greatest colonnades of the ancient world. Among this forest of gleaming white 60’ carved limestone pillars, moved the rivers of worshippers who filled the Temple each day in Jerusalem.

God’s Record of An Amazing Moment

Luke captures the moment when just a hand full of these thousands of worshippers met in a Divine appointment. The transcript of their meeting has been preserved through the inspiration of God, and comes to us as part of God’s record of Christ’s birth.  Please stand, as we witness again this event in Luke 2:22-35.

Luke 2:22-35 (NKJV) Now when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord ²³ (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”), ²⁴ and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, “A pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”

²⁵ And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. ²⁶ 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. ²⁷ 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 custom of the law, ²⁸ he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said:

²⁹ “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace,
According to Your word;
³⁰ For my eyes have seen Your salvation
³¹ Which You have prepared before the face of all peoples,
³² A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles,
And the glory of Your people Israel.”

³³ And Joseph and His mother marveled at those things which were spoken of Him. ³⁴ Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother, “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against ³⁵ (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

Pray

Think for a moment what we have here. These fourteen verses are a biographical snapshot that God wrote down for us using Luke as His human agent. So, each detail we read was chosen by God to frame our understanding of what God saw in Simeon’s life.

So what do these 14 verses teach us?

The Spirit’s Fullness is Emphasized in Simeon’s Life

Simeon’s life, chronicled ONLY here in all of God’s Word, models what it means to make choices to walk in the power of God’s Spirit. Note the concentration of terms familiar to us, on this side of the Cross in the age of Christ’s Church, but very uncommon in these end of the Old Testament times Simeon lived in. Three clear statements of the Spirit of God’s work in his life:

1. 25b the Holy Spirit was upon him.
2. 26 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.
3. 27 So he came by the Spirit

Walking in the Spirit insured for Simeon—a life that mattered, a life that counted, and that pleased Jesus.

Walking in the Spirit gives us a life that pleases God, and a life that is “on duty” as God’s servant, at any moment.

But God does not force Himself upon us.

The words most associated with the Holy Spirit’s filling of our lives are all choices. Think of those words used for the life of the Spirit:

abide, walk, wait, seek first, present yourself, clothe yourself, yield yourself, surrender, consecrate, follow, Spirit-led, and be filled with the Spirit.

Those are words of choices made, and of a conscious pathway of choosing to open one’s life to God’s rule.

Life as God intended it to be, for every believer, is pictured by this simple, humble, and obscure saint. As we study these truths, ask yourself, “Am I offering myself to the Lord, to live this kind of life He wants me to live, as a gift to Christ this Christmas?”

First, Like Simeon Seek The Spirit-Filled Life God Offers:

Luke 2:25 And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.

How does anyone get God to enter their life? God said long before Simeon’s day in Jeremiah 29:13, which was written six hundred years before Christ’s birth:

Jeremiah 29:13 (NKJV) And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

Simeon sought God.

Simeon opened his life to God, and surrendered to His control.

Simeon wanted God’s way, and God controls surrendered people by filling them with His Spirit.

Simeon was living the Spirit-filled life that God offers.

Application: Pause and ask yourself:

How long has it been since I asked God to take over my plans?

How long since you parked the car of your life, turned off the ignition, pulled the keys out and surrendered both the keys, the steering wheel, and the driver’s seat to God?

How long has it been since you were personally aware of His Presence in your heart and life each day?

How long has it been since you cried out and told the Lord that you wanted to rely upon Him to lead and guide you?

Next, like Simeon Seek the Spirit-Illumined Life God offers:

Luke 2:26 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.

Simeon learned what God wanted him to do in life.

He was confident that the Lord had a plan and he rested by faith in God will for his life.

Simeon sought to follow God’s plan. He said not my way but yours.

Simeon found the Spirit-illumined life God offers.

Do you have that calm assurance that you are following the plan of God? Remember what Simeon had grown up hearing? As a faithful Jew he would have often heard the Psalms and one of the most well know Psalms was David’s 16^th Psalm that is a promise from God to “show us the path of life”. Look there with me and underline these words in your soul:

Psalm 16:11 (NKJV) You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy;

At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

God wants to illumine, guide, and direct His path for us, all we have to do is want to listen to His voice.

Application: Have you ever invited the Spirit of God to illumine your mind by bowing and asking Him to “open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things” in Your Word (Ps. 119:18)? That is what the Spirit-illumined life is all about. Asking God to open His Word, which is His Will, which is His plan for our lives. That is the work of the Spirit God offers to each of us.

Have you allowed the Lord to illumine His Word and open your eyes to see what He has planned for your life? The greatest joy in life comes from knowing and doing God’s will for your life.

Thirdly, like Simeon Seek the Spirit-Led Life God offers:

Luke 2:27 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 custom of the law,

Simeon knew that God wanted to show him the path, so he just set out to follow the Lord day-by-day.

Jesus said that the essence of being His disciple was to “follow” Him. He also said that His sheep hear His voice, and follow Him. The Spirit led life is a life of hearing and following God through His Word, by the Holy Spirit’s power.

Application: Do you walk through life being consciously led by the Spirit? Being led by the Spirit is one of the evidences of salvation (Rom. 8:14), and we should be very conscious of His guiding work in our lives.

What pathway are you choosing to live? Simeon had made a choice to follow the Spirit’s leading.

Now we get to the heart of Simeon’s spiritual walk. Simeon is an advertisement to. Listen what walking in the Spirit can do, it made Simeon full of joy, peace, and hope:

Fourth, Like Simeon Spirit-Filled Living makes Us Ready to Go

Luke 2:28-29 he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said: 29 “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, According to Your word”; NKJV

Simeon was ready to die at any moment v. 29: The word “depart” in the Greek has several meanings, and each of them tells us something about the death of a Christian.

Each of these pictures gives us a beautiful and comforting hope.

Death is only the start of the greatest journey of our lives and involves leaving behind our slavery to sin, taking down our tent of our temporary earthly dwelling, and setting sail for our home beyond the stars.

Depart can mean ‘to release a prisoner’ which speaks of our redemption from the slave market of sin. This aspect of salvation is the most frequent theme of the saints (“the redeemed”) in Heaven. We like Simeon should celebrate that Christ’s death has made us long to leave behind our slavery to sin.

John 8:32, 36 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” 36 Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

Depart can also mean ‘to untie a ship and set sail’, and this is the picture Paul gives when he told Timothy “I am now ready to depart’’. We like Simeon should celebrate that Christ’s death has made us long to take down our tent of our temporary earthly dwelling.

II Timothy 4:6-7 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. NKJV

Depart finally speaks of ‘taking down a tent’ and this is the metaphor of Paul in II Corinthians 5:1-8 as he talks of his and our death being the laying aside of our tents. We like Simeon should celebrate that Christ’s death has made us long to setting sail for our home beyond the stars.

2 Corinthians 5:1-8 For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, 3 if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked.4 For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. 6 So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. 7 For we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. NKJV

Each of these pictures gives us a beautiful and comforting hope. Death is only the start of the greatest journey of our lives and involves leaving behind our slavery to sin, taking down our tent of our temporary earthly dwelling, and setting sail for our home beyond the stars.

Fifth, Like Simeon Spirit-Filled Living makes Jesus Our Light

Luke 2:30-33 For my eyes have seen Your salvation 31 Which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, 32 A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, And the glory of Your people Israel.” 33 And Joseph and His mother marveled at those things which were spoken of Him. NKJV

Simeon saw Jesus as the Light for his life v. 32: “Simeon referred to Jesus as “a light for revelation.”

Few metaphors capture Jesus’ mission as well. Light makes the stillness come alive; light settles fear; light reveals mystery; light enables relationships. Jesus is God in the flesh, eternal light breaking into a spiritually dark world.

Jesus is your light. He is not a distant sun, remote and driven by physics’ laws. Jesus is the light of your life—your courage, your enabler.

Start each day by turning on the light—a moment of meditation on God’s Word, a prayer of dedication to live for God all day”.^[1]

Sixth, Like Simeon Spirit-Filled Living makes us praise God

Luke 2:34-35 Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother, “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against 35 “(yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” NKJV

How did Simeon praise God? Notice how he “blesses” those around him. He is not trapped by his situation (weak, and elderly as he may have been), rather he is choosing to praise God.

Praise is a choice, and in Simeon’s life it had to start by a conscious decision to push aside all of his problems and complaints in order to see and then celebrate God’s generosity. In those days just getting daily necessities took much more work than we are used to. So as he made it through each day, Simeon learned to thank God for his “daily bread” as Jesus would call it. But the clearest choice this passage reveals is that Simeon had chosen to reorient his heart around God’s message in His Word and the priorities that the Bible taught him.

Simeon chose to live in hope. He walked in step with the Spirit of God, and his life was an offering us praise. That is the beautiful portrait that God’s Word gives us of this man we only see here in the entire Bible. I hope he will become an example and inspiration for many of us to also live in hope, energized by God to live this life of praise.

As you hold God’s Word in your hands, let this truth overflow into your mind, your heart, and your life—nothing is as bleak as the life of an unbeliever. They must live only for today because they have no firm hope in God’s promises of a glorious tomorrow.

With the promises of God to cling to, every day has hope and good cheer. As believers we know the truth of the Scriptures that nothing can separate us from God’s love—neither old age, nor grim circumstances. Remember today that nothing but your own wrong choices can keep you from God’s comfort.

He is sufficient for our needs today and forever. Allow God’s Spirit to use Simeon’s example to energize you to look ahead to God’s great plan for each day. Choose to live in hope one day at a time like Simeon.

But the greatest message from this whole passage is that we like Simeon can have a:

Simeon Portrays the Spirit-Filled Life

Look back at Luke 2:25

And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.

If we are truly saved, we have the Spirit. He lives within, we are His temple.

Simeon chose to live energized by God’s Spirit of hope.

He walked in step with the Spirit of God, and his life was an offering us praise.

That is the beautiful portrait that God’s Word gives us of this man we only see here in the entire Bible.

I hope Simeon will become an example and inspiration for many of us to also live in hope, energized by God to live this life of praise.

Appendix:

Simeon’s words declare—

“how completely a believer can be delivered from the fear of death. “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace” (verse 29). Simeon speaks like a person for whom the grave has lost its terrors and the world its charms. He speaks as one who knows where he is going when he departs this life and cares not how soon he goes. What delivers us from that fear of death which enslaves so many people? There is only one answer to this question. Nothing except strong faith can do it. Faith laying firm hold on an unseen Savior—faith resting on the promises of an unseen God. Faith, and faith only, can enable a man to look death in the face and say, “I depart in peace.”[2]

Simeon was Spirit Sealed: Luke 2:30-32 For my eyes have seen Your salvation 31 Which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, 32 A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, And the glory of Your people Israel.”

When we were saved the Holy Spirit enters our lives and transforms us. Note the practical applications of this truth to our lives that God’s Word has given us.

The Holy Spirit Authenticates and certifies that we belong to God. Ephesians 1:13 In whom ye also [trusted], after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the holy Spirit of promise, (KJV)

The Holy Spirit Secures us. 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, 22 who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. NKJV

These verses say that the Holy Spirit has signed, sealed and delivered us for God. The Holy Spirit also given to us as a pledge. God delivered us our engagement ring. This is the security of divine protection. We are delivered God’s engagement ring. It is a pledge that there is even more to come.

The Holy Spirit makes us to be Epistles of Christ. Look at 2 Corinthians 3:3 clearly [you are] an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, [that is,] of the heart. (NKJV)

Do you see the plan? We are the love letters of God. Written in our lives, signed and sealed by the Spirit, delivered as a down payment to empower us to go out and be read by the world! So testifying of Christ is not an option. It is the very reason for which we have been made. Each of us have become His book, written by Christ, published or circulated by the Holy Spirit into the world, taking God’s love to sinful mankind. We are bound not in full grain leather, but in a human life. Are you carrying the priceless message of Christ into the world? Does your lifestyle advertise your true contents? Does your dress, deportment, modesty, conduct and language support your message or confuse it? Is the Holy Spirit writing on your life fresh messages from His Word? Is the Eternal truth coming through? How sacred is our calling.

The Holy Spirit supplies us to be Snapshots Of Christ! 2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. (NJKV)

The Holy Spirit wants the image of Jesus to be a full color photo in our lives. We are not just His epistles, or letters. We are full color, living Photos. We are movies, videos of Jesus. They want proof that He is real and alive? He lives within my heart! Unveiled like the camera lens to get a clear exposure. Let’s lay aside the world, our flesh, our bad habits, our wrong desires, our mixed up priorities, our personal grievances, our petty strife, our bitterness. All must be rid of to be a clear photograph. Signed, Sealed and Delivered Epistles. Illustrating Christ to a dark and hopeless World. That is what the Holy Spirit wants to do with you. Are you willing?

So Simeon departs from the pages of God’s Word — Finishing Life Fruitfully for Jesus.

Other Simeon Messages:

131215AM Giving To God Like Simeon: A Life of Walking In The Spirit Luke 2:22-35

071216AM GCM-40 Simeon: Living a Life of Hope Luke 2:22-35

051218AM GCM-28 Seeing Christ This Christmas Being Good And Faithful Servants Like Simeon & Anna Luke 2.22-38

031228AM GCM-5 Finishing Fruitfully Waiting: Simeon & Anna Luke 2.22-38

^[1]Barton, Bruce B. ; Veerman, David ; Taylor, Linda Chaffee ; Osborne, Grant R.: Luke. Wheaton, Ill. : Tyndale House Publishers, 1997 (Life Application Bible Commentary), S. 51

[2]Ryle, J. C., Luke: The Crossway Classic Commentaries, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books) 1998, c1997.

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