Priscilla Shirer | How to Recognize the Holy Spirit's Presence in Your Life

Wouldn't it be a tragedy for us to be at church participating in online service and ministry, coming to uh gatherings like this one, fellowshipping with other believers, having our own quiet time, singing all the songs and enjoying um all of the upliftment that we get when we're in the presence of God and the study of his word and around God's people.

What if we were to do all of that? What if we were to be in the temple but still not have perspective 
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 and vision to recognize God when he shows up. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I thank you for the opportunity to hear you clearly through the scriptures. I pray Lord that as we open up just a few verses of scripture that your spirit will illumine your word so that we can hear you so that we can be strengthened by you.

So that Father, we have clarity and vision, that we have discernment, that you will give solutions supernaturally, and that you will offer each and every one of us even despite the distance that you will give all of us wherever we are exactly what we need to gird us up by your spirit for the season that is ahead in Jesus name.

Amen. I remember several years ago taking my boys to the movies and I was taking them to see a movie that was in 3D. I remember there were several options available. There was a standard showing, but there was also a 3D showing, and that's the one, of course, that my boys wanted to see.

They were pretty young at the time. I think my youngest was four years old. And we walked into the movie theater and we sat down. We had our popcorn. We had our sodas in hand. And the trailers started to play. We watched all the previews of coming attractions.

And then the movie started. And we were about 10 minutes in the movie when my four-year-old poked me and said, "Mom, I don't like this movie." I said, "Why in the world do you not like the movie, son?" He said, "I don't like this movie because I can't see it clearly."

I looked down at my four-year-old son and realized that he didn't have on the 3D glasses. He was watching the blurry images that were flashing up on the the film screen. I mean, he could see them big, but they weren't clear. So I said to him, "Buddy, didn't they give you those glasses when you came in?

Do you see your brothers? Do you see that that I have on these little specific glasses that bring clarity to what it is that we're watching? Without those glasses, it's going to be blurry. It's not going to be enjoyable at all. You got to put the glasses on."

He fumbled around him in the chair where he was sitting. He found the little glasses, opened up the plastic wrapper, pulled the little glasses out, the paper glasses. He put them on his face, and he said, "I can see. I can see the picture hadn't changed but the perspective with which he was viewing the picture changed and that change changed everything.

I want to talk to you about perspective. I want to talk to you about one person who has grabbed my attention in scripture because he was able to see God moving and God working despite the difficulties that everyone was facing that time not only personally but that everybody was facing within the entire nation in that time period.

There was one man who stands out because he could see stuff clearly. He was still encouraged because he saw the hand of God, the grace of God, the goodness of God, the presence of God, the power of God unfolding when other people all around him could not. He's in the book of Luke and his name is Simeon.

If you have your Bible and you want to turn with me for just a few minutes to the book of Luke, you know, if you actually still use a Bible with paper pages like I do or your iPhone, your iPad, any manner of will get you to the book of Luke.

And as you turn to Luke chapter 2, let me just tell you that I love so much the Gospel of Luke because Luke wrote this gospel and recorded the stories and the encounters with Jesus not only to show us how Jesus in the in in humanity actually encountered regular human beings, talked with them and walked with them, had relationship with them, how he taught them and how he demonstrated his deity through the miracles that he performed.

He not only wrote it so that we could see Jesus moving in the lives of other people. He wrote it so that we would know that we can encounter him ourselves. And this is the goal for those of us who have placed faith in Jesus Christ. To be able to see him moving in our lives to be able to recognize the hope that we have in him even when we're in what seem like hopeless situations. to be able to have a clear view of victory even when we're in a situation where it feels like devastating loss.

We're not just supposed to see about our God and his power written about in the scriptures and applaud it there. We're not just supposed to know that he's the God that divided the Red Sea or that he's the God that led the children of Israel through the wilderness or that he's the God that showed up for Gideon and called him out of timidity and insecurity and fear or that he's the God that met up with the Hebrew boys in the fiery furnace.

We're not just supposed to know that he did it for them without walking away from that with perspective for our own lives. He's the same God that leads us through our wildernesses. He's the same God that divides the impossible Red Sea circumstances that we face. He's the exact same God that shows up in the fiery furnace that we're sitting in, the trials and tribulations that we face in the regular rhythms of of life.

Luke writes, "A handful of encounters during Jesus public earthly ministry so that we would be reminded that just like the power of God was available to them back then in the Old and New Testaments that he is also available to us." You should also know that Luke is writing not only to individuals who need a savior, who need a hero.

He's writing to an entire nation that is in trouble at the moment that he writes. During this particular time during the nation of Israel his history, there was national decay. There was difficulty everywhere. Israel was suffering under the weight of foreign rule. So they were looking for a hero.

They were waiting for the kingdom of God to be at hand. They were waiting for their savior, the Messiah to come. And right here at the beginning of the book of Luke, Luke begins to write about Jesus showing up in the form of a baby. He writes about God himself putting on human flesh and showing up in a package that nobody was anticipating in the moment.

They were expecting a king to ride in, you know, seated on a horse with a with a sword in his hand, coming in authority and power and all manner of royalty and regalness. But he didn't come that way. He came wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

They weren't expecting that package. And because they weren't expecting that package, when God showed up, when he was coming, when he was answering them, when his presence was near, when the kingdom of God was at hand, when the redemption story was unfolding, because it was unfolding in a way that they were not anticipating, God was near, but nobody except one guy recognized it.

I want to have perspective like that. I don't want to miss Jesus if he's speaking. I don't want to miss him if he's moving just because stuff in my personal life or stuff in my community or things that are happening in my nation or yes the entire globe seem to be really difficult to contend with.

I don't want that to allow me to not have perspective and vision to see clearly the hand of God moving in spite of those difficulties. That's why I'm so drawn to Luke chapter 2 verse 25. Luke writes and says, "Behold, there is a man in Jerusalem. His name is Simeon, and this man was righteous.

He was devout, and he was looking for the consolation of Israel, Jesus. He was looking for the Messiah." And the end of verse 25 says, "The Holy Spirit was upon him." Right here in this moment, we see a beautiful resume, so to speak, of a man who was able to recognize Jesus when no one else did because it says in verse 26 that it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he had seen the Lord's Christ.

So in verse 27, he comes in the spirit into the temple. And when the parents of Jesus bring in the child Jesus to carry out the custom of the law, he sees this baby, this baby that no one else really recognizes to be the full manifestation of the glory and the authority and the power and the presence of God himself when no one else recognized him.

It says that Simeon takes this baby into his arms and he blesses him and he says in verse 29, "Now Lord, you can let me depart in peace because I have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all the people. He is a light of revelation and the glory of thy people Israel."

Simeon recognizes Jesus when no one else does. Now, it's important that you know that at the moment that this happens, that Jesus is being brought into um the temple by Mary and Joseph to be dedicated unto the Lord. That's an interesting thought, by the way. The Lord being presented to the Lord.

But here he comes, Jesus being carried by his parents into the temple. That's the insight that I don't want you to miss. that when all this happens, these folks are in the temple. Listen, they're at church and the presence of God is in the building with them, in the religious ceremony with them, right in the middle of all of their sacred religious activity.

God's presence is there and everybody's so busy doing the religious activity that they don't even recognize that Jesus himself has stepped into the space. Wouldn't it be a tragedy for us to be at church participating in online service and ministry, coming to uh 
[clears throat]
 gatherings like this one, fellowshipping with other believers, having our own quiet time, singing all the songs and enjoying um all of the upliftment that we get when we're in the presence of God and the study of his word and around God's people.

What if we were to do all of that? What if we were to be in the temple but still not have perspective and vision to recognize God when he shows up? The thing is it happens all the time that throughout the regular rhythms of our everyday life because the stuff of our personal life is so difficult in our marriages or in our parenting or in our financial situation or we flip through Twitter or Instagram or we're watching the news and we see everything that is happening the calamity around us the difficulty the unrest the unsettledness of our society and in the midst of all of that we can get so busy doing all of the religious activity, doing all of the right things that we think are supposed to uh be sufficient enough to keep us in relationship with God.

But sometimes we can be so busy that we don't recognize the still small voice of the Holy Spirit whispering to us, speaking to us, that we don't see his hand and recognize that those are his fingerprints actually orchestrating the details of our day despite the difficulty. actually orchestrating the details of the encounters that we're having with other people that we're coming in contact with or that we're meeting up with or even through the tragedies that we've faced as a globe.

Even through the pandemics and the heartache and the unrest, if we don't have eyes to see, we won't recognize some of God's fingerprints and his answers that are right among us. Even though we are in the midst of difficult times, this sounds to me a lot like the prophet Habach.

You know, he said, "Lord, where are you?" The whole first chapter of the book of Habach is the prophet saying, "Lord, how long are you going to let this go on and where are you?" And when God finally answers the prophet Habach, he says, "Open up your eyes and look around."

Because if you'll just observe, not from your own human perspective, but if you will be fitted with the perspective, the divine heavenly perspective that I have given you access to Habach, then you will begin to have a clearer picture, you'll see that even with the fray of all that's happening and even with the calamity and even with the stuff that you're actually praying and hoping and go away, go hoping will go away, if you'll just look more clearly, you'll be able to see that I'm still moving, that I am still seated on the throne.

That I have not been displaced and surprised by all the stuff that has surprised you. I still am who I said I am. And I will still do exactly what I said that I will do. I want to encourage you that if the package with which God has decided to move in your life does not look like what you thought it would, you've been praying in one direction, but it seems like God is leading you in another direction.

You've been asking him for this answer, but his answers coming out a little bit differently than you would have preferred. You have been asking God to bring this kind of solution, but the remedy looks completely different than anything that you would have ever anticipated and would have ever considered praying.

I want to ask you and encourage you to remember that God is on your side. And any answer that he's going to give you is a better answer in the long run than anything than you and I would ever know to pray for anyway. Ephesians chapter 3 says, "Now unto him who's able to do exceedingly abundantly above and beyond anything that you can ask or even think.

To him be the glory in the church. He does beyond what you can ask or even think. That means that if you cannot verbalize it because honestly you can't even get your brain to come up with the right vernacular, the right words to help you to pray the right prayers to be able to come up with the best solutions for your circumstances.

You need to know that's okay because God says if you just think it, I'll do past that. In other words, there are categories of of answers and solutions that are beyond our capacity to even pray. The top uh solution, the top miracle that we could ever see that God could do in regards to whatever we're praying for ourselves or our uh communities, our nation, our world. the the top fringes of what our human mind can come up with doesn't even re reach the lowest level of categories that God has to work with.

And so we have to trust that when he sends answers in a package that is not what we pre prefer and it's not what we've prayed for, we have to trust that his ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. as high as the heavens are above above ours.

That's how high his his ways and his thoughts are above our own. So, we got to trust him. We've got to stop trying to dumb God's answers down to a level where we can understand them. Instead, we've got to pray, "Lord, would you give me perspective and vision like Simeon, so that I'm not just in the church, just in the temple, just in Bible study, just doing all the religious stuff and still don't recognize you when you are right in front of me."

Simeon recognized Jesus. Now, I want to just open up a little uh parenthesis here for just a few moments because I want to show you something that's interesting. If you back up just a few verses, there's a little background to Joseph and Mary coming into the temple on this particular occasion.

It says in verse 21 that when it was 8 days when 8 days were completed before Jesus's circumcision, then his name was called Jesus, the name that had been given by the angel when he was conceived in the womb. And after the days of purification according to the law of Moses were over, that was about 40 days.

So, we're about 40 days in to Jesus's life. Then they came to offer a sacrifice. Verse 24 says, and look at the detail in verse 24. It says that they brought a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. Now, I wanted to figure out why in the world Luke would go into all that detail.

And you know, he is a detailed writer. He is a physician. And you know how physicians and doctors are, they are detailed and meticulous to make sure that they cover all of the nuances that can't be missed in their profession. Physician Luke is detailed. So I wondered about this little detail that he left there.

He wanted to make sure you knew exactly what and I knew exactly what Mary and Joseph brought with them when they were coming to make the sacrifices according to the law in the temple on this particular occasion. And he says to make sure you knew that they brought two pigeons.

Leviticus 12 gives us a lot of detail about what the sacrificial system in Old Testament law look like. And it's real specific that when someone came to make a sacrifice on the occasion that Mary and Joseph were coming that they were supposed to bring indeed two animals but one was supposed to be a pigeon pigeon and the other was supposed to be a lamb.

But interestingly, there's a little bit of a caveat in Leviticus 12:8, and it says that if a lamb could not be afforded, if a lamb was too highriced for that person or that couple to be able to afford to to buy the lamb, the spotless lamb that would be needed to sacrifice for the burnt offering and the sin offering which were offered on this kind of an occasion that it was understood that they couldn't afford it.

So they could just buy the lesser expensive dove instead of that lamb. So if a person came into the temple with two of the pigeon dove pigeons or the turtle doves instead of a lamb, it would automatically indicate to people that they had insufficient resources. If if they were seen coming into the temple with without a lamb, that it would be clear that people would understand that they did not have the markings of success or of fortune, that they didn't have wealth, that they were not the social elite, they were lambless, that meant they weren't privileged, they weren't advantage, they weren't affluent.

It would mark their deficiency. Scholars say that Joseph probably had money to some extent at one point. remember he was a carpenter but because they had traveled so much in and around Bethlehem remember they had to travel there for Mary to be for Mary to give birth in the first place and so they would have been traveling in and around Bethlehem and all of that travel scholars say probably exhausted all of his funds so by the time they come to the temple all of his funds have been so re so depleted he's now so deficient that he comes into the tabernacle with all of the markings of lack and defic efficiency.

And here's my question. I wonder how many people would have turned their noses up at Mary and Joseph. I wonder how many people would have seen this couple who clearly don't have the resources, who are clearly not elite, who are clearly not u privileged, who clearly do not have affluence.

I wonder how many people would have turned their noses up at Mary and Joseph and walked away not knowing that they were simultaneously walking away from the people who may not have a lamb, but they didn't need a lamb because they had in their hands the lamb that takes away the sins of the world.

So, if you've ever been in that group where you have felt marginalized and displaced, where you have felt like you have not been included, you have been ostracized, people have turned their noses up at you, maybe even turn their backs on you because it didn't seem like you fit in and had access to what everybody else had access to.

I want you to know that sometimes the lamb of God is most beautifully carried in the arms of those who have insufficient resources, who have come to the end of themselves in some area, not just financially, but maybe emotionally or maybe in some area of your life. You have given all you have creatively.

You've given all you've had emotionally, mentally to that project. You've given everything you've got financially to that job and you feel completely depleted of funds. You have insufficient funds emotionally or in that relationship. You've given everything you've got and you've come to the end of yourself. Sometimes the lamb of God is not most fully experienced until we've come to the end of our own resources.

We are empty and now we've made room for the fullness of his life in our own. So I want to encourage you. Not only do we have to be careful about how we look at people, but we need to be encouraged when we're those people who feel so depleted.

This could be the time when you experience God like never before. So here here come Mary and Joseph into the temple and nobody recognizes that the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world is in their their hands except one guy named Simeon. There are many distinguishing characteristics that Luke spells out for us about Simeon.

Man, I wish I had time because you and I would go through his resume real strategically to talk about how verse 25 says that he's righteous, that he's devout, 
[clears throat]
 that his eyes are open, he's watchful, looking for the consolation of Israel. But not only that, the main thing I want you to see is the last line of verse 25.

The distinguishing characteristic that sets him apart from everybody else in the room that day, the Holy Spirit was upon him. If there's anything I want to leave you with, I want to leave you with this. that to the extent that the Holy Spirit of God, his presence rests fully upon our lives, that is the extent to which we will be able to clearly see the working of God among us in our personal lives and in our lives as we walk through um everything that happens in our communities, in our culture, in our nations, and in the world. to the extent that we are experienc the experiencing the full expression of the Holy Spirit.

That's the extent through which we will be fitted with the vision that we need, the spiritual perspective that we need to be able to get a clear view of our God. The Holy Spirit rested upon him. Man, when you place faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit took up residence in you.

So, he's in you and he's in me. But I don't just want him in me. I want him on me. And what I mean by that is that I want the full expression of his work upon my life. So that everything I do, whether it's in ministry, whether it's in mothering my three sons, whether it's in my marriage to my husband of 21 years, whether it's as I relate to people at my local church or even as I relate to strangers that I run into at line in in line at the grocery store, whatever it is that I'm doing, as I surrender to the conviction of the Holy Spirit, as I pour into my own personal time of prayer and of Bible study, as I cultivate a relationship with the Lord that the spirit of God who is in me his presence rests upon me marking my life fitting me with spiritual vision so that I'm able to walk through this life with discernment with wisdom and with clarity.

This is what I'm praying for you and it's what I'm praying for me now more than ever. This is what we need for the people of God to be able to see the hand of God even when nobody else can. And so if you've been overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness, if you've been overwhelmed by the blurry texture that you're seeing in front of you because of all the difficulty, it's just making you see hopelessness and discouragement and decay and decline and you feel overwhelmed by the picture in front of you.

I invite you to surrender your life fully and completely to the work of the Holy Spirit. He'll change what you're looking at. He'll change the way you see it. He'll give you clarity. I want to pray to that end. I want to pray for the Holy Spirit's presence to be upon us as we surrender our lives more fully and completely to him.

Lord, I thank you for this example of Simeon upon whom the Holy Spirit rested. And I pray that just as the spirit rested on him, the spirit will rest on us. Lord, I pray for us that as we walk through the regular rhythms of our life, your spirit would be alive in us.

Strengthen us, Lord. Give us discernment and wisdom. I'm praying for it in supernatural measure on our lives. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Hey there. Thanks so much for watching. I hope that you were blessed, that you were encouraged, and that you feel like you are strengthened for the journey ahead.

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God bless you.