Priscilla Shirer: A True Encounter with God

Priscilla Shirer brings a powerful word to She Rises conference about living a life worthy of God’s calling, and understanding the value of a true encounter with God.

Praise is what’s going to cause it to turn around. While you’re waiting for things to change, believing for breakthroughs, that’s when more than ever, you need to give God praise. Praise activates His power.

More than anything else, the enemy wants you disconnected from the privilege of hearing the voice of god.
Yo, this is what separates our faith from every other so called faith on the face of the earth.
It’s that our god is alive. It’s that he speaks.
It’s that we have the privilege to hear his voice.
Never downplay or minimize the vow you the beauty, the lavish grace of this privilege that we have to hear the voice of god.
There was a commercial that came to my mind as a honey nut cheerios commercial.
This lady’s got a hair net on She’s been working in the factory all day long.
They’re interviewing her, and she says, you know, I’m just like regular mo working moms sometimes after work.
I gotta go to grocery store. So I do. I run my errands.
I go to the grocery store, and she says sometimes I’m walking down the aisleway and gross in the grocery store just one aisle after the other.
And every aisle I go down, I see people going.
They’re wondering why they why they can smell what to them smells like fresh bread baking somewhere or cookies somewhere.
And then she said every now and then, I’ll walk past, and I’ll just put people out of their misery and tell them, hey.
You’re just smelling me. Because I smelled like the environment I’ve been in all day.
So when we leave from a place like this, we go back into our homes and our jobs and our neighborhoods and our high schools and our universities, and people are just like, Where you been?
Something different about you. You smell like the environment you’ve been in all day.
Lord, Jesus, I thank you for this place that is permeating with the fragrance of your presence I thank you father in Jesus’ name that our lives will have the residue of your presence on them.
That father from this place, we will never ever be the same again.
We are your daughters, lord, and we are coming over your word now to hear a fresh word straight from the mouth of god.
Lord, I am so glad that everybody else in this room is here, but I didn’t come to see everybody else.
I came to see you. And so, lord, I am asking that you would open up the windows of heaven and come down and speak to your daughters.
We are listening in Jesus name. Everybody a read when they said amen. Amen. Amen.
You may take your seats. Years years ago, man, my babies were little I remember this because I traveled to Memphis on one particular occasion, and I remember this because I was exhausted.
I was so tired um, you know, my kids were small at the time, and I happened to take this particular trip, uh, by myself, and I traveled to Memphis.
And I remember being so excited when the lady picked me up from airport that was a part of the church that I was gonna be ministering at.
She took me to from the airport to the hotel. It was a early evening. I was so glad.
Anybody ever been glad to just go to bed at 8 pm. I could not wait.
I laid down the bed ready to get a good night of sleep, and I was jolted awake about 2 o’clock, 3 o’clock in the morning, because there was a train that went by right outside the window of our hotel.
The conductor of the train was sitting on the horn as the long train blaze right outside of the hotel where I was sleeping.
I sat straight up in bed sort of alarmed by the noise when it and looked out of the window and realized that, literally, the train tracks were right there, and it was one of those very long trains with a lot of cars that went whisking by.
It took a while for the train to finally pass by and settled.
I tried to go, uh, back to sleep as best I could.
Lady came back to pick me up that particular morning because the conference started.
I had to be there very early in the morning, so it was about 6:30 or so anyway that I was gonna have to get up and get dressed ready for a 7:15 or 7:30 pickup.
And so I got in the car, and I didn’t really really say anything. No big deal.
We had a great day at the conference.
I went back to sleep that night thinking, of course, that the night before had been a fluke and that that train wasn’t coming by again, went to sleep about 8:39 PM.
So glad to get a good full night of sleep, but 3 AM, you guessed it.
That train went roaring by right outside the window.
I sat straight up in bed, not believing that this was happening again, and I couldn’t even get back to sleep that night.
I couldn’t wait for that sweet lady to come pick me up the next morning.
I sat down in the car, and I said, so, hey.
Did you know that there is a train that goes by about 3 o’clock in the morning, at least the last two mornings that that I’ve been here, that train has gone by in the middle of the night, woken me straight up out of my sleep, and she had this look of complete horror and regret written all over her face.
She said, I am so sorry.
I didn’t even think about the fact that that train goes by because those of us who live in this community have grown so used to the sound of the train that it doesn’t even occur to us when it’s passing through anymore.
It occurs to that those of us who live particularly in this western part of the world, where the presence of god has been so lavishly given to us where on every street corner, we see another church with a pastor that preaches the good news of Jesus Christ where we can turn on Christian radio stations or go across town to the Christian bookstore where we live as women in a day and age and generation where there have never been ever in history, so many Bible study resources by women, for women.
What could it be that we’ve grown so used to the blessing of and and and permeates our presence that we don’t even recognize it anymore.
That god has so blessed us that we’re too blessed for our own good that we don’t see the fingerprints of god in our lives that when there’s even just a hint of disappointment or discouragement or frustration or irritation in our life that we are blinded to the fact that even when things are dark, the light of god’s presence can still be found if we’ll just open up our highs.
May we never be desensitized to the presence of god?
And if you have your bibles and you wanna look with me at a passage of scripture, I’ll just read it to you that I wanna point out today if you still, you know, at actually use a Bible with paper pages like I do, or your iPhone, your iPad, any manner of IMessage is fine.
In Luke chapter 2. There are a group of people who are about to be in the presence of god, and they’re not even going to recognize it.
I will tell you, as you turn to Luke chapter 2, that the author, Luke wrote this gospel and recorded these stories real to show us how to have an encounter with Jesus, to not miss him when his presence is near.
And by the way, this is our goal as believers.
This is the reason why on the cross of cavalry so that we could not just know about him, but so that we can encounter him.
We’re not just supposed to read in the Old Testament, about how he divided the red sea or caused the walls of Jericho to come tumbling down or met with a man named Moses in the form of a burning bush or showed out as the angel of the lord in a wine press, while a fearful timid Gideon was beating out wine, uh, thrushing wheat, rather, in the wine press, we’re not just supposed to read about others that had an encounter with Jesus.
We’re not just supposed to see and applaud and experience the testimonies of other people.
They’re supposed to encourage us to realize that if regular folks like that can encounter him, so can we?
And Luke comes along, and he writes story after story and his gospel to show us that we can have an encounter with Jesus.
These people that he is writing to and that he’s writing about, we’re in a time of national decay.
There is chaos happening and swirling around them morally and socially.
And you and I can relate to that because they were not just in a time of national decays.
So are we? Our country is in a and segmented to the periphery of society, the worst things are gonna get.
The more he has completely ignored and disregarded the we’re gonna see the influx of chaos and destruction.
But today, I don’t want y’all to worry about the white house. I wanna get to your house.
I wanna talk about the destruction and the decay happening maybe underneath the roof of your own home.
Luke is writing, not just then, But now to people who need a savior, folks who are waiting on a hero to show up and rescue them, from the plight of their own circumstances.
Luke was writing to them, but by the Holy Spirit, he is writing to us today, for any of you who are in a state of decline in some area of your life where we’re seeing against the backdrop of darkness need we have for the savior to manifest himself for us to not just know about him from afar, applauding him in the testimonies of people.
But if anybody wants to experience him themselves, then Luke is writing to you.
And I want somebody to know this today that sometimes, sometimes your difficulties are less about the enemy being against you and more about god wanting you to show wanting to show you what it looks like when he is for you.
Sometimes it’s about him finally wanting his daughter’s eye to be open so that when he shows up, they’re sensitive enough to see him.
Luke chapter 2 verse 25. Says, and behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon.
This man was righteous and devout and looking for the consolation He was looking for some hope y’all looking 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.
And he came in the spirit into the temple.
And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to care out for him the custom of the law.
He took Jesus. He went over to this couple, grabbed this forty day old child into his and he blessed god and said, now, lord, you can let your servant depart in peace because according to thy word, my eyes have seen your salvation.
You have prepared your salvation in the presence of all the people, a light of revelation, the glory of thy people, Israel, and Mary and Joseph, they were amazed at the things that were being said about their son, Jesus Christ.
Here on this occasion, Mary and Joseph have come into the temple for, um, the purification ceremony.
It was traditional. It was ceremonial.
That about 40 days after a baby was born and the purification process had taken place that the parents of a new baby would bring their baby into the temple, to offer specific sacrifices of burnt offering, a sin offering, um, and just to present their child to the lord.
Now traditionally, when folks came into the temple, they would bring sacrifices.
And if you look back into the book of Leviticus, the details of those sacrifices are given, they would need to have a pigeon for a particular sacrifice.
They would need to have a lamb for another sacrifice, and there is a caveat.
I’m just gonna take a little rabbit trail for second because I love that y’all like rabbit trails.
There’s a little caveat given in luke leviticus chapter 12 that says that if someone is not wealthy enough, they do not have the resources to actually purchase a lamb for this sacrifice, that they actually can just bring 2 pigeons.
And I didn’t read all the details here, but a few verses earlier than where we started in verse 25, it tells us that Mary and Joseph come into a temple with 2 pigeons or 2 turtledoves.
They they don’t have a lamb, which indicates to us that they have expended so much of their resources that they are in a state of poverty, at least enough, but they were not able to afford their own land.
They’ve got 2 pigeons. It’s all they had to bring on this occasion as they bring their new baby into the tabernacle to present him to the lord.
They’ve got these 2 pigeons, which means that when they walked into the temple, people would have looked at them and recognized them as a couple that was of insta had insufficient funds.
As a couple that was lacking as a poor couple.
They would have been looked down upon people would have marginalized them because they did not the accoutrements of wealth that everybody else in the building had.
So they did not have a lamb, and yet they have in their possession, the lamb that takes away the sins of the world.
Can I just say to anybody who is in the and you felt like an outcast because you don’t wear what everybody else wears?
You can’t afford to drive what everybody else drives.
You don’t have the sources to live in the neighborhood where everybody else lives. Listen, my friend.
Even if you do not have a lamb, you might be a perfect position and can I tell you that sometimes it is our affluence that keeps us from having the lamb of god in our grasp past intimacy and fellowship with him like never before?
The people that I have met that have more of an intrical, intimate, ongoing, fervent, passionate relationship with Jesus Christ.
They are not the people sometimes that live in the mansion on the hill.
It’s the people in a hut in a village with thatched roofs and dirt floors who have their desperation had an encounter with Jesus Christ, and y’all, I have met people in 3rd world countries who pray for us.
Oh, they pray for us.
They feel bad for us because they say we pray anemic, self centered prayers.
They listen to our prayers that are so focused on having more comfort than we already have.
Where in their desperation, they have met with Jesus. They have seen him with their own eyes.
They have been marked by the presence of god.
They have watched god show up in so much splendor, and they want that for us.
Sometimes when we can afford our own lamb, it pushes out the opportunity and the margin that should be reserved for the lamb.
Comfortable people, pranemic prayers. It’s desperation. It’s insufficiency.
It’s lack. It’s emptiness.
When you find yourself in that state, we’re like Mary and Joseph, you don’t have enough to buy your own lamb anymore.
That might be the perfect set up for your encounter with the lamb of god.
And so they are coming into the temple with the lamb. He’s in their arms.
They walk in to the temple. Y’all they’re at church.
There’s a group of people, including religious leaders, Pharisees, and sadducees that have all gathered around probably hundreds of people all carrying their sacrifices that have joined in on this occasion.
And they’ve been waiting. All of these people have been waiting on the Messiah.
They’ve been waiting for the kingdom of god to be at hand.
They’ve been waiting on a king to ride in on a white horse and to redeem them from all that has been lost at how they’ve lost as a nation.
They’ve been waiting for somebody to rescue them from the oppression of Rome. They have been looking for a hero.
And the hero comes in, and they do not recognize him. They are at church.
And they do not recognize the presence of god.
The reason why is because he has come in a package that they do not prefer.
He has come in a package that does not align with their expectations.
And so because he does not look like what they wanted him to look like about what they had in their own estimation, prepared as the package that would be in their estimation, the best package for the king to arrive because their circumstance does not like, and he has not appeared the way that they prefer.
They downplay the messiah when he arrives.
I wanna submit to you that Jesus is there in this difficult moment in your marriage, in this trying moment in your finances, in this struggle on your job in this, uh, difficulty in this relationship, you’re rubbing corners with your boss or your spouse or this struggle you’re having on your university campus or in your high campus.
This hard time that you were having. He is there.
He just may have come in the package you don’t prefer.
And that oftentimes, the fingerprints of god are not recognized, not because he’s not there.
It is just because the expectation we have set up about what doesn’t align with the prayer request that we have prayed.
We have boxed god into the way we want him to answer instead believing that his ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts as high as the heavens are above the That’s how high his thoughts are above our own.
And so we box god in when we say lord, answer my request in this particular way.
Do you know that you limit, not god, but you limit, I limit our experience of god when we say lord answer my request exactly this way?
I have learned to pray. Here, lord, is my request. You said that I can make it known.
Here’s how I would like to see you move in my circumstance. Thank you, lord.
That I can come boldly and make my request known, so I’ve made my request.
But at the end of that prayer, I’ve learned to pray, lord, do it or do something better.
Because do you know there are agories of options that our brain doesn’t even know are available and accessible to And if we limit god to what we can think and what we see as the way, we have not even considered the categories of opportunity that this divine, holy, almighty being has accessible to him.
Y’all, he’s not just thinking about you, He’s thinking about your children and your grandchildren and your great grandchildren and those that are to come and how his kingdom purposes are gonna be outworked in this And so on this occasion, the Messiah shows up and nobody recognizes him except somebody say accept.
Except a guy named Simeon.
He had been told and promised just like we have.
That we he would see the manifest presence of god. He’d been told it.
He’d been promised just like we’ve been promised because of our relationship with god through Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit us that we will see the fingerprints of god working in our lives.
This is called the manifest presence of god. It is unique to omnipresence.
Omnipresence means that god is everywhere all at the same time.
I’m so grateful for god’s omnipresence because god’s omnipresence means that when I fly back to Dallas where I live, when my new friends that I just met from Uganda, fly back to where they live, um, that when you all fly back to wherever ever it is you’ve come from, whether all of our different areas of California or afar, it means that no matter where we go, He is as much with me as he is with you because he is omnipresent.
But if you’re anything like me, you’re grateful for his omnipresent, but won more than that.
You want the manifested presence of god.
I’m talking about where you can look back over your circumstances and realize that his fingerprints were all throughout that thing.
You the whole way.
I’m talking about what other people call coincidence encounters.
You see the sovereign hand of god that was a aligning your footsteps and setting you in the right place at the exact right time, the manifest presence of god.
I wanted to know what made Simeon’s eyes open to recognize what nobody else in this scenario did.
I figured whatever opened up his eyes might open up our eyes as well. Are you ready?
Three things that I wanna point out to you.
It says in verse 26 about Simeon, it says that it had been Actually, verse 25, I wanna start there.
There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. He was righteous devout looking for the consolation of Israel.
We could spend a lot of time in those 3, but here’s where I want to heart.
The Holy Spirit was upon him. The holy spirit was upon him.
It says that he came into the temple verse 27.
In the spirit, verse 26 says it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit.
Look at the presence of the Holy Spirit permeating this text, look, and how the there has over and over and over again highlighted the work of the Holy Spirit in opening up Simeon’s eye to be able to recognize the manifested presence of god before him in the person of Jesus Christ.
Luke here he is just in the second chapter of this book.
And by the way, just in these first two chapters, he has already alluded to the spirit ten times the work of god’s spirit is so powerful and so meaningful to a fruitful experience in the life of the of the believer that even before the book of acts, even before Pentecost, even before the spirit has come, Luke points out the movement of the spirit here in the life of in.
This shows you how important the spirit’s work is, how critical it is to making sure that your spiritual senses, your spiritual radar is heightened so that you can detect the presence of god.
The holy spirit was upon him. Now I want you to see the work of god’s spirit.
This is just the first, uh, characteristic of Simeon, but I wanna just just take some time for just a few moments on it.
The work of god’s spirit is so important. We it deserves a little bit of our attention here.
There are three ways that the Holy Spirit is described as relating to simeon in these few verses, just just a few ways that the holy spirit relates to simeon in these few verses.
The first thing it says is that the Holy Spirit was upon him. Now listen.
I want you to know that if you have placed faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit lives on the inside of you.
Ephesians chapter 1 says that the moment you believed you received the Holy Spirit, you were sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise.
I want you to know that at the moment you became a believer in Jesus Christ, you received the most incredible gift, you will ever receive this side of eternity, and that is the very presence of god living on the inside of you.
The holy spirit is not a ghost or a wind or a fire or a dove.
He is often symbolized by those things, but don’t men eyes him. That ain’t who he is.
The Holy Spirit is the 3rd person of the trinity, not third because he is least in value, just third because he’s the to be revealed to us in the pages of scripture, but all of the power, all of the glory, all of the authority, all of the grants are of god the father is in the person of the Holy Spirit, which means If you’re a believer in the Holy Spirit lives in you, that means all of the grandeur and all of the greatness, all of the authority of god himself.
Now lives on the inside of you. So if you are a believer, you have the Holy Spirit.
You are not waiting on more of the Holy Spirit. All of the Holy Spirit you ever gonna get.
You got the moment you got saved. Now you do need to be filled by god’s spirit.
So that his influence in your life grows and grows so that you operate under the gifting of the spirit so that you can live according to the fruit of the spirit, that living beyond your natural capacity.
It means when your patience runs out, you can still have more patience with that person.
Means when gentleness has long since left the building.
You still find you got little gentleness for that per when self discipline mean, you just don’t know have no more self discipline in that area.
We need the fruit of god’s spirit, so we need to be filled by the spirit as we yield and obedience, we are filled, which means he influences us more.
Our mind is renewed and transformed. We are sanctified into the image of Christ Jesus.
So the Holy Spirit is in you.
But Simeon, His relationship with the spirit is not described in that way.
It doesn’t say that the spirit was in him. It says that the holy spirit was on him.
Which means there is a difference between the spirit being in you and the spirit resting.
Watch. Listen to me. The gift of god’s spirit in you.
Oh, this brings tears to my eyes.
The gift of god’s spirit in you you.
There is nothing you can do to work yourself out of a relationship with the Holy Spirit. K?
But him being on you, you gotta live a life.
I I wanna live a life that is a magnet for the present of god to rest on me.
We can sit in this conference until we’re blue in the face and applaud the truth of god and say amen to the truths of god.
But if we leave this room and live in a way that is out of alignment with the truths of god, we will not have the spirit rested on us.
If you want the mark of god’s presence on you.
I’m talking about where other people can see you operating in your gift moving about in the assignments that you have been given where they can just see.
There’s a unique favor on your life toward that particular task or that particular endeavor where you are marked by something that gives you favor, that gives you his grace for a particular of your life, then you must live.
I must choose to live in a way that honors god so that god’s presence can rest upon us because he will not force himself on you.
He offers you this resting of his presence and his race upon your life if you will choose to live in a way that does not, uh, disturb his presence, that does not keep him from being able to be near you because you have chosen.
Here it is. To be. Holy. Listen to me. Are you listening?
Yeah.
Oh, we live in a day and age where we have become more interested in being impressive.
Than being holy, where we are more interested in making sure we have likes.
And friends and the applause of people more than just being flat out. Holy.
By making sure that political correctness is not our main goal.
That we’re not after the applause of people. We’re after the applause of heaven.
You gotta choose to be ye, hopefully.
And so I implore you sister by the mercies of god to walk in a manner worthy of the calling by which you have been called.
So the spirit rested upon him. Let me just show you quickly.
Verse 26 says that the spirit revealed to him. So that means the spirit not only rested upon him.
The spirits revealed to him old preachers called this Illumination. It’s shining a spotlight.
It’s when you’re sitting in church on a Sunday, and your pastor opens up the Bible to preach.
And, man, he just reads or she reads that first two verses that that they’re gonna be preaching from, and you sit straight up in your because you feel like it’s all about you.
Anybody know what I’m talking about?
It’s where you’re trying to figure out how did did the church bug my house? How did they know?
That’s the illumination of the spirit.
It’s when he it’s when the the old truths of scripture leap up off the page.
And for lack of a better way, were it’s when they grip you in your soul where you see how that intersects with something you are personally facing today.
That is the revelation of the Holy Spirit. This is what the Holy Spirit does. He reveals. He illumins.
He shines a spotlight. Simeon was there that day. Because he had been promised by the revelation of god’s spirit.
It wasn’t just a random promise. It was his promise.
Oh, you’ve had that happen over the course of these days that we’ve been gathered.
You probably have had that happen where something that has been said. It wasn’t just great to hear it.
Gripped your soul. You knew it was an assignment for you.
It was a conviction that you knew the lord was gonna send you out of here.
With that assignment because the Holy Spirit revealed it to you. God’s spirit rests.
He reveals, and then he ruled Simeon.
Because it says in verse 27 that he came in the spirit to the temple, meaning the spirit told him on this day to go into the temple, and it says that he came into the spirit, under the into the temple, under the conviction of the holy spirit.
When the spirit said go, Simeon said, yes, sir.
He submitted to the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
And he was in the right place at the right time to run right smack dab into the messiah because he was submitted to the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
Do you know that the more you ignore, ignore that still small conviction, the quieter that voice will become?
Not because he is no longer speaking, but because you built a callous of disobedience.
You have muffled the voice of the Holy Spirit.
So it is better to be so sensitive to god’s holy spirit that sometimes you give when maybe he hasn’t even prompted you to but it’s okay because to the best of your capacity, you’re obeying the Holy Spirit of God just to keep those airways open and clear from the disobedience that will begin to muffle his voice in your life.
Because more than anything else, the enemy wants you disconnected.
From the privilege of hearing the voice of god.
Yo, this is what separates our faith from every other so called faith on the face of the earth.
It’s that our god is alive. It’s that he speaks.
It’s that we have the privilege to hear his voice.
Never downplay or minimize the value, the beauty the lavish grace of this privilege that we have to hear the voice of god.
So the Holy Spirit rested upon him.
There are two other things that I wanna point out to you that were symbolic or was were significant about that opened up his eyes to see Jesus as he was to be seen in this package that other people downplayed and found insignificant that they totally ignored because they didn’t think that their king would look like that.
Here’s what opened Simeon’s eyes, not only that he was in the spirit when he came into the temple.
And by the way, Here’s another rabbit trail. Sorry.
If we came to church in the spirit, It would change our experience in church.
Can I just say that? Because while everybody else was looking at that poor couple, wondering why in they were in their midst and discounting Mary and Joseph.
Simeon came in the spirit, and he was less concerned about who was wearing what and who was driving up what who sat where and who was in his seat and whether or not it was hot outside and they had to walk far to go take their children to Sunday school.
They were he was less concerned about his convenience, whether not the preacher preached good was irrelevant to him.
He was looking for Jesus. Whether or not the microphones were perfectly balanced or the were exactly as they should be, whether or not the LD screens were on full display that day, whether or not the ushers were or were not kind was not his priority.
He had come with his eyes peeled for Jesus.
We would be less critical and less skeptical if we came to church in the spirit, then the pressure wouldn’t be on the person who’s on the stage because you didn’t come to see them.
You came to see Jesus. Okay. Verse 27.
So he comes in the spirit look what happens at verse 27, the parents bring in the child Jesus.
Jesus comes in in his parents’ arms.
Look at the savior, look at how the manifest presence of god arrives on this remarkable day.
Watch him show up into the experienced of this aged saint name simeon in a very personal way and onto the landscape of human history, he lives in the arms of his parents.
There is something about the way we see Jesus when we look at him through the well worn paths that have been hewn out by our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents, our forefathers and our foremother spiritually speaking, the people who have gone before us and have walked with Jesus just a little while, who spent their lives serving him.
I am always nervous when I see a young group of Christians with their little skinny jeans and their lattes and their avocado toast, which I love, by the way.
I’m just always a little nervous when I see them instagramming all their religious experiences without the oversight of some spiritual parents.
Because y’all, we have modernized Jesus today.
The modern version of Jesus that we have crafted, he has made him watered down.
Now he’s tolerant of sin without the expectation of holiness our Jesus is politically correct.
We need to see Jesus coming in the arms of our pear the people who have gone before us, the folks who have walked the road a little while, who know what hymnals are.
Who’s saying the good old hymns that we’re based in some theology.
We gotta make sure that our new praise in worship songs. I love them.
We gotta make sure they’re rooted in some good theology.
And so the package may change. Listen.
Y’all, I I still go to the kind of church.
It’s come a long way, but it started when I was one year old, the church that I go to now.
So, you know, back in the day, there was no way in the world I would have ever gotten on a stage with with with pads on.
Are you kidding? Anybody know what kind of church I’m talking about?
We still have a few people in our church, a few mothers of the church, if anybody knows what I mean.
Jeans in the church, are you kidding? They came in in their suits.
I’m talking about where the skirt matches the jacket. Like, they were bought together.
And not only that, but underneath that suit, she’s gonna have some actual panty hose on.
I’m not talking about spanks with the feet cut out. Uh-uh. I mean panty hose.
The ones with the girdle top. Anybody know what I’m talking about? Everybody remember that.
And she’s gonna have a handbag in her hand, and that hand bag, that clutch is going to match that jacket, which matches that skirt, which matches her patent leather shoes that she has on her feet.
Closed toe, patent leather shoes. But the outfit is never complete.
And you know what no regular hat.
Right? You know, it’s got something it’s a feather or a mat or something that’s sitting just like this.
And she’s gonna worship god.
Eba, you know, what kind of church I’m talking about?
And I love when she comes up to give a testimony about what she has seen the lord.
It might not be modern.
It might not be new and improved, but it’s the Jesus of Abraham Isaac and Shaikh.
It’s the god of our forefathers. There’s some things you cannot learn on Instagram.
There are some things you just need to be with a mother of the church, somebody who’s walked the road a little bit longer than you’d make sure you can bounce off of her or him the from the true theological, biblically based changing venerated word of god.
So the package may change, but the principles never do. You all. Jesus was never politically correct.
He was always a revolutionary. He never dismissed sin.
He called it out in in grace, but most certain and truths. He was never watered down.
He always said, I am the only way.
I am the truth, and I am the end of life. He didn’t acquiesce or tolerate.
He loved, but he did say repent for the kingdom of god is at hand.
God made us in his image.
And one philosopher said, we have now returned the savior, favor by trying to make him in hours.
We gotta see Jesus says he’s always meant to be seen, and sometimes it requires you going to find a parent, a spiritual parent who can show you the Jesus of the Bible.
Simeon saw Jesus because he as he was meant to be seen, he saw him in the package in which savior wanted to come because there were some spiritual parents who were willing to bring him in.
So I speak to the younger people that are in this room.
I’m telling you, check your arrogance, check our lack of teachability, where sometimes we just think we know it all.
So we won’t recognize and see the beauty of our savior because we won’t receive him from the parents who are trying to give him to So the packets may change.
Change the package. Enjoy that freedom, but watch and make sure that you’re sticking to the true milk of the word of god.
And then can I have pruned you who are in this when you’ve sort of graduated to that parent department, take this as your privilege, to carry Jesus to those who need him, to see him and experience him as you will bring him?
Simeon shows us that in order to have our eyes open, his experience demonstrates to us that we need to have the Holy Spirit upon us.
And we need to be looking for how the parents bring him into our experience.
But finally, it says in verse 28, that as soon as he caught a glimpse of him.
He went over look look at the boldness. Look at the audacity. Look at the eagerness of Simeon.
He runs to the parents, he takes the baby out of their arms and gathers him to himself.
Because an experience with Jesus from afar wasn’t enough for Simeon.
Can I just tell you in this room that that god does not have grandchildren?
You gotta have your own relationship.
You have to make your own choice. You have to go and gather him up for yourself.
You have to taste and see for yourself how good he is.
You can celebrate him in the testimonies of other people, in the experience of other people till you are blue in the face, but there’s gotta come a time where you decide I’m gonna stop sitting on the periphery and applauding his experience with other folks.
You gotta decide today will be the day that I go and gather him up for myself that I start to spend time with him in prayer and in conversation so that I can take advantage of this privilege to hear his voice and to speak to him in prayer that I won’t let everybody keep spoon feeding me the word god.
I’m gonna go to the scriptures myself and know that I too can have an ongoing fervent relationship with Jesus.
Gonna gather him up in my own arms.
And when you do, you will see him and experience him and encountered him in a way you have never encountered him before.