Moved by the Spirit

Dannah Gresh: Is the Holy Spirit active in every part of your life? Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: We see in the Scripture that every dimension of our lives is to be influenced and under the control of the Holy Spirit of God. We are to be filled with the Spirit; we're to live by the Spirit; we're to walk in the Spirit; we're to be led by the Spirit; we're to pray in the Spirit. All of life is to be touched and marked and influenced and directed and empowered and enabled by the Holy Spirit of God.

Dannah: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Adorned: Living Out the Beauty of the Gospel Together, for Monday, December 19. I’m Dannah Gresh. 

I have a friend whose family was at a restaurant when a stranger approached their table and laid down a $20 bill. The stranger said it was for Christmas, and he walked away. Around this time of year, you’ll often hear of acts like that being moved by the spirit of Christmas. Is there really such a thing? Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth will say more about that as she continues in a series called "My Eyes Have Seen Your Salvation." 

If you've missed any of the episodes so far, you'll find them all on the Revive Our Hearts app or at ReviveOurHearts.com. Here's Nancy.

Nancy: If I were to ask you to name the key characters and figures of the Christmas story, who are some of the characters you would name? Let me hear some.

Woman: Jesus.

Nancy: Jesus would certainly be the primary one. Who else would be some of the key characters? Mary. Joseph. The Shepherd. The wise men. The Magi. Angels. The sheep. Simeon we’re talking about. 

I want to talk today about one of the key characters of the Christmas story that most people don’t usually think of. Turn in your Bible, if you would, to the Gospel of Luke chapter 2. We're in the middle of a series talking about Simeon, who came to the temple as Jesus was being dedicated, presented to the Lord there forty days after His birth.

I want to read the first part of this passage on Simeon and ask you as I read it, “Who is the other character who you see in this passage?” Luke 2:25–27:

Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous 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.

Who is the character? The Holy Spirit. Three times in those three verses you see a reference to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a dominant figure and plays a key role in the account of the birth of Christ. In fact, if you’ll turn back a page or two to Luke 1, you’ll see that four times in chapter 1 we have a reference to the Holy Spirit.

Look at verse 15 of chapter 1 in the Gospel of Luke. The angel came to Zechariah to tell him that he would have a son that would be John the Baptist. And the angel said, “He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.”

Then verse 35 of chapter 1: The angel Gabriel said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” Then verse 41, again Luke 1. “When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary,” (Elizabeth was the mother of John the Baptist) “the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.”

And then verse 67 there toward the end of chapter 1: “Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied.”

By the way, as you do Bible study. People say to me, "I wish I could get the things out of the Scripture that you get out of the Scripture." You can. You can do what I do. You read these passages over and over and over and over and over and over again. You ask the Lord to show you insights. 

One of the things that just jumps out as you read Luke chapters 1 and 2 is there are a lot of references to the Holy Spirit—seven to be exact. Four times in Luke chapter 1, and then three times in this account with Simeon.

The Holy Spirit is the unseen character behind all that is going on, and we see Him in Simeon’s account. Now back to chapter 2 beginning at verse 25. We see the Holy Spirit empowering, enabling, and directing Simeon’s steps.

“The Holy Spirit was upon him.” The Holy Spirit was upon him in an unusual, extraordinary way. The Spirit gave him, as we’ll see in the rest of the passage on Simeon, the spirit of prophesy and enabled him to see and to know and to proclaim and to declare things that could not have been known by natural reasoning or human understanding. The Spirit did that within him.

In verse 26 we see that happening. "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.” He could not have known that on his own. Now he could have had wishful thinking. “I hope I live to see the Messiah.” But the Holy Spirit had revealed to him, “You will not die until you have seen the Lord’s Christ.” That’s a reference, an Old Testament way of describing the Messiah, the Lord’s anointed.

So the Spirit had given him a promise from God. It appears to me as I study this passage that this was not in a dream as others experienced at times in the Scripture. God sometimes revealed things in dreams or visions. It does not appear this is the way it happened here. It does not appear it was a revelation by an angel as Mary and Joseph experienced in Luke chapter 1.

But it was the Holy Spirit within him making this known to him. You say, “How did he do that?” I don’t know. But in Simeon’s heart the Holy Spirit gave him the assurance, the word, the revelation; it was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he had seen the Messiah.

He had already seen the Messiah with eyes of faith. That’s what he had been hoping and longing and waiting for. But now he learned by divine revelation that he would live to see the Messiah with his physical eyes.

There's a little play on words here. He would not see death until he had seen the Lord's Christ. Later in his song of praise (we'll get to that later on in the series) he says, "My eyes have seen your salvation." He wanted to see this, and the Holy Spirit said he would with his literal, physical eyes.

He could also have known from the Old Testament prophesies that the time would be soon. If a Jew in that day were familiar with, for example, Daniel chapter 9, the whole very complicated passage about the seventy weeks. I won’t go through what all that means. But had he studied and known those Old Testament passages, he could have discerned and determined that the time would be soon.

The Holy Spirit is the One who takes the Word and illuminates it to our understanding and then reveals to us what God means by this. So Simeon knew God’s promises. He believed God’s promises. And the Holy Spirit within him confirmed. “This is the time that the Lord is going to send His Messiah.”

Again, we know how the story goes. So I think sometimes we forget what it was like to be in Simeon’s shoes. He didn’t have Luke chapter 2 to read. He didn’t know his own story. He was living that story. But he was experiencing the reality of the Holy Spirit making Christ known to him, revealing God’s ways to him.

We have much more revelation through God’s Word. We have all the revelation we need now that the Word has been finished. We have that today. But still the Holy Spirit works within us to give us understanding and illumination to apply the Word, to show us what it means and how it applies to our lives.

I’ve asked myself as I was studying this passage; I’ve just been pondering over all this Simeon thing. I’ve tried to put myself in the sandals of some of these characters in the Scripture. And I’ve asked myself, “Was he expecting the Messiah to come as a baby, as a newborn? What was he looking for? What did he think he was going to see?”

I don’t know, except we know that Simeon was familiar with the Old Testament. He was familiar with the book of Isaiah. And it was Isaiah who had said, “The virgin will conceive and bear a son” (Isa. 7:14). So perhaps he did realize he was looking for a baby. We don’t know.

If he knew it was going to be a baby, did he wonder each time he saw a baby? “Is this the one? Is this the one?” I mean, presumably, he was in the temple a lot. He lived in Jerusalem. It seemed like it was his habit to come into the temple. There were a lot of people who brought babies into the temple. What made Jesus different?

Was there going to be a halo over his head? Only in the paintings. It wasn’t that way. Jesus looked like an ordinary newborn baby. So how was Simeon to know? What was he looking for?

Can’t you just imagine if he knew it was going to be a baby or even if he didn’t know it was going to be a baby, as he saw people coming into the temple. You imagine he’s always looking around wondering, Is this it? Is this it? Is this the One? Is this the consolation of Israel?

When he finally saw Jesus, was he surprised at what he saw? Was it different than what he expected? We don’t know. But we know that the Holy Spirit is the one who put the longing in his heart and who gave him the promise.

I wonder if the Holy Spirit chose to reveal this promise to Simeon because of Simeon’s earnest longing and desire to see the Lord’s Christ. I don’t know that for sure, but I just wonder if God didn’t look down from heaven and say, “There’s a man who is really longing, and I’m going to give him a little advance notice of what I’m getting ready to do.”

We don’t need that same kind of advance notice today because God has told us in the Scripture what He is going to do. And we have the Holy Spirit within us to show us when that is happening. But in that period of time before Christ came, the Holy Spirit revealed to him that his longing would be fulfilled.

Then we see the third reference to the Holy Spirit in Simeon’s case, verses 27–28. “He came in the Spirit into the temple." The Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he had seen the Messiah. And then he came that day at that moment when Mary and Joseph brought the child in, he came in 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.”

Promise fulfilled. Longing fulfilled.

I’ve been intrigued in thinking about that phrase “He came in the Spirit into the temple.” The NIV, if you’re using that translation says, “Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple.” Or the New King James says, “He came by the Spirit.”

The Spirit directed him. The Spirit of God knew the exact time when Mary would bring Jesus into the temple to present him to the Lord. And at that very moment, the Spirit moved Simeon to go into the temple.

Simeon was sensitive and responsive to the prompting and the moving of the Holy Spirit. And that’s how he ended up at the temple at that very moment. And when he did, he immediately recognized Christ.

The same Spirit who had led him into the temple, the same Spirit who had told him, “You will live to see the birth of the Messiah,” made known to him, “This is the One. This is the One. This is the One you’ve been longing and waiting for.”

The Spirit opened his eyes. Not his physical eyes; his physical eyes were open. The man wasn’t blind. The Spirit opened his spiritual eyes to see and perceive Christ. I want to say that if you ever know Christ, it is only because the Spirit of God has opened your spiritual eyes to see and receive Him.

I think of that passage in Luke 24 after Jesus rose from the dead. He was walking on the road to Emmaus with two disciples who were moaning and groaning and mourning because Jesus had died. And here’s Jesus walking with them. They walked all the way and didn’t recognize that it was Jesus until their eyes were opened by God, and they recognized Him.

The Holy Spirit has to open our eyes. We cannot see; we cannot recognize Christ unless the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to perceive Him.

And so we see in the life in the period in which Simeon lived, as one commentator says, “Thus was the Spirit after a dreary absence of nearly 400 years returning to the church to quicken expectation and prepare for coming events.”

That’s a significant statement because there had been not an absence of the Spirit, but an absence of the Spirit making Himself known to the people of God for 400 years. And now we see in Luke 1 and 2 all these references to the Holy Spirit.

You read over and over again those references and you say, “Something’s up here. God is pouring out His Spirit in a new way. God is doing a new thing. The spirit of prophecy had ceased since the time of Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament.

And now the spirit of prophecy returns at the conception of Christ, at the birth of Christ. You see the key characters associated with the Christmas story—Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Simeon—all being filled with the Holy Spirit. And you realize God is doing a new work. The old covenant is about to be done with. The new covenant is being ushered in. There’s a transition period here, and you see an extraordinary ministry of the Holy Spirit in that season.

As you study through the history of creation and the world, you see an extraordinary moving of the Spirit at certain key points of transition, certain points when God is doing a new thing. You see it in creation, in the second verse of the Bible. It says, “The earth was without form and void . . . And the Spirit of God was hovering (or moving) across the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:2).

In creation, the Spirit of God was giving birth to what God was doing there. So you see the moving of the Spirit. In the Old Testament prophets you often read, “The Spirit of God came upon him,” and then they declared or uttered the words of God.

At the birth of Christ, the season we’re reading about in Luke here, the incarnation, you see an unusual measure of the activity of the Holy Spirit.

You see a similar unusual measure of the activity of the Spirit in the book of Acts. Why? Because the Church is being birthed. God is giving birth to the New Testament Church.

We see in seasons of revival and ultimately at the return of Christ, the extraordinary manifestation of the Spirit of God.

However, I want to say that the Holy Spirit is always present and always at work; He has been since the first chapter of Genesis, was all the way through the Old Testament, and in Old Testament believers the Holy Spirit was at work drawing men to the gospel as they understood it in the Old Testament. There’s a crucial role of the Holy Spirit in the lives of both Old and New Testament believers.

But I want to focus for a few moments on how the Holy Spirit is actively involved in every aspect of God’s work in our hearts today as New Testament believers. Because we can read something like this about Simeon and we can think, “Oh that was just an extraordinary unusual thing.” And it was in a sense.

But in another sense everything that happens to you as a child of God from leading up to your regeneration and conversion, all the way till you see Christ in heaven, the Holy Spirit is actively involved in every part of what God does in your life.

I just went through and made a list of some things that the Holy Spirit does. If you’ll go to our website, we’ll have for you the references to these points. I won’t give them to you here. But we’ll give you the references on the transcript of today’s broadcast.

Listen to what the Holy Spirit does.

• We are born of the Spirit. (John 3:5–6)
• He baptizes us into the Body of Christ. (1 Cor. 12:13)
• The Holy Spirit inspired the Scripture and He illuminates it to our understanding and personalizes it to our lives. (2 Pet. 1:21)
• He reveals the things of God to us. (1 Cor. 2:9–13)
• The Holy Spirit is the source of wisdom. (Isa. 11:2; John 14:26, 16:13; 1 Cor. 12:8)
• He’s the source of supernatural power. (Rom. 15:19)
• He dwells with and in every believer. (Rom. 8:9–11; James 4:5)
• The Holy Spirit comforts the Church. (Acts 9:31)
• He sanctifies God’s people. (Rom. 15:16; 1 Cor. 6:11)
• He convicts us of sin and righteousness and judgment. (John 16:8–11)
• The Holy Spirit is the evidence of the believer’s union with Christ. (1 John 4:13)
• He’s the guarantee of our coming inheritance in Christ. (Eph. 1:14)
• The Holy Spirit imparts the love of God into our hearts. (Rom. 5:3–5)
• He imparts hope. (Rom. 15:13)
• He guides believers. (John 16:13)
• He helps us pray. (Rom. 8:26)
• He qualifies and equips us for ministry. (Acts 1:8)
• He gives gifts to believers for the edification and building up of the Body. (Eph. 4:11–12)
• He produces the fruits of Christ’s likeness in us. (Gal. 5:22)

Aren’t you grateful for the ministry of the Holy Spirit? Do you stop and thank God regularly for the Holy Spirit? For the gift of the Holy Spirit?

We see in the Scripture that every dimension of our lives is to be influenced and under the control of the Holy Spirit of God. We are to be filled with the Spirit; we're to live by the Spirit; we're to walk in the Spirit; we're to be led by the Spirit; we're to pray in the Spirit. All of life is to be touched and marked and influenced and directed and empowered and enabled by the Holy Spirit of God.

When I come into a session like this to record Revive Our Hearts, I've done my studying, I've done my preparation. But I get before the Lord in the morning and I say, "Lord, would You now empower me as You have been while I've been studying, but now as I proclaim Your Word, would You enable and empower me by your Holy Spirit. By Your Holy Spirit, visit us today. Pour out Your Spirit in our hearts and move and prompt us to obey what You say to us."

Let me go back to verse 27 here from which I departed a few moments ago, and let me just pick up once again on this phrase about Simeon—that he came in the Spirit into the temple right when Mary and Joseph and the child came into the temple.

I’ve been meditating on that phrase, “He came in the Spirit into the temple.” Usually when we think of this scene in the temple, the dedication of the baby, we usually picture this as some kind of idyllic contemplative scene.

I think that’s maybe been influenced by some of the paintings of the Italian artists in the Renaissance and the Middle Ages. I went online and looked at some of those paintings. They’re not very realistic. They’re very saintly, but they’re not very realistic.

They picture this cozy, warm, intimate, private scene. In some of the paintings everyone has halos over their heads. That’s just not the way it was, okay? It was a special scene, but if we try to put ourselves in the setting of what was actually going on in the temple at that moment, it was probably not a quiet, intimate, cozy, contemplative setting.

To the contrary, the temple was a noisy place, especially out in this court of the women where so much activity was taking place. It was clamorous. There was lots going on. There was music, singing. There was busyness. There were beggars. There were sacrifices being offered. There was the buying and selling of animals, and that means bleating and the noise of animals.

There was also the bleeding of animals. There was the smell of blood everywhere. There was noise and hubbub. And in the midst of all of that in the very temple of God, the Jews had lost a sense of whose house it was. They’d lost a sense of the presence of God in the midst of all that hubbub, just as we do.

Am I right? Think about going to church. How many of us come in the Spirit to church? It makes a world of difference in what you see and what you experience once you get there, as it did for Simeon. He came in the Spirit into the temple. And because he did, he didn’t miss Christ.

But it’s easy for us in church, in life with its busyness, its constant activity and noise in this Christmas season with all its craziness; it’s easy for us to miss Christ if you don’t go in the Spirit to whatever you’re doing that day, wherever you’re going.

Some of you are listening to Revive Our Hearts in your van. Are you in the Spirit expecting to meet Christ? Some of you are in your kitchen. Are you in the Spirit expecting to see Christ?

I thought about it as I went to church this past Sunday. Am I in the Spirit expecting to see Christ when I go there? Both Simeon and Anna came into the temple that day in the Spirit. Undoubtedly that day there were other babies being dedicated, lots of things going on. It was a crowded place.

How in the world could you recognize Christ in the midst of all of that? He just looked like any other baby. But God gave them eyes to see because they went into the temple in the Spirit. God gave them hearts to recognize and to receive the presence of Christ.

One listener said, “So many times I’ve been in my kitchen listening to Revive Our Hearts, trying to multi-task, and I’ve fallen on my face worshiping and crying to Him because I felt I must take off my shoes; this is holy ground.”

Are you in the Spirit in your kitchen? Now that doesn’t mean that every time you’re in your kitchen, you ought to be on your knees crying and praying. But in your heart are you in the Spirit?

You see, others missed what Simeon saw that day. Most in your world and most in your church never see and experience Christ as He wants to be known. The Holy Spirit has to open our eyes to see Christ, to see Him in the Word. I wonder, what do we miss by reading the Scripture, going to church, multi-tasking in the kitchen with natural eyes apart from the influence of the Spirit of God?

So as you go to church this weekend, as you attend special Christmas services during this season, or as you sit at your desk at work, stand in your kitchen, drive your kids around, ask God to help you do it in the Spirit. And as you do, expect to see Christ.

Lord, I pray that You’d give us eyes to see and hearts to receive what can only be known by the power of Your Spirit. I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Dannah: Have you ever stopped to consider the role of the Holy Spirit in the Christmas story? Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is challenging you to think of the Christmas story in a whole new way.

Christmas is a season of celebration . . . it’s a special time to remember the hope we have in Christ. And you know, Nancy, all this month, we’ve been talking about a phrase that reminds us of our hope in Jesus.

Nancy: That’s right, Dannah. The phrase is “Our Anchor Holds.” At our True Woman ’22 conference this fall, we asked several women what that phrase means to them. Kelly Needham is a dear friend, a friend of this ministry, and here’s her response to that question.

Kelly Needham: I've seen the anchor hold in my life in my own heart's transformation, which always feels like the hardest transformation. To take seasons of change, to take hurts and conflict and problems that feel too big to solve in my own heart, to take those to the Lord and see my own heart transformed from a place of turmoil to a place of peace is so affirming to me that God is real, that He can change me. He can change my disposition, He can produce peace in my heart amidst a lot of moving things that are unstable and uncertain.

It's not always the circumstances that I want changed that get changed; it's usually heart postures that are getting changed, and contentment growing, rather than circumstances changing. But again, that's more freeing to me because now my hope is tied not to circumstances changing, but to a Person who can actually interject into a difficult circumstance and provide the things that we need despite the circumstance changing. It's really liberating.

Nancy: That’s a great thought from Kelly Needham. You know, our circumstances are always changing. When your plans don’t go your way, or you find yourself in the middle of hardship and difficulty, are you clinging to Christ?

In the storms of this life and the shifting winds of our culture, our hope can only be found in the one thing that’s steady and certain—Jesus, the true Anchor. That’s the message Revive Our Hearts is taking to women around the world: that in any and every circumstance, you can experience freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. You can help us share this timeless truth with women everywhere.

When you give to Revive Our Hearts this month, you’re partnering with us in giving hope to women who are desperate for shelter in the storms. Throughout the month of December, you have the chance to double your impact thanks to some friends of the ministry. They’ve provided a matching challenge, meaning that whatever amount you give, your donation will be doubled up to a total of $1.4 million.

What an incredible blessing that is. So your gift of $50 becomes $100, $200 becomes $400, and so on. And speaking of uncertain circumstances, I know we’re living in difficult times economically. For some, it difficult to know just how their basic needs are going to be met, much less how they can give to support kingdom work.

There's a passage in 2 Corinthians 9 that was written to a very poor, poverty-stricken church. The apostle Paul challenges them about their giving. These couple of verses have been so encouraging to me. I'm reading in 2 Corinthians 9:10–11:

The one who provides seed for the sower and bread for food will also provide and multiply your seed and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

That's a long sentence, but what does it mean? It says that God is the one who provides all that we need. He will provide the bread we need for our own food, but He will also provide and multiply the seed we can sow in the lives of others. And He will increase, He will multiply the harvest of the seeds that we sow. Then he says:

You will be enriched in every way for all generosity, which produces thanksgiving to God through us. (CSB)

Scripture is saying as we look to the Lord, as we trust Him, we can trust Him to meet our needs. And if our desire is to be generous to His work in the world, then He will direct us in how we can give, what we can give, and He will meet our needs. He will multiply what we give to meet the needs of even more who are blessed through that sacrifice.

I was to encourage you as you are trusting the Lord to provide for your needs, would you also pray and ask how you might give to Revive Our Hearts this month? The apostle Paul said that "you will be enriched in every way in all generosity which produces thanksgiving to God through us." Your support means so much to us, and I'm so thankful for your generosity that helps us keep pointing women to Christ.

Dannah: Thanks, Nancy, for that encouragement. My own heart needed that so much. It encourages me when I'm think of where I will be making donations as we approach the end of the year. If you’d like to partner with us at Revive Our Hearts, visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or give us a call at 1-800-569-5959. I'd also like to thank you for your support!

Well, there was one man who was so excited about Christmas, he broke out in song. Hear more about it tomorrow when we’re back for Revive Our Hearts.  

All Scripture is taken from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.

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