Everything Changes When You're Marked by the Presence of God | Priscilla Shirer Sermon

If you want to walk with purpose in the way that God has called you to, I'm asking that God's spirit isn't just in us, but God's spirit is on us, where we are marked by the presence of God, where when people encounter us, there's something unusual, something distinct, where when the employer is looking to give the promotion, it's not that your resume says you are the most qualified out of all the candidates, but there's something about you that they just can't put a finger on. That's called the spirit of God being on you. It's called favor. Listen to Luke chapter 2, verse 21 through about verse 32 or so. When Jesus was, about eight days were completed, he was circumcised. His name was then called Jesus. The name given by the angel before he was conceived, and when the days for purification to the law of Moses were completed, that's about 40 days after Jesus was born or so, so he's 40 days old, they brought him into Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. Every firstborn male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. And they came to offer sacrifices according to what was said of the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, and behold, somebody say behold. Come on y'all, say behold. Behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, this guy's name was Simeon, and he was righteous and devout and looking for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on his life. And it had been revealed to him by the Spirit that he would not see death until he had caught sight of Jesus. So he came into the Spirit, into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to carry out the custom of the law, Simeon saw him. He recognized that this little baby was Jesus Christ. He gathered the baby up in his arms, he blessed the child, and he said, Lord, now you can let me depart in peace, I don't have to see anything else. I haven't yet seen this guy perform one miracle, Lazarus hadn't been raised from the dead, the sick have not yet been healed, deaf ears haven't yet been opened, I haven't seen any of that. But once I've caught sight of the Savior, Lord, he says, you can let me depart in peace because my eyes have seen your salvation, which you've prepared in the presence of all the people. He's a light of revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of thy people, Israel. Thank you for letting me see Jesus. Lord, open up our eyes so that we can see you. Lord, open up our spiritual ears so that we can hear you. God, we are sitting on the edge of our seat because we are anxious to see how you will introduce, reintroduce yourself to us today. Lord, I'm so grateful that all of us is here, but we didn't come to see each other, we came to see you. So Lord, come, we're your daughters and we want to see you. In Jesus' name, everybody agreed when they said amen? Give somebody a high five before you take your seat. I'm so grateful and I'm so honored to have an opportunity to be here with you and to share in God's word. I believe in the power of the word of God. I do parent, Chris just told you, three sons. They are giants. I just have giants walking around my house. My nearly 16-year-old is six foot two inches tall. His 14-year-old brother is the exact same height. They both wear size 14 men's shoe. My youngest son, his name is Jude, so I've got Jackson, Jerry, Jr., and Jude. And we named our third son Jude on purpose because, y'all, that's as close as I could get to Revelation because it is finished, that is it, it's the end of the line. And they're giants. Somebody come help me feed these people, that's all I do is try to feed the boys. And I remember this particular weekend, because I was in Memphis, Tennessee, they were very little at the time, and I remember being very, very tired on this particular trip. I could not wait to get to the location in Memphis, Tennessee, so I could get to the hotel. I'd had an early flight and was very excited to be at the hotel early so that I could immediately go and get in the bed and go to sleep early that night. I was so happy to have that opportunity. And so, I arrived in Memphis, Tennessee, was picked up at the airport, driven by a sweet woman who had come from the church where I was going to be at their conference. She'd come and picked me up, took me to the hotel, and it was about 7.30 in the evening. I was so happy. She said, would you like to go out to dinner first? I was like, oh, no, I get to go into this hotel room all by myself and have the bed all to myself? I could not wait. So, I lay down, watched a little something on television, I think at about 8.30, I mean, I was out. I needed all those hours of rest. Except that, around 3 a.m. or so, I was jarred awake, jolted awake by a train that started to go by right outside the back of the hotel. There were train tracks that were just a few feet behind the hotel. The conductor was sitting on the horn the entire time that all of the cars of the train went by. I was jolted awake and I went immediately to the window and looked outside and I saw how close that train actually was. And then, you know, you have to kind of sit there and wait for the whole thing to pass. And this wasn't a small train, this was one that goes on and on and on. Finally it passed and I tried to get back to sleep but really couldn't nestle down into a good sleep. I knew I had to be up really early in the morning so I couldn't sleep real well, but did my best. Got up in the morning. The sweet woman from the church came, picked me up, I got in the car, didn't say anything about the train, had a great long day at the church, at the conference, and then could not wait to get back to the hotel so that I could try to get a good night's sleep. This was going to be the night that I got all my good hours of sleep in before having to go home the next day. And so I laid down in the bed about 8.30, 9 o'clock in the evening, fell into a very deep sleep until 3 a.m. in the morning. When a train went roaring by, the conductor sitting on the horn the entire time that the train went by. This time I was jolted awake, went and looked at the train outside the window and I thought, I can't wait for the sweet woman from the church to come pick me up so that I can tell her about this train that is passing by right outside the door, or outside the back of this hotel. So when she came, I sat down in the car, I said, thank you so much for picking me up, I gotta ask you about this train. I described to her how at 3 o'clock in the morning for the last two nights this train had gone roaring by in the back of the hotel. As I explained it to her, I felt bad for her because it was like it was occurring to her, dawning on her, like she was reminded about this train that comes through their community. Her eyes were as wide as saucers and she said, Priscilla, I am so sorry, I totally forgot about that train. And she said, the reason why is because those of us who live in this community have gotten so used to the sound of the train that we don't even recognize it anymore. That train comes by two or three times a week, every week, and we pay little attention to it because we've lived here so long that we've gotten so used to the sound of the train that when it comes, we don't recognize it. We've been desensitized to the train in this community. It occurs to me that those of us who live particularly in this part of the world, where we have been overwhelmingly blessed by the presence and the power of God among us, where here in this country, you and I can go on a Saturday to a Christian women event like this one, or we can go to a Christian bookstore where we can pick up any Bible in any translation in any language, or we can turn on Christian radio and listen to Gospel if you like that, or contemporary Christian music if you like that. We have options available to us. Could it be that we have lived in this neighborhood of blessing for so long that when the train of God's glory wants to fall in unusual way, when He wants to show up in power and in glory that we have become so used to it that we don't even recognize His blessing anymore? That we've become so desensitized to God's presence among us that it doesn't cause us as it always should for us to fall to our knees in adoration, our arms outstretched in worship, that God would visit us in this unique, beautiful way. Lord, help us to never be desensitized to the train of Your glory. And in the Old Testament, or in the New Testament rather, in the book of Luke, Luke's Gospel I love so much because Luke writes about people who encounter the train of God's glory in the person of Jesus Christ. He gives us story after story, encounter after encounter of Jesus meeting with people and transforming their life. He included a handful of these stories so that you and I would be not only reminded of their encounter with Jesus, but recognize that they are not exceptions to the rule. They are examples for us of the encounters that we should also expect to have with Jesus. And listen, this should be your goal. Not just hearing about Him, but experiencing Him. That should be your goal, like your appetite should be wet, your heart should hunger for more than just a knowledge of who Jesus is. You ought to come to the place, I ought to come to the place in my relationship with the Lord where more than anything else, we want to see Him with our own eyes. We want to hear His voice with our own ears. That the same God who divided the Red Sea in the Old Testament, the same God who raises Lazarus from the dead in the New Testament, the same God that did those things. We don't want to just celebrate it in the lives of other people. We want to stand in line to have an encounter with God like that ourselves. Luke writes about encounters because he wants to wet our appetite to have an encounter with Jesus Christ. Because listen y'all, we have wasted our time if all we've done is come here on this Saturday to applaud what Jesus did yesterday. I'm so glad about what my God has done yesterday, but I want to see Him today. Anybody interested? I want to see Him in my own marriage and in my own finances and raising my kids and on my job and in my ministry. I want to see and encounter the power of the almighty living God. That's what today is about. It's to make you hungry again. It's to wet your appetite again. It's to not let when the day ends something to end in your life, but really to launch you forward to a brand new beginning and an adventure with Jesus Christ. So Luke writes about encounters and he writes during a time when the nation of Israel is experiencing national depravity and decay. They have been oppressed by oppressors who have come in and stolen from them much of what they valued. They are living in a place of oppression and a place of destruction. And Luke writes to them during this time when their nation is in trouble. And I don't know if you've noticed or not, but our nation is in trouble. We are living during a time of moral and social decay and decline like never before. And listen, the more God is marginalized, the more He's segmented to the periphery of society, the more He is completely ignored or disregarded, the more we will continue to see an influx of chaos and an influx of destruction in our nation. But Luke doesn't just write to people who have national trouble. Luke is writing to people that have individual, personal struggles. They've been waiting on a hero to show up. They've been waiting for the kingdom of God to be at hand. They've been waiting for the prophecies of old to come to flourish and that there would be a Messiah, a Savior who would come and rescue them from all that they've been experiencing nationally, but also the things that they have been experiencing personally. So I know our nation is in trouble, but I didn't really come to talk to you today about what's happening in the White House. I want to talk to you about what's happening in your house. Underneath the roof of your home, the trouble that might be happening in your marriage, the thing that causes the tears to fall down from your eyes in regards to your kids or your finances or your health or on your job or in your ministry, you, like the children of Israel, like me, been waiting on a hero. Somebody who can come in and speak life to the dead places and refresh the dry places of our life. Luke is writing for people who need an encounter with a God like that. And I just want to tell any of you that might be in a struggle personally, underneath the roof of your own house and the landscape of your own house, and you're in a struggle, you're in a time, like Luke writes to, where, man, things are just plain old flat out difficult. I just want to suggest to you the possibility that sometimes, sometimes your difficulties are less about the enemy being against you and more about God wanting to show you what it looks like when He's for you. Sometimes the stuff that you are facing, the stuff that I'm facing that are difficult, it's less about the enemy being against you. And sometimes it's just about God allowing a stage to be set in your life to where when He shows up, you will never ever doubt again that you've had an encounter with Jesus. So the children of Israel need an encounter with a Messiah. They need an encounter with Jesus Christ and finally Jesus arrives on the scene. After 400 years of silence between the Old Testament and the New Testament, Jesus arrives on the scene. After centuries of waiting, after prophecy desiring to be fulfilled, Jesus shows up on the scene. Their hope has finally been fulfilled. But here's the tragedy, when He comes, He does not come as they supposed He would. He is not on a throne, He is not riding a white horse, He is not coming in power and vengeance and authority that they had mirrored in their oppressors, that they had pictured that their Messiah would come. No, He is born as a baby. All of that deity and authority and miraculous working power that they longed for was packaged in the skin of humanity. And a small human at that, this is not what they wanted, it's not what they recognized, it wasn't the expectation they had built up in their heads. So when He came, they did not recognize Him. When He showed up, because He was not in the package that they had pictured in their minds, He didn't come in the package they had prayed for, He had come in a different way because He did not meet their expectations when He showed up, they did not recognize Him. In the passage that we read, Jesus is being brought into the temple, He is being carried by His mother Mary, Joseph is along for the ride as well, they have come with Jesus about 40 days old into the temple, they are in a religious gathering where people have come to perform their religious duties. And all the people who are gathered that day are in the presence of the one they prayed for and do not know Him when He comes. Would you please notice that they're not just anywhere, they are in the temple and still don't recognize the presence of God. I want to suggest to you that it is possible to be at Propel and not see Jesus. I want to tell you that it is possible for you to be in your church every single Sunday, which I pray you are, but you can be in your church and not have an encounter with Jesus. I want to tell you that I'm so glad many of you are in Bible study, stay in Bible study, but you can read a verse a day to keep the devil away until you are blue in the face. But if you read the Scriptures with a hardened heart, with your eyes not open, you can be filling your days with the duty of religious activity and never catch sight of the lover of your soul. Never have an encounter, an experience with Jesus. All these people were in the presence of Jesus Christ and did not know Him when He came. Because oftentimes, many times, when the Lord comes to minister to you, to speak into your life circumstances, He will come in a way that is not the way you expect. Why? Because His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. As high as the heavens are above the earth, that's how high His ways and His thoughts are above our own. And what I attempt to do, what you often attempt to do, I'm sure, is to dumb Him down so that His ways match our ways. His thoughts match our thoughts. We want Him to answer our prayers the way we prayed them. We want the solutions that work out in our minds to be the solutions that will be best given the scenario that we see, given the prayer requests that we've prayed. But y'all, sometimes we pray for growth, and He answers with rain. Sometimes we pray for oak trees, and He answers with an acorn. And when the answer comes for your marriage, when the answer comes for your parenting, when the solution that God—listen, today, God is going to give some of you solutions and divine strategies for things that are happening in your life and on your job and in your finances, the struggles that you're facing. And I'm saying, when He answers, if the answer does not come in the package that you have expected, will you miss it because you want your way, not His way? And so Jesus, He comes, and He's in a pool of religious people, and they do not recognize the presence of God near them. Now, I want to open up a little parenthesis here before we jump to a specific person that I want to draw your attention to. He's the only person in the text who actually sees Jesus. But I want to open up a little parenthesis because you may have recognized that Luke went into a whole lot of detail to tell us something about the text. It's one thing I love about Luke, is that he gives us details. I like all the juice and all the details out of the text so that I can get a full picture painted of what's happening in the story. And Luke wants us to know that Mary and Joseph are coming for the ceremonial dedication of their firstborn son. That's what everybody did. They would come to Jerusalem, particularly during this time when they had a newborn son, to present their newborn son to the Lord. Get the picture of this. The Lord, in this case, is being presented to the Lord. And they come in and Luke writes and tells us exactly what they have with them, other than the baby Jesus. Says that Mary had two turtle doves, or two pigeons, for her sacrifice. Now that wouldn't really be of interest except that we know from Leviticus, from the sacrificial system that had been set up divinely mandated by God in Leviticus, that when someone came to make their sacrifices, they did need two animals to be sacrificed. One was a pigeon or a turtle dove. The other was supposed to be a lamb, that they were supposed to bring a lamb with them. But we find in Luke's Gospel that he's made sure we know Mary and Joseph do not have their own lamb. Luke chapter 12 tells us — or Leviticus chapter 12 tells us that there was a caveat for why someone would not bring a lamb to be sacrificed. There's one little verse, Luke chapter 12, verse 8 or so, that says if someone could not afford a lamb, if their financial resources were so that they could not buy for themselves a lamb to bring into the temple to be sacrificed, there would be an exception made for them. They could bring two turtle doves instead of one turtle dove and a lamb. They could just bring two turtle doves, but that was a symbol of the fact that they were insufficient in some way. They did not have the finances to buy their own lamb, which means when Mary and Joseph came on that particular day with their two turtle doves in tow, people would have automatically looked at them and recognized them as a couple who had insufficient funds, as a couple who was inadequate in some way, as a couple who had lack and who had needs. I wonder how many people turned their noses up at the couple who could not afford their own lamb. I wonder how many people ignored the poor couple who didn't fit in with everybody else who had been able to purchase their own lamb. I wonder how many people did not get an opportunity to have an encounter with the baby Jesus because they ignored the people who had Him carried in their arms. I want to speak to anybody who's in this room and you've ever felt excluded or ignored from the clique of people who have the money to buy their own lamb. They drive the car and they live in the house and they're able to, to communicate or to experience life in a certain way that, that man, you just can't afford. Maybe you've got lack financially or you've got lack emotionally, you have lack relationally, you have poured everything out and you find that you've got insuff- funds in some way in your life and you can't afford what it looks like everybody else can afford. And you've been ignored or ostracized. People have turned their noses up at you. Can I just tell you that sometimes you don't need to have your own lamb when you can carry the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. In fact, the lamb is most often best experienced in the lives of those who have insufficient funds. In fact, I think it is our affluence that keeps us from actually having an encounter with the living God. We've become so used to being able to bless ourselves that we don't have a real authentic relationship with the blesser. We are so affluent. We have prosperity, particularly in this part of the world where, listen, if you're poor in this country, you're rich in other countries. And here where we've been able to sustain ourselves, where we know where our next meal is coming from, where we choose from a closet full of clothes as to what clothes we're going to wear to a particular event, where we might have financial struggles. Everything is not perfect, but we still have our daily needs met. It is sometimes in our affluence. Because our arms are so full of the lambs we have bought for ourself, we actually don't even have room, we don't have margin to have an intimate, ongoing relationship with the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. Lord forgive us when we've turned our noses up at people who don't have all of the external markings of affluence. In doing that, we have missed out on the blessing of having a relationship with the people who often have the most intimate relationships with Jesus Christ. Because sometimes, y'all, those people are not in the spotlight, they're the ones behind the scenes. Sometimes those are the people that are not in megachurches, they're in storefront churches. Sometimes they're the people that are not the ones on the platform with the microphone in their hands, they're the people that volunteer their time to clean up in a sanctuary like this to sweep up after us. They're the people who volunteer their time to be in the Sunday school, teaching our second graders and third graders so that you and I can enjoy an opportunity like that. Lord forgive us when we ignore those people and clamor after the people whose gifts happen to put them in the spotlight, but we ignore those people who are, who are in intercessory prayer, who are on their knees in the secret, quiet places, the lamb of God tucked within their arms, having an intimate encounter with him, but we ignore them because they don't look like us or dress like us or drive what we drive or live where we live. So if you've ever been that person, the text speaks to you today that it was Mary and Joseph who did not have what everybody had, but they had what everybody else didn't have. And so they come into the building. Nobody recognizes that Jesus has arrived except one person. Luke writes at the top of the passage, he writes and behold, somebody say behold. Come on y'all say behold. Anytime an author in the text writes that word, it isn't a throwaway word, it isn't something that you just need to skip or skim over quickly. Anytime you read behold in the text, the author's trying to tell you lean in, put your chin in your hands, just in case you kind of fell asleep during all the minutiae and the fine details that led up to this moment, this is when the author wants you to open up your eyes and sit up straight because there's somebody he wants you to meet. He says behold, there was a man named Simeon, and when no one else recognized the presence of God when God came near, there was one guy who did. And if in this room today, there are only going to be a handful of us who actually have an encounter with God, I'm talking about where we hear His voice when we, our hearts are set aflame by the Holy Spirit, when we get some direction for the purpose that He has for our life, if there are going to be a whole lot of us who have an experience today, but only a few that actually encounter the living God that I don't know about you, but if there's only going to be a few, I want to be one of them, anybody? So Luke says pay attention because there's one guy that's going to show you how to have your eyes open so that you aren't just in the religious place, but so that you encounter a holy living God. He says there's a man named Simeon, he's righteous, devout, and he's looking for the consolation of Israel. His eyes are open, peeled to the horizon, waiting for Jesus in whatever package He chooses to come, waiting for an encounter with the long-awaited Messiah, and then he gives us at least the one, there are many throughout this text, but the one characteristic of his life that I believed opened up Simeon's eyes to catch sight of God, that will open up our eyes to catch sight of God. He says at the bottom of verse 25, he says, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. Luke says Simeon's eyes were open to catch sight of God because God's Spirit was on him. The Holy Spirit is the greatest gift you will ever receive this side of eternity. The moment you place faith in Jesus, the moment you receive Jesus as your personal Savior, I don't know if you knew it or not, but you received in that moment the greatest gift you will ever receive, the Holy Spirit of God. And the Holy Spirit is not a ghost or a wind or a fire or a dove. He is often symbolized by those things, but y'all, they ain't who He is. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. Not third because He is least in value, just third because He is the last to be revealed to us in the pages of Scripture. But all of the fullness, all of the power, all of the authority, all of the greatness, all of the grandeur of God the Father is in the person of the Holy Spirit. Which means when you place faith in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit takes up residence in you, that now means that all of the power, all of the glory, all of the grandeur, all of the greatness of God the Father now lives on the inside of you. Ephesians chapter 1 says the moment you believe, you receive the Holy Spirit with promise. You are not waiting on the Holy Spirit, you have the Holy Spirit right now. You did not receive the Holy Spirit in installment plans. You can't give away a person in parts. All of the Holy Spirit you ever gonna get, you got the moment you got saved. Now we need to be filled by God's Spirit as we yield to His conviction in our life in obedience. As what is happening in us becomes an outward expression, as our behavior is modified, as we are sanctified. Somebody say sanctified. Sanctified. That means as we are molded into the image of Christ Jesus so that we start to think like Him and talk like Him and walk like Him and behave like Jesus, Jesus behaved. We need to be filled by God's Spirit but when you got saved, listen to me, you received the Holy Spirit of God. God's Spirit is in you. The benefit of this is all of the fruit of God's Spirit is available to you. That means that there is gentleness that you don't have in your own natural ability for that person or that problem that now you are able to have that is beyond your own natural capacity because the Holy Spirit, what He does is help us to live beyond ourselves. When we've come to the end of our patience, you know with that one coworker, that one that if she says one more thing to you, you gonna knock her out, that one. The Holy Spirit is the one that gives you patience when your patience has long since run out. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives you self-discipline so that you have discipline in areas where you know left to your own natural desires and propensities, you would not have discipline in that area of morality or that area of gluttony. You wouldn't have discipline but now because the Holy Spirit lives on the inside of you, you can live beyond your natural capacities. Anybody excited about that? The Holy Spirit gives you fruit so that you are able to have more than what you would have if left to your own. But you don't just get His fruit, you get His gifts. The Holy Spirit gives you gifts through which you can edify the body of Christ. He turns what would have maybe possibly been just a talent into a gift that actually causes what you do or what you craft to actually get to the hearts of the people that you were singing to or speaking to or dancing for or writing to. Those people now don't just read words on a page that you wrote, now the words are like fire shut up in their soul. It changes their heart, it renews their mind, it accomplishes spiritual purposes in their lives. So listen, if you're a writer, well then write, do your best work, but in the end what you're praying for is that God's Spirit will anoint your words with power and with fire to affect people for the glory of God. Don't just speak, ask God for fire on your message. Don't just dance, perfect your craft, but in the end what you're looking for is not just talent, what you want is a gift. And there's no amount of manufacturing that can give what only the Holy Spirit can give. So when the Holy Spirit takes up residence on the inside of you and on the inside of me, at the moment we are saved, we have the privilege of having relationship with Jesus Christ, having relationship with God, having communication with Him because of the Holy Spirit that lives on the inside of us. That if when God sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross, if when we received that gift, we got a ticket to eternity, and that was all we got, just that we knew we were saved from death, hell, and the grave, and we got to experience eternity with Jesus Christ. Listen, if that's all we ever got out of this salvation deal, that would have been enough for us to celebrate for the rest of our days. But when that might have been enough for us, it wasn't enough for Him. He said, no, I'm gonna send you the Holy Spirit so that I don't, you don't have to wait to get to heaven, to experience heaven, but so that you can have a little bit of heaven right now while you're here on planet Earth. I'm going to give you myself in the person of the Holy Spirit so that you will see what it's like to walk with me, and talk with me, and have friendship with me, and an ongoing relationship with me. That is what it means to have the Holy Spirit. But Luke says that Simeon did not just have the Spirit in him. It says that the Spirit was. This tells us that there is a difference between the Spirit being in you and the Spirit being on you. I want to live a life that invites the presence of God's Spirit on me. I know He's in me, but I want the kind of life that is a magnet to grace, to favor, the anointing upon my life. I want such yield and surrender to Him that not just is He in me, that's a gift that all of us get who have placed faith in Jesus Christ, but I don't just want Him in me, I want Him on my life. I want the evidence of Him on my life. I want it so that when I do something, or say something, or participate in something, or pray over something, I want it so that when I walk away, people don't just say Priscilla was here. I want them to say, no, God's presence was here. That only happens when the Spirit of God is on you. And so if you want to mother your kids in such a way that you leave the imprint of God on those kids, the Spirit can't just be in you, He's got to be on you. If you want to be the wife that God has called you to be, single woman, if you want to be the kind of single woman that God has called you to be, if you want to be the kind of employer or employee that God has called you to be, if you want to walk with purpose in the way that God has called you to, then thank the Lord that God's Spirit is on you. But I'm asking that God will allow there to be 2,000 women who leave this place today at the end of the day, and God's Spirit isn't just in us, but God's Spirit is on us. Where we are marked by the presence of God, where when people encounter us, there's something unusual, something distinct, something that they cannot touch or taste or communicate with their five physical senses, there's an intangible that is on their life. Where when the employer is looking to give the promotion, it's not that your resume says you are the most qualified out of all the candidates, but there's something about you that they just can't put a finger on, that's called the Spirit of God being on you. It's called favor. Favor is what opens up doors no man can shut. Favor is what puts you in places you know you don't have no business being in. Favor is what sets you in positions that you know you aren't qualified for. Say favor is what makes it so that you are exactly where you're supposed to be to accomplish exactly what it is that God has set for you to accomplish. It's what qualifies you. When you don't have the degree and you don't have the diploma, you don't have the connections, you're just where God has opened up a door for you to be, and even though people might talk badly about you or try to push you out of that place, you cannot be moved, not because you manufactured your way there, but because God's Spirit has placed you there. God's Spirit on your life is what makes it so that you don't have to mark it yourself because you've already been marked by the presence of Almighty God. Oh, I want God's Spirit on me, and can I tell you this, are you listening? There is one thing that attracts the presence of God to rest on our lives, and it is plain old, flat out, old school, I implore you, sisters, by the mercies of God, to walk in a manner worthy of the calling by which you have been called, that if you come, if I come into this room and we celebrate till we are blue in the face and we wave our hands and we read the Scriptures and we worship, but we walk out of here and we live in a way that is incongruent with everything that we've heard here today, if we do not choose to walk in a way that honors God, we will have wasted the time that we have spent here. And if there is something that breaks my heart for my own generation and the generation coming up after me, it's that social media has made it so that we are more interested in impressing people than walking wholly before our God. We are more interested in being perfectly lit than we are in making sure that we're laying up treasures for ourselves in Heaven. Lord, help us when because of our hubris, because of our arrogance, because of our pride, we are more interested in receiving the applause of people than we are of making sure that we will receive the applause of Heaven. But a day is coming, y'all, sooner than we think where we're going to look our Savior in His face, where we're going to see Him face-to-face, and when we see Him, He will not ask me how many Instagram followers I have. He will not wonder how many people liked my message on Twitter. What He'll ask me is, number one, did I have a relationship with His Son, Jesus? And then I will give an account. You will give an account. And I don't know about y'all, but when I give an account, I'm looking for a well-done. Not because I necessarily please people, but because He is pleased with me. And the one thing that invites the favor of God on our life, like Simeon, that will open our eyes to see Him more clearly so that we don't miss Him when He comes into our circumstances trying to speak to us, to answer us, to make Himself apparent in our lives, the one thing that opens up our eyes is God's Spirit on us. And if you want, if I want God's Spirit on our lives, then we gotta decide to live holy. I implore you by the mercies of God to lay aside every sin, every hindrance, anything that is keeping you entangled so that you cannot run with endurance the race that is set before you. Any relationship, sever it at the pass so that you can walk holy, sister. Any addiction, any habit, any lifestyle choice that is keeping you from being free and walking in victory in Jesus' name, let it go by the power of the Holy Spirit so that He can rest on your life. Going to church is good, but it's not enough. Doing your Bible study, oh it's great, but it's not enough. If you want God's presence on you, marking you, making you distinct and different from the people around you, then you gotta walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Be ye holy. It's not perfection. It is a call to yield to the power of the Holy Spirit in you so that you do not give way to all the desires of your flesh. What it means is that you have not chosen as a lifestyle an attitude or an action that you already know is displeasing to God. You know up front that you've already got on your calendar after this is over a place you're going or a person you're seeing that you know you don't have any business being in relationship with, but you've already scheduled sin into your calendar. I'm saying walk away from everything that is keeping you from having the biggest, most amazing blessing you can have on your life, and that is God's presence marking you, all up on you, setting you apart, girl, for His purposes and with His power evident through your life. If you are in this room and you are in chains in some area of your life where you've tried the 12-step program, you've tried to walk away from that illegitimate relationship, you've tried to not live this lifestyle because you know that it is out of alignment with the truth of God, but everything you've tried in your own power has not set you free so that you can walk in holiness and have God's presence resting on your life. I believe that before this day is over, those chains can fall off of your life, that you can decide that I'm going to live holy so that I can have God's favor like Simeon, so that my eyes can be opened because I want to see my God. I want to hear His voice. I want to have an experience and an encounter with Him.