A Lifestyle of Peace - Bill Johnson (Full Sermon) | Bethel Church

how many uh do we still have people here from the uh heaven in business conference this week is there any any that we're a part of oh good i'm glad you're here good to have you and uh such a wonderful time at that event it's just so fun to see what jesus is doing all over the world in every area of life it is so encouraging to see things that i kind of hoped and believed were true 30 years ago and it's actually doing it it's actually happening and just such an encouragement to me i do have something to read two political rivals uh found that they were both in a bakery at the same time during their campaign one was rather sneaky and came to the other one and sees see how clever i am the owner didn't even notice but i took three of his pastries put them in my pocket that's why i'm going to win the election the other one said that's so typical of you deceit and theft i'm going to show you how to get the same results honestly so he went to the owner of the bakery says give me three pastries and i'll show you a magic trick the baker gives him three pastries he eats one after the other and the baker says so what's the magic trick he says do you want to see them reappear look in that person's pocket [Applause] oh yeah why don't you grab your bibles if you would to end open to philippians chapter four i've had two reoccurring themes in uh in my heart for the last um at least six months in fact i wrote out uh we're gonna read verse eight a little bit but i i wrote out a whole study on that um that i did maybe maybe as much as a year ago at least six eight months ago just for myself just just because i could feel what was happening in the air so to speak um i've been very very much aware of the battle that has been going on for many people in their thought life in the mind and i i don't like uh talking about anything negative in a way that fuels it uh sometimes uh we have the ability to talk about problems and we act we actually make the problems grow and so i'm not interested in that obviously but i do want to address a couple things um the two items that have been on my mind a lot are going to merge today in today's talk one is the issue of prayer the whole thing of first love relationship with jesus and the second is the whole issue of the of the mind and what god has uh assigned for us to do with with the mind the enemy is is very very nervous about several things about your life and mine one is that he works to keep keep us exposed to anxiety stress those kinds of things because that undermines our creative expression it's very difficult to operate out of a place of health when you're anxious and stressful when you're filled with anxiety and stress the goal is survival not creative expression and and the lord really desires longs to express who he is through his people his own nature his the way he functions his beauty the glory the creative all that stuff flows through a yielded believer when they are free from the issues of anxiety and stress and it is possible to live free of anxiety and stress jesus illustrates it he's headed to the cross and he's giving thanks we'll look at that a little bit more later but the point is as both paul and jesus illustrate something that's almost scary profound and how they modeled life going into the most difficult situation possible but they did it not just as survivors not just to stay positive and you know stiff upper lip that whole thing but as an overcomer they went into a hellish situation it came out absolutely glorious because there was a way to think i'm not talking about mind over men i'm not talking about just mental exercise i'm talking about a perception that comes when we see what jesus sees we see the way he sees so the enemy has several things that he's very very i believe nervous about uh three i'll mention uh to you today the first is is this issue of uh of creativity and i'm not putting these in in perhaps the right order but i'm just gonna randomly mention them the first is the creative expression no one who knows who god made them to be would ever want to be anyone else the uniqueness of every individual is so beautiful and so profound that stepping fully into who god made us to be is the greatest privilege in life and there is no comparison when you look at another person as to what you could actually become by god's design so the creative expression is very rich and very real the second thing is that the enemy uh is very very nervous about um the whole issue of of of our first love relationship with the lord that's been on my mind a lot lately and the lord has just kind of re stirring my own heart stirring the pot so to speak about this intimate relationship with god because what happens is anxiety infects love you can't be anxious and keep the kind of fervent relationship with the lord that all of us long for i don't mean that we've rejected him he's rejected us i i'm not saying that i'm just saying anxiety is exalting another ideal over what he has promised i am actually giving my heart my thoughts to that which is inferior to the word of the lord it is true that love annihilates fear but it's also true if i embrace anxiety fear any of that stuff that i have allowed something into my life that will infect love and the first thing to be addressed is my is my first love relationship with jesus i remind you of the passage in revelation chapter 2 where jesus is addressing the church at ephesus a great church and he honors them for so many things but then he says i have this against you you've left your first love that that you used to burn with you don't burn with anymore you've got the structure down you've got the skill down you're functioning the gifts well but this first love this burning affection that we are to carry for jesus is not like it used to be and then he gives specific instruction so we've got the creative expression we've got the first love and the third thing i would mention is that the attack on uh the the fear let me back i'm sorry every thought comes from fear or love every word out of my mouth comes from fear or love so what does what does the enemy want to undermine then he's working if he can if he can get me to compromise my first love then he can get me to lose my sense of identity and that's what fear and anxiety does it causes me to lose track of the tools he's given me the authority he's given me peace is is a huge part of god's economy for us as a believer um i've talked to you even in recent weeks and months about this issue for me whenever i you know i i let's just say let's take a uh it's eleven o'clock in the morning and i'm feeling all anxious and stressful and i go man what happened and i just i i i asked myself the question where did you leave your peace because i had it it it's mine it's my possession so i just got to find out where i dropped it so i i back up and i go okay oh yeah i was feeling stressful there there oh it was that phone call i got this morning and it might not even been a bad one but my reaction to information or to a situation was for me to become anxious and i embraced a lie i embraced inferior information over the word of the lord over my life it wasn't a conscious decision but it happened nonetheless and so what i have to do is always have to repent my way back to where i left my peace repent confess my sin pick it up and just realize it's my permanent possession peace in the kingdom is is very very uh profound because peace is not the absence of something it's the presence of someone peace is actually a person it's the abiding presence of the spirit of god in my life i'm not saying i can drop it or leave it in the sense that he abandons me but my my the the felt awareness of him gets laid aside in the world peace is always the absence of something it's the absence of noise or war or conflict in the kingdom you can be in the middle of all those and have peace because peace is a person so i repent my way back embrace peace once again and use that as my lifestyle we're going to look at why now um one more one more two more comments before we open the scripture although you already have it open right philippians 4 you're so good i'm in your life to teach you patience that's why i'm here the other side of this issue that we'll read about in a moment is the amazing purpose in prayer prayerlessness is costly it probably would be worth a study sometime just to look at the cost of pearlescent prayerlessness but let me give you two things right now in scripture it says you have not because you ask not so the implication in that verse is prayerlessness creates lack we often think in terms of lack being god's sovereign will for our life and it's not it's just lack fills in where perilous prayerlessness exists amen bill it's very good point amen keep it up stay encouraged and the second price that i will mention to you about prayerlessness is jesus taught he said pray so that you will enter temptation pray make sure you maintain prayer in your life so that you don't enter temptation so the implication is if i am prayerless i will face temptation i have no grace for and it doesn't mean i am prone to sin i may resist the temptation but the problem is prayerlessness created a battle i didn't need to fight prayerlessness put me into a conflict of a war of wills of decision and let's just say i win i make it through i don't do what i was tempted to do the problem is is because i was prayerless i actually attracted the situation into my life that was completely unnecessary if god designs for us to face a battle it's only because he's already given us the tools to win and he wants to punish the powers of darkness it's never so that we would fall or falter if he allows the battle it's only that we get to enforce his purposes in the earth but there's many battles that people face that were brought on by prayerlessness i'm just here to encourage philippians 4 philippians 4 let's read some scripture together we'll start with verse 4 rejoice in the lord always again i will say rejoice i remind you paul writes this from prison he's giving us tried and tested truths out of his own experience rejoice in the lord always i don't know if you've ever looked it up but that word always means always again i will say rejoice let your gentleness be known to all men the lord is at hand be anxious for nothing that's one commandment i have obeyed 100 of the time [Laughter] because everything i've ever been anxious over came to nothing maybe that's not what he meant all right be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to god and the peace of god which surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and mind through christ jesus be anxious for nothing but everything with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to god and the peace of god which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through christ jesus there's a picture painted for us in this part of philippians 4 of a military guard protecting a person's heart and mind heart the place where thoughts come from the mind itself and that military guard is there because of the previous verse pray over everything with thankfulness if you look at the nature of thankfulness it is i don't think we could over emphasize it i'm not sure that it's possible to exaggerate the power of thankfulness jesus on the night in which he was betrayed he took bread he broke it and he gave thanks he's about to be betrayed by judas and he's about to be forsaken by all 11 disciples that he is now breaking bread with he's about to experience the most gruesome death anybody's ever faced not only because of the crucifixion the scourging all that he went through but because of the weight of sin itself that came upon him you know what it is to sin and feel guilty and shameful multiply that by billions of people with millions of sins on one particular individual when the soldiers came to kill the three on the cross they didn't have to kill jesus because he was already dead why because the weightiness of sin that's why he said god why'd you forsake me because in that moment he became sin when was forsaken by the father the two thieves had to be killed because theirs was just a crucifixion i don't mean to make light of it i'm just saying the weightiness of sin he became that which the father despised which was sin but he did that so that we could become what the father delighted in and that was the righteousness of god it was an exchange so in that moment which was his most difficult moment most difficult moment in all of human history in that moment he broke bread and he gave thanks i'd like to suggest that these difficult moments throughout scripture are the moments where he sets an example a model for us that can and must be followed the thankfulness regardless of circumstances to maintain maintain thankfulness in those circumstances keeps us like attached to life source in a sense in a very practical way maintaining thankfulness keeps us sane when things are not going right keeps us connected to the to the right thing so we've got this interesting passage i want you to look at it again 6 7 and this time we'll read 8. be anxious for nothing verse 6 but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to god now here's the result and the peace of god which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through christ jesus verse 8 finally brethren whatever things are true whatever things are noble whatever things are just whatever things are pure whatever things are lovely whatever things are of good report if there's any virtue if there's anything worthy praiseworthy meditate on these things what do we have here we've got we've got two two verses that give us instruction the first one is pray over everything with thankfulness verse 8 says think on these things sandwiched those two verses sandwich the promise and the promise is his peace will protect you but it has responsibility given to you and me on both sides the first has to do with prayer and the second has to do with what we choose to think about jesus gave an illustration a kind of a parable he he talked about the human being like a house and in this illustration he said if a house has all this junk in it and it's clean and it's swept but the owner doesn't refill the house with correct things the enemy that once dwelled in the house comes back seven times worse but the house in this in this example is actually a human being and so here jesus says pray over everything i'll guard your heart and mine now fill the house with the right things do you understand that you you can think about anything you want nobody has control over your mind i can think about pink elephants right now if i want to and i just helped you to do the same you're welcome no one controls that part of our life so what's the issue is that when we begin to submit ourselves to the inferior we allow anxiety stress to fill our minds with although the what-ifs that have no life to them there's no promise to them and the enemy again is working to undermine identity first love relationship and this whole thing of being an authentic representation of jesus he fears that he fears it so much that in the book of zechariah when zechariah was talking about these four beings rose up in the earth to destroy the people of god they're illustrated with the term horns horns are figurative for authority for powers and so the lord says these four horns were raised up in the earth to just to wipe out the people of god and god's answer was to raise up four artisans the creatives in other words the authentic expression of who jesus is in a human being he was going to in the four corners of the earth he was going to do the same thing in the four corners of the earth have an honest authentic representation of who jesus is released through his people and that authentic expression would be the very thing that would defeat the four horns that authentic expression of people who reign remain in first love and find that is their identity that is what the enemy works at every time he tries to stir up the stress the anxiety all the junk because when i am anxious i have bought into something that's inferior i love this verse verse 8. i i like it because i like really practical things because i need practical things he says i this is just some of the study that i did for myself this last year sometime but he said look at verse 8 again finally brethren whatever things are true things that are true are absolute and they're liberating remember truth sets you free so think about that which is absolute and liberating whatever things are true whatever things are noble that word noble is honorable revered whatever things are just that is righteous correct innocent whatever things are pure that's holy and sacred whatever things are lovely that's pleasing and agreeable whatever things are good report that's well reported of it's attractive whatever things are if there's any virtue this word virtue is moral goodness but it's also excellence and if there's anything praiseworthy this i don't know if if this will make sense to you but sometimes i'm having i'll have been having a real battle maybe somebody you know just did something that really really was against what they should have done i'll be nice somebody just really steps outside the line of what they're doing and maybe representing me or us as a house whatever it might be and you know like anybody else i got this mind thing going on where i've got to make sure that i stay i can't ignore a problem if i'm responsible but i also don't have to fuel it with my own stress and anxiety because then i will come to wrong conclusions and i will misapply truth for my sake and not theirs that was more true than you realize and the scripture says i'm supposed to fill my mind with certain things and if i'm struggling with that here's what i do i will think about my wife because she is everything in verse 8. she is she is so true so absolute so life-giving she is so lovely and praiseworthy and virtuous she is so excellent all those things i honestly will just stop if i'm having a difficult day i'd go okay i've got to recalibrate what is it that i love about my wife and i start to think specifically about those things and it's hard to be mad at anybody when you start thinking of those kinds of things are you catching my drift here it's hard if i'm filling my heart and mind recalibrating what's important recalibrating my heart my mind my thought life to what's valuable as soon as i do that something takes place in in me where i'm at a place where i maybe i have a responsibility with this individual that is just betrayed or done something dumb maybe i have a responsibility there but when i recalibrate my thoughts as to what is righteous and good i don't come to that person that i need to work with abusively i come to them in grace does that make any sense to you you know this thing has to be practical and jesus illustrated it the best i want you to look at one more portion of scripture and then we'll uh we'll wrap this up go to john 13. john 13. this is something we studied here i think a couple years ago now but it very very meaningful passage to me jesus is soon to go to the cross i've already described a little bit just the suffering that he was to go through the abandonment by all of his disciples the betrayal by judas himself all of this that he was that he knew about that he was just stepping into in this moment it tells us what he was thinking in that moment which is this was this is what floors me he he was doing what we were instructed to do in philippians 4. so this is what he is conscious of in verse 3. jesus knowing that the father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from god and was going to god rose from supper laid aside his garments took a towel girded himself the next couple verses he washes the disciples feet there's three things that are very specific for any person in this room let me let me announce to you why i'm talking about this today i felt this morning in praying that god was actually going to end a mental battle for a number of people and it will end in here today i i really sense that this morning i felt like i had a word of promise from the lord regarding this if you've been here any length of time you know i don't throw that kind of a statement out very often but i felt this morning that the lord was going to bring peace to a chaotic anxious thing for a number of folks and i i've not seen uh a season like this in fact there's been a number of suicides across our nation of high-profile people even in ministry and it's just one of the most horrible things bitterness is immature murder self-condemnation and self-hatred is immature suicide in other words it's just undeveloped and it's the reason we have to stay so far away from those kinds of patterns of thought it's not that i'm going to go kill myself it's just that it is already killing me life and death is in the power of the time we even people who don't murder still speak unkindly and release death into a given situation so in this passage it tells us this jesus knowing so that tells me what jesus was conscious of as he was about to head into this betrayal cross situation what does it say it says jesus knowing all things had been given to him by the father there's an interesting twist you're about to lose your life and what you're thinking about is that everything is yours you're about to suffer the greatest loss anyone has ever experienced and what's on your mind is i've already re-inherited everything this is this is this is practical he says jesus knowing all things had been given to him by the father just a little insert here jesus as god already owned everything but he laid that down if you will to become a man and he now re-inherits everything as a man it's mentioned in john 16. so here it's identified he says jesus knowing all things have been given to him by the father number one and number two he came from the father and he was about to go home in other words he's going to step into eternal purpose and eternal destiny so what was he thinking about when he was about to be betrayed that unlimited resource and a destiny that can't be challenged or changed that's that's about as practical as it as it gets facing betrayal crucifixion all the stuff is thinking about i've just inherited everything now as the son of man and i'm about to ascend to the father into eternal destiny eternal purpose and the third thing he did was he washed his disciples feet what's the point come back next week and i'll tell you it's an overused joke sorry to me the serving is what this will be a weird illustration jesus mindful everything was his he was going to the father two-part epoxy it was the serving that brought him together it was what makes practical his own confidence in his own destiny is the fact that he lost nothing by going low many people can't go low because their identity is wrapped up in a title or a position when jesus illustrates going low is actually revealed his security watch your stand now i'm in a moment i'm going to give people an opportunity to meet jesus it's the most important thing that could happen today so i'm going to ask everybody to not walk around because i don't want anyone's restlessness to affect anybody else's opportunity to respond to an invitation i want you to respect that there's always a chance when we have this amount of people in a room that there are our folks here who have never had a personal relationship with jesus the bible calls it being born again it's simply faith that we put in christ to follow him alone that brings a transformation to the heart of a person born again from the inside out changed and that is made available to everybody here and i want to give the opportunity if you would be one who would say bill i don't want to leave the room i don't want to leave the building till i know that god has forgiven me of sin and that i've been brought into his family i want to follow jesus if that's you then i just want more yards put a hand up in the air and i'll just acknowledge you where you are if that's you just put a hand up right here yep see you bless you for that wonderful anybody else is there another one back over here there's another one back over here i bless you yeah wonderful beautiful another one where over here okay oh excellent beautiful wonderful is another one over here thank you all it's the greatest greatest thing ever it's the greatest miracle ever anyone else real real quick we have three that i could see responded to this invitation here's what i want to ask we have people that we know and trust that i want to pray with you and talk with you it's not about bethel or membership it's about your walk with jesus because we want you to experience his love in a way that changes everything from this moment on so i'm going to ask two things to happen at the same time i want to ask the ministry team to come to the front and i want to ask the three people that raised your hand and any others that i missed just walk right up here to this team where this banner is and these folks here will talk with you and pray with you so if you would just leave your seat wherever you're at come down here right now ministry team come quickly yeah those those who raise their hand come on come on down here i want to make sure yeah bless you bless you bless you right here all right all right well i love that here now i want to pray over you because i i really i really felt strong this morning that the lord was going to end for many many many people he was going to end a mental battle that has been going on for a long time in fact i just i feel like i just should announce this is this is the end of that of that season of anguish anxiety nothing ends circumstances don't always immediately end sometimes it's me who need to change so that they can change and i just i really believe that the is releasing your grace for this right now so let's pray together and then i'll turn it over to tom and we'll wrap it up all right so father i thank you for the the fact that you give us tools that work and that we can expect and anticipate things to be different simply because we have anchored our hearts into the superior not to be influenced by the inferior i'm asking now for a grace over the heart and the mind of the people of god that our thought life would accurately represent who you are and the resource you've made available for us i ask all of this in the wonderful name of jesus extend the hand towards these that are receiving christ today we pray as again lord that the power of the spirit of god would come upon each one anyone else in the room that still needs this that the power of the spirit of god would come so mightily that there would be permanent transformation that would ripple through their entire family line in jesus name everybody said amen amen tom come hang out a moment you

Channel: Bill Johnson Teaching (Official)

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Keywords: bill johnson sermons, bill johnson, supernatural, bethel church, miracles, christian, bethel, holy spirit, revival, sermon, holy ghost, spiritual warfare, bethel.tv, presence of god, signs and wonders, bill johnson 2020, bethel redding, bill johnson bethel, bill johnson healing, healing, faith, Jesus, Bill Johnson 2019, best sermons, online church services, bethel moments, lifestyle of peace, peace of the Lord

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Length: 38min 6sec (2286 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 18 2020