Bill Johnson Sermons [September 03, 2021] | The Discipline of Joy

welcome to the bethel church sermon of the week we hope you enjoy this message by pastor bill johnson for more information about this podcast and other resources visit ibethel.org open your bibles to the book of nehemiah chapter 8 nehemiah 8. one of the one of the things i enjoy doing is finding places in the old testament where the grace of god is evident it's uh it's fascinating to to see full-on grace in under an old covenant you see that with david when he has this prophetic permission to train the levites in worship when it was actually totally against their the law that they were under they were not able to come in before the ark of the covenant only the high priest could but somehow under david's prophetic direction they would come in before the lord and actually worship before him personally one-on-one corporately and that became the prophetic prototype of the new testament church we know that because in acts uh excuse me in amos chapter 9 there is the prophecy that in the last days god would rebuild that tabernacle of david in other words he would rebuild that is as the pattern for life in god for his people then in acts chapter 15 james quotes that passage to describe the new testament church so the point is is he was an old testament experience that prophetically pointed to modeled and illustrated a new testament experience there are a number of those throughout the scripture one of those that stands out to me is here in nehemiah chapter eight it comes to mind actually because i spent time yesterday talking with a friend and uh and found myself giving some instruction out of this particular chapter and realized it's been a long time since i've talked to you about this and so i thought it'd be just kind of fun just to take a real simple look at grace and how that functions in our life today law requires grace enables one of the most fundamental parts of the gospel is to realize that he requires the impossible from us on purpose he commands me to do things that are act actually impossible to do he says heal the sick raise the dead can't do that he commands me to do the impossible so that in receiving his word he enables me to do what he's required me to do so that's where we get the statement law requires grace enables a good point here is where the angel of the lord shows up before mary and tells her she's going to bear the christ child and the angel declares nothing shall be impossible with god that phrase or that sentence nothing shall be impossible that god illustrates a part of the gospel that is so critical for us that if we don't get it down we actually flounder through much of our life because it puts the emphasis of our heart to anchor ourselves into the word of god what god is saying in the scripture what he highlights to us with his voice which by the way is always confirmed in scripture so here's the point i'm trying to make jack taylor pointed this out to us a number of years ago the scripture is nothing shall be impossible with god say it with me nothing shall be impossible with god say it again nothing shall be impossible with god the word nothing is actually two words it's the word no but it's also the word thing thing is rhema the word rhema is often used to illustrate the freshly spoken word of god uh in scripture so this then refers to the no freshly spoken word of god will be impossible that word impossible is translated without ability and so jack taylor put it this way says this verse can actually be translated like this no freshly spoken word of god will ever come to you that does not contain its own ability to perform itself that's amazing no freshly spoken word of god will ever come to you that does not contain in itself the ability to perform itself that explains why james says in the book of james it says in humility receive the word implanted which is able to save your soul so for thinking now not just of our conversion how many know you were saved but we're being saved and someday we're going to be saved and and those that's three dimensions that are dealt with in scripture so i'm born again but now he says receive the word implanted humility is the condition of the heart that receives what god is saying so in humility receive the word implanted that implanted word is able to save me it's able to transform me it's able to it's able to enable me to do what i normally could not do does that make sense to you so hearing what god is saying receiving his word over our life is huge so that's going to be uh important for us in this particular passage what we have in this context i love the book of nehemiah 20 years ago oh goodness 20 years ago for a moment i thought i was 40. i it happens to me often i i don't know what happens i look in the mirror like who's this guy ah he's not 40. so anyway it would be more like 40 years ago i i i had a season in my life where i wanted to give myself to two books of the bible and read them continuously over and over and over again i took i think six months just to do ephesians over and over and over again and this was the second book that i chose to immerse myself in day after day after day for months months upon months and i love the book of nehemiah it's about rebuilding rebuilding a city which prophetically speaks of the rebuilding of a life if you think in natural terms if we are to live in old testament times the strength of the city is measured by the height and the depth the width of that wall the wall that surrounded the city is really what protected it they would have watchmen they would have soldiers ready to fight but the wall itself kept them safe when everybody slept inside if you have a wall that has three sides and the fourth side is missing where is the enemy going to attack from and it's the same in our lives if i'm strong in family life but i'm but i'm dishonest financially then guess where i'm going to be attacked at so it's where there's moral decay that's where the assault comes if i can just throw in here when when integrity becomes a major part of our life having truly been established in our life you can be under assault of the devil and not even know it when there's when your life is filled with weaknesses you feel every bump in the road but when there's integrity i mean if you're sitting inside a walled city and someone on the outside throws a rock at you you don't even know when it hit the wall you get what i'm saying you don't even know they could drive a bulldozer against it you're inside eating dinner with your family you don't even you don't even know you don't even care it just gives this picture of strength built up around the life all right but on to this story this story is here israel has been without um without the temple in in function the city and so they've rebuilt the temple and now in nehemiah they're rebuilding the walls when they do they actually find the scriptures now they've been without the scriptures for decades in fact it would be safe to say that no one who is about to hear the word of god being read at this moment had ever heard the word of god before so the priests are standing up and they are reading the scriptures in the hearing of all the citizens of the community all the citizens women children everybody and they would stand there from sun up to sun down so they are literally standing there and they are they are reading in hebrew of course and the priests would run out among the people and give a translation because a number of the folks there did not know their original language so they would run out and give explanation so what you have is you have you have the word of god being read but something's happening for the first time in their life picture this you you've got a good family you're doing your best to serve god to love god as far as you know all is well and then you hear the word of god being read for the first time in your life and you're going oh no i live here god's requirement is here and that's actually what happened in this story is they they are they are sitting there weeping and weeping and mourning they're getting more and more depressed which is the goal of all revival preachers is to get people depressed enough to repent you know that's that's what you sorry that's half of a joke just half of a joke i don't have enough time to get myself in that much trouble i could i could talk my way out of a longer service but uh so here's what's going on the people are hearing the word and they're going oh no and you got to see what god's response was it's in verse 9 nehemiah 8 verse 9. nehemiah who was the governor ezra the priest and scribe the levites you taught the people said to all the people this day is holy to the lord your god do not mourn or weep for all the people wept when they heard the words of the law by the way the name nehemiah actually means comforter he's an unusual picture of the holy spirit himself in this story without nehemiah they couldn't rebuild the walls for years for decades with nehemiah they did it like 52 days so with the holy spirit's help the whole point is with god speaking the holy spirit enabling anything is possible for every one of us and that's the whole point of the story so you got it all we can go home now that's basically it all right but let's let's have some fun with the story so verse 10 then he said to them go your way eat the fat drink the sweet send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared for this day is holy to our lord do not sorrow for the joy of the lord is your strength so the levites quieted all the people saying be still for the day is holy do not be grieved and all the people went their way to eat and drink to send portions to rejoice greatly because they understood the words that were declared to them i love this story we're going to piece through it in a moment i love this story for a lot of reasons but one is that it when it first hit me a number of years ago it completely caught me off guard because in my in my thinking i always equated with mourning over sin to be a mourning over lack mourning over not being where god wants me to be that kind of mourning would be more a more accurate representation of my awareness of his holiness than with joy it's more consid it was more consistent in my thinking to to be mournful over the past to prove that i'm real sin i'm serious about this thing of honor and god serving god i i don't want to suggest you that there isn't a place you know god puts his finger on something and there's that confession there's that morning there's that weeping there's that turning from sin i get that and i i still believe that's a very strong part of our life in christ but here's the problem is that we fail to realize the strength of this verse is the joy of the lord is my strength we want to be strong without joy when your strength is measured by your measure of joy you're no stronger than your joy what tears are to repentance laughter is to salvation and even though this would be a place that would welcome joy and and teach on it and practice it yet you know for the most part throughout the church joy is is is something that is looked at as a extremely offensive expression do that on your own in privacy of your own home and i i'm you know i'm not interested in hyping people up into some frothy expression but i am interested in the joy that sets free and the joy that actually according to scripture is good medicine see joy was such a huge heavenly commodity that it motivated jesus to endure the cross it was what was on the other side of the cross that gave him all the motivation he needed to endure the cross scripture says and for the joy set before him he endured the cross so here's this priceless commodity called joy that we actually find it's a key to strength we find out according to scripture laughter is good medicine we find that it's a key to health we find that in the in the presence of god there's fullness of joy so actually connecting with the spirit of god is our access point if you will to the full expression of what joy looks like and here he says you're not to mourn now this is this is what caught me so off guard years ago when i first saw this you're not you're not to mourn i thought that's what you do when you see god's standards here and your standard is here and he says no because this is a holy day the day is holy because it's holy don't mourn because it's holy don't mourn and then he goes on he says instead let's do this we're going to have a feast you're all going to have a feast at your home and if you're not ready for one then i'm gonna instruct your neighbors to give you food so that you can have a feast it was important enough that they actually had to schedule joy it was important enough they actually had to put it into their routine they had to plan around this event of celebrating a feast before the lord listen to me before they had measured up to his requirements now i believe when god speaks you say amen you yield that's that's what i do he puts his finger on something well all confession means is to agree with god confession means i'm all i'm saying is what he's already said to me son you've got an issue here father forgive me i have an issue here what we're doing is we're acknowledging that he is right i believe that i don't believe in treating sin lightly but he looks at it differently than than we do and he says all right here's what we're going to do we're going to have a feast i'm going to do it tomorrow and this is the discipline of joy it's actually it's actually within your ability to choose if it weren't within the reach of your will it would be cruel for him to command it so here he says this is what we're going to do we're going to have a feast and all of you that have stuff ready let's just nail her down if you have our neighbor or friend that's not ready send them what you have share with them we're going to have the sweet so i like the fact that sweet is biblical sweet is biblical it doesn't say bacon but i'm pretty sure he means bacon in this store no nitrates i'm good with skipping the nitrates but you know bacon gives me a whole new release in my prayer language right there no halfway joke all right so he says you take what you have share with those who don't have any why it is so important that we share this feast because the joy of the lord is your strength so what is he doing he's saying here i want to invite you into a return routine into an expression that will give you access to a measure of joy you've not yet experienced i will give you access to a measure of strength you've not yet experienced now if i ask the question which occasionally i'll set people up with a trick question not often i would never do that to you it's just when i travel just like i'll ask the question how many of you want to live in the strength of the lord full strength of the lord all of your days well of course we do that's why we're here but joy is the key to that strength i'm not saying it's the only key but it is definitely a biblical key to strength something happens to the heart what does the scripture say may you be in health and prosper even as your soul prospers that's the issue of the soul so when god defined the nature of his kingdom when he defined the nature of his world he chose terms that i never would have used i never would have used to describe what his kingdom what his world is like and he described it this way he said the kingdom of god is not meat and drink it's not substance you can handle with your hands but instead it is righteousness peace and joy right think about righteousness right standing you've got peace and joy two of those realities are felt realities this whole this whole notion that we live without feeling and that's the nature of serving christ is is just silly we you you may have a you may have a day where you're out of touch with your feelings but it's not healthy as a lifestyle especially when you have it within your ability to choose joy so he says here's what we're going to do we're going to choose joy we're going to have a feast we're actually just going to celebrate it takes much greater faith to rejoice than it does to be overwhelmed with the weightiness of your sin it doesn't take a lot of faith to acknowledge god says you you have you're careless with your money or you're careless with your eyes you're careless with your words you you hurt people with your words and you go oh you got me i'm so true god please forgive me and so what is it there's that there's that sense of remorse which is which is right and correct i would never say don't don't feel pain over sin when he puts his finger on something but if only my discouragement over my condition helped me to get free how many of you ever gone deep introspective looking at your life how many of you have gone deep inside how many of you came out encouraged [Laughter] nobody i mean we don't you know we don't get introspecting we come out going oh wait till you see what i just found i am ready to change the world you know i mean we we just don't we don't come out that way we come out going ugh and so here's here's what happens the lord had the word the scripture read and israel began to go into this emotional tank this whole realizing god's standard is here and the more he reads we find out how we've not measured up and then he comes with the most surprising instruction he says all right get the food ready for what we're gonna have a feast why because the joy of the lord is your strength you're going to need strength to deal with what he's dealing with joy ahead of time is is joy that anticipates see that's why joy is such a profound commodity in the kingdom because it is an expression of faith i mean we we know let's be practical we we've we've been in this most of us for a while we know what it is to give thanks when things aren't working well we give thanks anyway why because we just he said he said to do it so we do it give thanks in all things so we just give thanks you know we got a bill that we didn't expect we had you know something broke in the house or whatever it might be we just we just give thanks that's what we do we give thanks in the middle of stuff we refuse to allow the enemy to rob that part of our life because we just believe god we just trust him we give him praise in the middle of crazy things but joy is one of those expressions it's an expression of faith that anticipates breakthrough long before it comes it's a lot easier to hang my head and mourn over my sin and call that my response to his holiness than it is to actually respond to his holiness with joy that scripture in james says in humility receive the word implanted which is able to save your souls so i was saved i'm being saved someday i'm going to be saved right those are the three dimensions so he says receive the word implanted which is able to save your soul that's the process of our salvation paul instructs us work out your salvation daily work it out daily what's the connection there is that i receive the word implanted it's the seed of god's word received into my heart that enables me to change i am not a gardener i am the farthest thing from a green thumb type person you've ever met i look at plants and they die however i love hot red hot chili peppers and i just discovered last year i i realized i'm slow but i discovered last year you can actually plant those and with the help of my wife she gets 99 of the credit i'll take one percent it's my enthusiasm we have right out our kitchen door as a whole bunch of red and those are my hot chili peppers that are right now ripe and so i get up in the mornings and have a two egg omelet and i go out and get three thai chili peppers that will that will teach you how to pray all by themselves you will learn to pray and i cut those right off you know what we try to have as good of soil as we can but the soil won't give me peppers we water but the water won't give me peppers the sunlight sun won't give me peppers you have to put seed in the ground and the seed of god's word is what gives us the capacity to experience practical transformation when god says heal the sick he's not commanding me to perform he's com he's speaking a word into me that makes it possible for me to do exactly what he said that's the difference between law and grace law requires grace enables so here we have this last verse which to me is the key to the whole thing it's verse 12 and all the people went their way to eat and drink to send portions and rejoice greatly because they understood the words that were declared to them why were they why were they to celebrate they weren't to celebrate because they had a 12-week plan to fix the financial issue of their life they weren't to rejoice because they had a plan to you know to be a person of faith instead of a person of criticism and complaining they actually were to celebrate because they understood i don't know if this is making sense at what point do you begin the celebration let's just let's just pick something random let's just say we all have a gambling issue god forbid but let's just say we did all right and so the lord puts his finger on that and he says this is not the lifestyle i want you to lead he confronts us on that we say yes lord we confess that is sin and we receive his word to give us the grace to come right out of that so when do we start a celebration many wouldn't do it until they're clean for a year because if they can punish themselves for a year then certainly i will deserve joy more a year from now than i do now you certainly don't want to rejoice too soon because then you're showing you're showing that you really have no reverence for the lord and god forbid that we had experienced something this side of heaven that we didn't earn see that's why it's called grace it's not called wages it doesn't give permission for us to look at sin lightly it doesn't give permission to ignore what god is saying about our life this to change it's quite the opposite but it's just saying i'm unwilling to allow the natural discouragement over my lack of development control my life i now am going to step into the joy of the lord because he has fully set the stage for me to succeed in the very thing he spoke to me because the ability to change is in the word he spoke and i received fully the word that he spoke so i'm going to start celebrating now i'm going to celebrate now i'm going to have joy now i've watched this through the years as people get into just some of the worst messes ever and we just try to figure out at what point should they be happy you know i'm not going to get as graphic as i could but sometimes you just you know you want them to wallow a little bit and here god says i want you to celebrate because you understand so what does that tell us it tells us that the beginning place the the point at which we celebrate is the point in which we understand what he's saying it's amazing i forgot to read something in the first service that was very very important for me to read to you um but i read it in the second one over at twin view and i'll read it now this is completely off the subject but not this is a comment a dear friend of mine michael made who's a wonderful prophet of the lord from phoenix arizona wrote this statement about the hurricanes and and i want to read it because it's the most complete statement i know of that i've heard in in maybe ever natural disasters are not god's judgment on our country or god trying to get our attention they are simply the product of a sinful imperfect and broken world jesus himself who is sinlessly perfect and god's beloved son faced several storms in which he either slept in rebuked or he walked through the apostle paul endured a brutal long-lasting hurricane even though he was in the center of god's will for his life paul used his faith to believe for not one person to die in his ship and no one did then he saw the entire people group previously unreached saved and healed on the island of malta something really good came out of something really bad god uses people of faith in times of trouble and hardships to make a difference in the lives of those who are hurting and in need instead of trying to place false blame and further discourage people who are truly suffering let us as god's people share god's love and hope to all this generation in the midst of pain hopelessness and darkness this is our hour to shine i i love that so much because we've said for years you know what storm what storm did jesus ever bless and of course we never saw that but he puts into a real nutshell our responsibility in crisis and so we've got this thing in texas and now what's going on in florida this is our opportunity to stand up with confidence in god's goodness absolute rock solid confidence in god's goodness i mean it's hard to pray against something that you think is god's will if jesus rebuked the storm that the father sent that it's a divided house he rebuked it because there was a power behind it that was not from the father i was reading a scripture earlier yesterday or friday perhaps it was out of isaiah where the lord says if this if something comes against you it's not from me you just tell i didn't send it and then he's telling them you know so many words listen this is what you get to fight against because it's not from me so i want us to stand and watch you stand we're going to pray together if you could hold your places too that will actually help us in this next moment all i want you to do is i want you to pray pray for great peace and great strength of the entire state of florida it's that direction so turn your face that direction extend your hands extend your faith and let's just pray right now for great peace over florida great peace i want to hear you out loud making decrees confessions of faith great peace over florida great peace great safety great safety perform your miracle over this state that people be amazed at what didn't happen and we ask for your mercy your grace on the state of florida on our so many family members and friends that are there we pray for great safety upon them that the peace upon them would become contagious we pray this in jesus name amen all right turn face me we've got two more things to do how many of you uh as i talked to you today about oh about stuff that god puts his finger on and maybe he put his finger on that in your life a year ago 20 years ago and you still have issues that you want to see resolved in in your life that god would help you with and and and you've kind of come under the weight to the pressure that uh the weightiness of of those things that god has been addressing is there anyone besides me i guess maybe that's what i'm asking here here's what i want you don't you put a hand on the shoulder somebody next i want you to pray that god would surprise them with joy and that it would be joy at such a level in fact you know what be sneaky and pray they wake up in the middle of the night with laughter just catch them up catch them totally off guard and uh completely surprise their spouse or let's just pray for that pray right now lord that you would increase the joy in every every every person's life right now in jesus name every person's life right now in jesus wonderful name [Music] thanks for listening to the sermon of the week this weekly podcast is now being translated in several languages visit podcasts.ibethel.org [Music] welcome to the bethel church sermon of the week we hope you enjoy this message by pastor bill johnson for more information about this podcast and other resources visit bethel.com a happy easter i like the bible condemns traditions but in light of what it condemns it's always the traditions that replace scripture and are opposed to scripture to where people actually value their tradition more than what the word of god says the condemnation towards tradition of celebrating a certain theme or a certain day or a certain event is never aimed at what the bible addresses it's it's those traditions are actually significant and i know that many of you were able to join us for the good friday service this week and and i i loved it so much i love those events uh i i love when we get together with the body of christ in reading and at multiple events down at the civic we weren't able to this year but hopefully next year we'll be able to do that but i i really enjoy those and i enjoy seeing parents that bring their children out that i i know the hassle i remember when our kids were young how everything that you do of that nature is challenging it's a real challenge of faith but sometimes we actually illustrate what we value by what we're willing to pay a price for and unintentionally we train our children uh we train our friends even family uh members on what's important to us by what we're willing to endure for a hassle and honestly we're building things in the lives of our children that and uh in our own hearts that are so valuable easter is one of those ones one of those things i know early on as a pastor i rarely spoke on whatever season it was i just kind of would just talk on whatever you know came to mind of late i've been i've been warming up more to the idea pay attention to the calendar bill pay attention to the calendar christmas is enjoyable enjoy it you know i remember one one year at the theater in weberville we were going to have this christmas play type thing and and we had to cancel it and uh for many reasons but we just had to cancel so i i got up and i announced the christmas uh musical uh is cancelled well there's a little kid up in a kind of a balcony section that we had there that didn't hear musical all he heard was christmas and that i canceled it i didn't know i had that kind of authority but he he figured i did he threw himself on the floor with wailing and gnashing of teeth because i cancelled christmas i didn't do it i didn't do it it was just a musical but anyway so fun um i want to talk to you we're going to we're going to get into the resurrection story a little bit today but i'm going to kind of back my way into it and we will go into romans chapter 6. so we're going to do two portions of scripture uh romans 6 and then also in mark 15 and 16 we'll wrap those two together but i want to talk to you actually what i want to do is i want to talk about faith and uh but it'll be a little different kind of a faith uh message usually when i think in terms of talking about faith i think in terms of getting amped up to believe for the impossible and that's always the case but what i'm looking at is a little bit different the lord has uh has initiated this relational journey for us here let me bring something to mind hebrews 11 6 says it's impossible to please him apart from faith that means faith is fairly significant because establishing favor increasing in the pleasure of the lord is in connect is connected to in many ways our life of faith one of the things that has been the most important for me to learn in recent years has been that faith doesn't grow from striving it grows from surrender it's the place of yieldingness that brings me into greater and greater faith so if we can keep those things in mind it keeps us from the hype that is really is a is a counterfeit uh to what real faith is you can't self-will your way into great faith i've heard people say i'm just gonna i'm just gonna believe god as though they can will themselves in the great faith and it's not quite how it works faith comes in one of two ways it's number one it's a fruit of the spirit and or it is a gift of the spirit it's in galatians 5 mentioned as a fruit of the spirit many of your translations will use the word faithfulness but it's the same exact word for faith as you find in first corinthians chapter 12 where it talks about the gift of faith so let's talk about these two things the fruit of the spirit is faith the gift of the spirit is faith fruit means it's something you can develop with use so you can increase its size you can increase its impact through use it's like a muscle you develop it through use i had so many years ago tell me they had zero faith no faith whatsoever and i was trying to figure out what they did with it because god gave every person a measure of faith so i'm not sure if they left it somewhere or what they did but um often times we look in the wrong places for faith because faith doesn't come out of determination it really does come out of a surrender in relationship another point to faith that is important before we read this scripture is the fact it says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of god we we actually studied this i think two or three weeks ago recently sometime in my lifetime recently i know that i had a couple sleeps since then but we we have talked about it so faith comes by hearing hearing by the word of god faith comes from hearing faith is the evidence of a current relationship where you're hearing from god faith comes from hearing hearing comes from the word of god so my capacity to hear is enhanced through this literally the reading of scripture is pouring myself into the word of god it's pouring the word of god into me is what increases my capacity to hear now this is vital because the lord well the bible also says a man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of god i live because he talks i'm alive because he speaks the very fact that god speaks he breathes his word into my heart day after day hour after hour it's evidence because i'm alive he keeps me alive with his voice and the mistake that we made that i did address a few weeks ago is that many times we are in a position where we're just not hearing his voice well in fact i asked you the question how many of you have had times where he couldn't hear his voice well but you could sense his presence yeah and the point was is that is his voice that's his voice we tend to measure his voice by what we comprehend instead of by who's in the room he is the living word he is the word of god and when he comes in presence like that he's generally depositing stuff in our spirit that that is too big or too significant for our mind oh man i don't want to fall in that hole so let me back away here stay away from that hole right there it's a good hole i just just may not recover he speaks to your spirit man he deposits things for example you're sitting here in the presence this morning worshiping great worship we're just enjoying him and there's this interaction between the holy spirit and your spirit the bible says we worship god in spirit and in truth so in spirit means we are engaged with the holy spirit himself who is the one who guides us who leads us empowers us in this worship time that we have with him this uh time of thanksgiving and praise that we give him but it also says to worship in truth and truth means nothing hidden i i am there with all my pain all my my breakthroughs my testimonies my questions my all my stuff is laid out on the table i'm not presumptuous i don't i don't i don't pretend to be something that i'm not i am here as a child who has problems and i lay all of it before you and it is all a part of my worship expression there's something about that kind of interaction with him where where you know you've had this happen where you've got something that's just an insurmountable problem and you can't explain it but you walk out of that moment with peace you walk out of that moment you don't you don't know what to do but it's almost like it doesn't even matter in fact you can almost worry yourself into i'm not being responsible because you're not fearful and yet there's those moments where that peace of god just comes what's happened he's ministered deeper than your mind cannot comprehend in that moment and if we don't learn to recognize that we won't know that he is actually speaking words of life into us that literally keep us alive there are times where the lord speaks to you that job has this this great uh dialogue or this this situation where he talks about god visiting uh or in the book of job it talks about god visiting us in the night putting things in our heart that are too big for us to handle if he gave them to us in a day the reason is we'd become egocentric or we would think more highly of ourselves that would be healthy for us and so the lord just deposits these things very deeply in us and over time they mature and they come to the surface the point is god is always talking to us the problem with many of us is we sit in our spiritual recliners and we just you know basically say god you know i'm hungry for revival if you want me to experience it you know where i'm at you know just come and come and visit me and that kind of an approach to the things of god is very very dangerous because it it means it means you're only going to get what he is sovereignly determined you're going to get and your hunger has no role in the outcome of your life that didn't sound right let me put it a different way it was true but it didn't sound right most of what you need in life will be brought to you most of what you want you'll have to go get there is a responsibility to seek and to pursue even the spiritual gifts in first corinthians 12 are once again repeated in 14 and he says pursue earnestly spiritual gifts so the revelation of the gifts do not deposit gifts they must be pursued of independently because they are in the word all right let's just jump right into romans 6 since you you're giving me that um during the headlight look let's try and find some scripture so we can redeem this one all right verse 4 of chapter 6 therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death that just as christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father even so we should walk in newness of life what paul's doing here is he's teaching about the death and resurrection of christ but he's also teaching about water baptism and he's using the picture of of water being immersed in water that's a picture of the grave and he says you're you're you're buried in the death of christ and when you come up out of the water it's one of the reasons water baptist baptism is so critical and he said to do it but you come out there's there's this newness of life that is imparted to an individual that you can't get physical obedience bring spiritual release don't question what good it does just do what he says amen bill that was a great point let's i'll buy into that one verse 5 if we have been united together in the likeness of his death certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection knowing this that our old man that's not any relative of yours that's your old nature your our old man was crucified with him that the body of sin might be done away with that we should no longer be slaves to sin now jump ahead the whole chapter is profound but let's just go to verse 11. likewise you also reckon or consider yourself to be dead to sin this is one of the most stunning chapters in the bible follow follow this logic with me first of all did you know that um we know that the cross and the shedding of the blood made the forgiveness of sin possible yes blood can uh sin cannot be tone tone for apart from blood the shedding of blood jesus's sacrifice made it possible but paul says in first corinthians 15 which is as an incredible mystery to me he said without the resurrection you're still in your sins so it's the blood but it's also the resurrection it's two sides of the same coin if we can put it that way it's the death was necessary without a resurrection you don't get life without a resurrection you don't live so here's here's the two absolute theological cornerstones for all that we believe number one jesus died he died in my place he died for me he died for you he suffered a brutal death to atone for our sin secondly on the third day he was raised from the dead never to die again everyone jesus raised from the dead during his earthly ministry they died again but this was the firstborn from the dead never to die again two absolutes would you agree verse 11 says even so as real as those two realities are think of yourself as debt to sin is there anybody else in the room here that i should be talking to in the same way that those are absolutely true equal in absolutes is the fact you're dead to sin now the reason the enemy targets the mind so much is because if i believe a lie i'm power of the liar and if i think inconsistent with this is not mind over matter this is not some mental gymnastics that we try to you know hype ourselves up with it is the discovery of truth it is the discovery of the greatest reality there is the death the resurrection of christ absolutely true now let your thinking be shaped by those two realities and the conclusion is he says consider reckon it really means to add up do the math he died rose again it's your life i'm dead to sin it's the only possible conclusion when you actually be believe those two things i like to put it this way jesus never took away any of our ability to sin he just took away our ability to enjoy it how many have made stupid chase stupid decisions and you it was you were miserable all right let's move over now to mark chapter 15. we're going to read uh two verses there and then i want to go into uh in america 16. all right there we are 15 start with verse 31. likewise the chief priests also mocking among themselves with the scribes said he saved others himself he cannot say it verse 32 let the christ the king of israel descend now from the cross that we may see and believe even those who were crucified with him reviled him here's the phrase that really gets to me that i just wanted to camp on just for a moment he says let the christ the king of israel descend now from the cross that we may see and believe nobody sets their own parameters for growing in faith no one has the right to say god you do this and i will believe it is not the product of determination and self-will it is the product of the spirit's work in a surrendered person's life and this the sooner we get that that arrogant thing that i'm just determined to do this i'm determined to do that get that out of our system where our ambition is to surrender and to yield and to illustrate the nature and the character of christ in our life to yield to his purposes and promises then suddenly we start seeing things differently and these religious leaders had no right to even make the claim that we will believe if he does these certain things it'd be a fascinating study just to see all the things that were presented to jesus there were suggestions to him like when peter said don't die that's a bad plan that wasn't real good and the devil said turn his stone into bread there's a whole list of them thankfully he knew when to recognize what was from the father verse one of chapter 16. when the sabbath was passed mary magdalene mary the mother of james siloam brought spices that they might come and anoint him very early in the morning on the first day of the week they came to the tomb when the sun had risen and they said among themselves who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us but when they looked up they saw that the stone had been rolled away it was very large entering the tomb they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting at the right side and they were alarmed and he said to them do not be alarmed you seek jesus of nazareth who was crucified he is risen there's the coolest three words ever spoken he is risen he is not here see the place where they laid him but go tell his disciples and peter which is interesting [Laughter] it's not that peter wasn't a disciple he just needed a little extra attention so sometimes every one of us have needed just a little extra nudge and jesus was kind enough to give it to peter so he said go tell the disciples and peter go tell them um that excuse me that he is going before you in the galilee where you will see him as he said to you and that's a that's an amazing promise isn't it go to galilee you'll see him for yourself they went up quickly they fled from the tomb they trembled were amazed they said nothing to anyone they were afraid when he rose early on the first day of the week he appeared to mary magdalene out of whom he casts seven demons she went and told those who had been with him as they mourned and wept and when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her they did not believe let's stop right there for a moment you know what let's read the next two verses three verses after that he appeared in another form to two of them as they walked in the country and they went and told it to the rest but they did not believe them either verse 14 he appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table he rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart because they did not believe those who had seen him after he had risen i i returned to this story you know you have places that you're familiar with in scripture and you return to just for i call it recreational reading it's just it's just where you go to just to kind of be refreshed with what is spoken and this uh this portion has uh has meant a lot to me personally because it shows me how to number one how to deal with mourning every one of us have disappointment every one of us have lost every one of us got stuff that we have no explanation for uh you just get that in life and if you don't know how to navigate that stuff you end up crippled you can call it whatever you want you can you can call it well that's just not my gift that's not my calling but really you're just resisting to step into who you are because you're hurt this issue of pain he says here it says that they uh they were mourning in verse 10 and they did not believe mourning will take you one of two places first of all mourning is biblical if if it takes you to god blessed are they who mourn for they shall be what comforter say it again blessed are they whom are for they should be comforted so here's the point there is one route to go in mourning where i don't have the answers i don't have the solutions i don't have some great strategy all i know is who to come to and i come to this place in abandonment oftentimes in worship in the sacrifice of thanksgiving when it doesn't feel good but i do it anyway in that engagement with the person of the holy spirit he comes and he comforts there's one direction to go in mourning that takes you to the comforter the other takes you to unbelief and we can call it all kinds of religious titles but the bottom line is is i'm in pain i don't have answers for it and i'm going to keep the the routine up i'm just not going to be as involved in that area i just suffered great loss i'm not going to pray for the sick like i was and it's not always thought through it's just what we do is we react to oh we suffered loss with cancer i i'll just somebody else has the anointing for that i'll seek for people who have injured legs or something you know we we rationalize instead of going head-on into the area where we need to be healed when he brings healing to a broken heart it doesn't at least for me it doesn't initially start with answers most of the time i don't need answers anyway i need a person i need presence i i if i can have the peace that passes understanding i'm good which for me has meant i have to give up my right to understand there's something about coming into that place of engaging with the person of the holy spirit where i'm i'm engaging with him in surrender i'm not there to dictate to him i'm not i'm not with him so that i can become successful in life i'm there because he's god and i'm not i think i mentioned it last week i saw the sign and said the only difference between you and god is he's not trying to be you [Laughter] excuse me that's not the only difference but you got the point all right all right so this thing of mourning then takes me in one of two directions it either takes me to a place of healing comfort from the comforter or to unbelief now picture being the 11th you're huddled together in a home you're scared to death because jesus was just brutally murdered before your eyes you're afraid you might be next if there's anything you don't feel it's resistant to truth you feel demoralized maybe you feel weakened there's probably tears there's probably all this stuff going on in the room but the one thing you don't feel like is a hardness of heart and yet when jesus walks in the room he rebuked them for their hardness of heart see hardness of heart isn't evident through strong self-will hardness of heart is oftentimes evidence in the unwillingness to deal with the pain that's in your life unwilling to come to the lord for him to bring healing out of that which makes no sense and what happens is it builds a resistance in us the scary thing to me about this the story is here's the guys that are going to be taking on the message to shape the course of world history and jesus starts off his relationship with them with a rebuke this is his first interaction with him after the resurrection and he's basically saying listen i sent messengers to you you didn't believe them i told you ahead of time what would happen then i sent messengers here's part of the problem the first messenger was mary magdalene first of all in this male-dominated culture women were counted not saying it's right i'm just saying that's that's the culture of the day and so these guys that are running things who does jesus first reveal himself to not just women mary magdalene the demonized tormented one jesus jesus chooses her first or the father did however it works it was chosen i remember here's part of the problem is you have to learn to recognize when god is speaking not because it makes sense to you but because you recognize the presence of god are released when they speak i know that may sound abstract to you but i i've been harping on that for years and i feel like i feel like if the lord wants to bring it up again it's recognizing the presence jesus taught this in john 6. this incredible chapter where where uh he multiplies food first and the crowds crowd is there at least 15 000 probably it's 5 000 men besides women and children so we're looking at maybe 15 or 20 000 people anyway a whole bunch a whole bunch of folks and jesus multiplied a boy's lunch to feed them all the lunch of someone who wasn't counted multiplied the food of one who didn't count because it counted to him and then in this dialogue he he tells everybody they have to eat his flesh drink his blood which grosses everybody out and he doesn't bother to do the pastoral thing and give explanation he could have easily calmed everyone down by just taking them in their own jewish history and showing them where it was you know where it was foretold how this would be coming up but he didn't bother he didn't want a group of people that were together because they agreed towards the end of this time people started leaving and he makes this comment to his disciples he said my words to you are spirit and they're alive my words become presence and that presence gives life so every word that comes to us from the heart of god carries presence with it but if i only analyze from my reasoning i'll get it right sometimes and i'll get it wrong sometimes i'm not saying reasoning is wrong so please don't don't read in the wrong thing here because because we're supposed to analyze truth but there are times here here it is i was sitting in a kitchen at a ministry house we had here in reading and a guy sat across the table for me from me and he was sharing his testimony with me i just met him days earlier and inside i've got every alarm the holy spirit that put in me is going off but my brain my mind was enjoying the story and my mind basically told my heart be quiet this is a good testimony and i sat there and listened to this guy go on and on how jesus did this and jesus did that only to find out in about a week or two weeks i think it was that he had been stealing from people creating false bank accounts and literally has set him himself up as a quote-unquote christian to work with christian businessmen and he was plundering and stealing from them the alarms were going off because there was no life in his words but his words were impressive are you getting the picture here the the words stirred by curiosity because they were the kinds of stories i've heard before of great things that god has done and he duplicated them and he suckered me into that place to just sit there and you know let my heart be involved and going oh amen what a great glorious story i had to ignore everything in me that said this is not right another time i was in a big conference thousands that's in the front rows one of the speakers and right in front of me is a woman who is singing the wrong words the wrong notes at the wrong time some of you have such deep powers of concentration that you would have done fine but i'm i'm fighting through this i've been in enough of these fact i was in one in new zealand you like this one danny silk and i were standing together and there was this gal she would wait till it was silent and then she would sing things that weren't in the song at all you know and falsetto soprano voice and and the two young ladies in front of in front of her they would just start giggling but they stayed there i mean i was impressed that for like 45 minutes they stayed in front of this piercing soprano voice singing the wrong words at the wrong time and they stayed there everyone said they'd giggle they had to get their composure go back to worship so when the worship ended i walked up to both of them i gave them 20 each i said you earned this you earned this i did impressed so they knew exactly what i meant to they knew exactly i felt like the lord wanted to reward them for their because i i would have turned around find another place in the room to stand you know but they just stood there you know so i've got this gal doing this this you know and i knew enough they needed to hear me here i knew enough not not to judge her i was just that was annoying but i just i just tried to distance my heart from it because i've been wrong too many times just been wrong i've looked stupid too many times when i came to a conclusion incorrectly so i knew that was always a remote possibility so i just stood there just tried to worship the best i could and pretty soon heidi baker comes over next to me she's she's she was down there and she comes over right next to me she leans over she goes isn't that beautiful [Laughter] yeah yeah oh yeah i didn't lie it just required greater faith that i was accustomed to operating it isn't that beautiful i got yeah yeah yeah beautiful and then she says yeah she was a prostitute for 37 years and now she's free and i thought yeah you can sing anything you want in fact i give you the microphone you can take my next session i you know there's moments like that so what was going on there there was life in what she was doing but but the confusion caused me to not recognize it and another story there was warning going on but my intellectual pleasure in the story canceled my discernment are you getting the picture here the lord wants us to learn the source of life itself man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from his mouth we live because he speaks we live literally we are alive because he talks to us and our comprehension of his word word by word his voice word by word is not the measure of recognizing his voice it's the impact of presence verse 14 again later he appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table he rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart because they did not believe those who he had seen who had seen him after he had risen you know nobody wants to be gullible right nobody wants to look stupid maybe it doesn't matter to you but for chris and me it matters a lot [Applause] no nobody wants to be left looking stupid because you believed some dumb thing you know and we've all seen it i mean we've seen people sneak into the church and plunder and steal money and all kinds of stupid things just because of being gullible but the protection for that is not being resistant to people see that's the counterfeit the protection is okay worshiper come to know the presence because he'll never deceive you he'll never deceive you i went i remember my first time to toronto it was i had seen most everything that was going on in a room but there was 5 000 people there i had never seen anything like that and it was over literally it was overwhelming to my senses i walked in i stood over about that far away and i was looking at everything that was going on people were being radically touched by god the meeting hadn't even started yet and i i stood there a little bit overwhelmed by what was happening and then i thought i'll just close my eyes i closed my eyes and then i realized it's the same holy spirit the one i've interacted with so many times through the years this is him the whole point is you don't grow in faith by trying to grow in faith you don't keep safe because you put these barriers up that this person has to meet this qualification in this qualification it really is an invitation into an acknowledged relational journey where the key to my life is my ability to recognize him it's recognizing him it's one of the things in these prayer meetings out in the tent i just goodness time after time we just walk into that tent and it's just this glory that's there and it you just it shapes you i don't walk out of there you know spouting off 45 minutes of revelation i just got it's not that it's that's that that would be that would be a disappointment because it's like walking into a person where you engage with with with the one who created everything the one who sustained your life the one who who is the evidence of god on earth the holy spirit himself that somehow there's this encounter with a person and just in those moments i don't have any great ideas i i have nothing i want to persuade him of i i didn't bring my shopping list or anything suddenly in this moment of presence all i can think of is to honor him and to love him to join near to him and to celebrate him and to be a just a faithful steward of whatever he's he's put in my charge that in this moment you know somebody who asked do you want to go up and do something no i don't want to do anything i just wanna i just want to stand here and worship and honor and love this one who has given himself so completely and and i realize that doesn't sound like a logical way to great faith but i think it is i think it is i think that's it i think that's the whole journey the whole journey is that he he says come just come get to know my voice get to recognize my presence acknowledge that glory know that the scripture says jesus was raised from the dead by the glory of the father that glory you come into that place and that just that incredible sense of his presence and that weightiness of his presence that is actually resurrection power it's resurrection power it's it's the testimony of this day that affects every day of our life i i like how you live i like how we live every day is easter i get that but i love being able to take a moment where we just say he has risen he has risen indeed and it changes everything and as the scripture says if he did not withhold his only son how will he not much more freely give us all things i didn't deserve his son and that he said it's a down payment this is the life we've been invited into it's a walk with jesus and great faith is what you're destined for i don't want to grow in faith so i become more successful i want to grow on faith because that's my design it's my nature i'm in a creation created to believe and have the privilege to illustrate his nature through my trust trust is the only reasonable response to someone as faithful as he is why don't you stand we're going to pray together i think i think our life is is made up of a whole bunch of tiny little moments you know the big significant things i know they're important you know when somebody gets healed or delivered or relative gets saved or you get that promotion that you've been praying for or whatever it might be i love all that stuff but for me life is really made up of these little moments where you're just walking down the hall and you just have this overwhelming sense of gladness because of jesus it's just nothing happened nothing was said no no fireworks went off it's just it's just you become aware you just become aware of him sitting on my deck yesterday two little quail male female came by i didn't shoot him some so i realized i could feel the vibe in the room here honestly i they walk by and i just i just i just gave thanks i thanks for letting me enjoy this i love this so much that you would you would give me the privilege of seeing these two amazing creatures i'm not as happy with the ground squirrels i don't consider them to be amazing the gophers they're not amazing at all i think they're demons in fur you know we're working through that one but father i ask you to fill our lives with the little things that trigger that that awareness of who you are the amazing covenant that you've made with us your goodness that's beyond our comprehension and that you would endear us to that place of longing to hear from you again and again and again and that the result really would be great faith it really would honey with how we respond to stuff thanks for listening to the sermon of the week this weekly podcast can be heard in multiple languages on our bethel tv website if you'd like to partner with us in discipling nations and fueling personal revival you have the opportunity to give at bethel dot tv slash podcast slash donate you

Channel: The Teachings Of GOD

Views: 181

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: bill johnson messages, sermon, church, bethel church, bill johnson sermons, bill johnson, supernatural, miracles, christian, bethel, holy spirit, revival, 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, presence, sermons, church online

Id: YaFqOeEf-PM

Length: 74min 29sec (4469 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 03 2021