Bill Johnson Sermons [September 18, 2021] | God's Grace A Morning Prayer

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 i want to talk to you out of the book of james and that's so scary all by itself anytime somebody opens james uh it's it's with fear and trembling and uh so if you would open to james chapter four i'm actually going to read a verse or two of chapter three and we're going to read a little longer portion than i normally do um just because just because just because i i need to do it to get where i feel like we're supposed to go this uh what we're going to talk about today is the battle over the heart we often talk talk about the battleground of the mind and we know that the enemy works so hard to bring confusion or distraction or wrong values or all kinds of crazy things and the battleground is over our thought life we've said that for many years and it's absolutely true but i believe that what the enemy is targeting is not just my thought life he's actually targeting my heart um i had a friend of mine oh it would be 48 years ago and it might even be 48 years to this month 48 years ago i think close to this month share a verse with me and uh you know you don't always remember when a friend shares a verse with you 48 years later but this one in a good way just punched me upside the head and god just deposited something in me that has been one of my life verses for the last 48 years and it's been a primary verse i would say i have three but this would be the primary initial verse and it's out of proverbs 4 verse 23 where he says watch over the heart with all diligence for from it flow the issues of life watch over the heart with all diligence for from it flow the issues of life let me put it into the context of how jesus dealt with the subject jesus on one hand said adulteries murders jealousies all these things come from the heart to the other extreme he said blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see god so we have the capacity for either i heard a statement from richard roberts goodness this would be a long 30-some years ago he made this statement it went something like this i don't know if i have exactly right but you'll get the just of it god will not change your mind you cannot change your heart but if you change your thoughts god will change your heart interesting thought that the the thinking process that we have in our lives actually contributes to the condition of our hearts and that's the whole point so what we're going to talk about today we're going to read in chapter four but let me go back to verse 14 and 15 of chapter three because i need to set a context because james is actually writing in this sequence of thoughts where he's trying to address the possible corruption of the human heart the possible corruption of believers as it pertains to the character of christ interestingly when a believer chooses characteristics that are not godly they're actually evil seldom do they do it because it is founded on a lie it's usually because it's founded on misapplied truth and to discern the tactics of the enemy as he tr if he can't keep you from truth he'll get you to overuse truth or to misapply it's it's like the ephod when they begin to worship this item that god provided for them they took something that god gave them and they put it above its intended position in place and that's really where idolatry takes place it starts in those small decisions where we carry the thoughts and the principles of god and we apply them according to our own wisdom our own insight and not in conjunction with the working of the holy spirit and that's the beginning of the breakdown and the real building of a wrong character and a believer so this is on on a negative side but i'm not mad i just want to point out a few things and say hey watch out for that watch out for that all right everybody's happy yes we're happy all right verse 14 of chapter 3 says if you have bitter envy self seeking in your heart do not boast and lie against the truth this wisdom does not descend from above but is earthly sensual and demonic just stop right there this wisdom this is what fascinates me about this verse and this gives us a huge key on how we can uh protect ourselves from things like jealousy self-promotion that sort of stuff he says jealousy selfish ambition exists there's every evil thing there's disorder and then he says this wisdom doesn't come from above so what is he saying it says it's wisdom it's just inferior wisdom what does that help us with it helps us to understand that jealousy self-promotion those kinds of things come out of human reasoning that the unrenewed mind in other words it's going to appeal to the logic of the unrenewed mind it is reasonable which means it is justifiable i've never met a jealous person that thought they were jealous suspicion veils and hides itself in this nonsense called jealousy it's often called discernment in fact let me throw in another thing that will help us as we get into chapter four entitlement the spirit of entitlement often hides in the need for justice the spirit of entitlement often hides in the need for justice and we'll that'll become more clear hopefully in chapter four entitlement is where i have a right to something and misapplied passion for justice is often times where entitlement is is established in a believer's life entitlement is a birthplace for so many things including jealousy and other things you have something that i should have had you had opportunity for something that was supposed to be mine you were raised in a certain kind of family i was not it's not right it's not fair and when you have the pursuit of misapplied kingdom principles misapplied truth which is justice it's misapplied then it gives birth to so many other things jealousies um covetousness and ultimately according to chapter four is war all right nice easy little conversation we'll have here all right so he says wisdom is it's not wisdom from above it's wisdom from below but it it is called wisdom so that means it it has an appeal to the intellect and the need for justice and for right things is justice important absolutely the foundation of god's throne is righteousness and justice righteousness and justice oftentimes as a church especially in circles like ours we fight for righteousness but we don't fight as hard for justice justice is vital justice is critical but don't tell me you have a passion for justice if you don't speak for the for the unborn the ones with the least voice in our nation that are plundered and stolen and killed on a daily basis by the millions now are the unborn and it's not okay you cannot create a reason where that's okay and if that doesn't stand out to you then then you i i don't know any other way to put it it is not okay it is not okay that that doesn't matter it must provoke us if we can look at that and it doesn't provoke us to this outrage of righteous justice in the land i i don't mean destroying people's lives that vote for that i'm just saying we've got to write something that is wrong so you cannot tell me that you have a value for justice if you don't speak up because what justice does is it speaks for those who have little to no voice and there is no one who has no voice as much as the unborn and there are many other parts of our country where uh the poor for example have very little voice well they need to be protected and spoken for i was reading proverbs this week where a righteous king has the fear of god where he protects the rights is the biblical word the rights of the poor or the rights of the afflicted and so that has to be a part of our pursuit of righteous governmental expression is that we sacrificially speak on behalf of those who don't have as much influence as the land as you do that's what authority is is authority is the proper use the proper use of god's favor on your life to work for somebody else and specifically it's for those who have little to no voice back to my start here it's a little tangent but i feel better from it and that is speaking on behalf of those that have no voice and there is no group in the nation that has less of a voice than the unborn and it must must matter i believe votes let me tell you i believe natural things writing the letter voting those kinds of things are important but the big thing we must do second chronicles 7 14 if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray i'll hear from heaven i will forgive their sin and i'll hear them heal their land we need our land healed it's been raped and plundered out of injustice for a long time a lot of different people groups so all right let's get back see if we can actually get into the message all right so we're spinning off of the word jealousies and inferior wisdom and we're now going to flow into chapter four and there's warnings here so i want to read 11 verses at one time which i hardly ever do because the attention span is challenging but i'm gonna i'm gonna challenge you listen to me look in your bible let's read these verses verse one for where do wars and fights come from among you do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members you lust and do not have you murder and covet and cannot obtain you fight and war yet you do not have because you do not ask you ask and do not receive because you ask a myth that you may spend it on your pleasures i like new american standard better in on that verse it says you ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives so there's the heart issue now in the communion with god heart issue is everything verse four adulterers and adulteresses this is a charge you do not know that friendship with the world is enmity with god whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself to be an enemy of god do you not think that the scripture says in vain the spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously i really don't like that one again new american standard is is quite a bit better it says that he speaking of the father jealously desires the spirit who lives in us so it shows this relationship between the holy spirit being entrusted to us and the father himself longing for or being jealous over that holy spirit that lives in us all right yes bill amen all right verse 6 he gives more grace therefore he says god resists the proud but he gives grace to the humble therefore submit yourself to god here's a key verse that many of us have memorized submit yourself to god resist the devil and he will flee from you draw near to god he will draw near to you cleanse your hands you sinners cleanse your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double-minded lament and mourn and weep let your laughter be turned into mourning your joy into gloom in other words don't let your repentance be this surface little oh yeah sorry about that this service little approach go deep if it's deeply planted into your personality nature then go that deep in your repentance it's really what he's dealing with here he said this thing the war that's going on inside of you needs to be dealt with and you're not going to deal with it lightly that's why in in revivals you see you see massive moves of repentance and it's never casual it's always costly it's always costly because when a person comes before the lord on that level they know they are yielding everything everything and that's really the word of the lord all right humble yourselves verse 10 in the sight of the lord he will lift you up first half of verse 11 is all we need for this one do not speak evil of one another brethren he who speaks evil of her brother and judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law let's start with that last phrase we're going to go back and work our way through this uh work our way through this chapter because listen to me the lord is doing us a favor whenever he brings you and me a command it's never restrictive in the sense of punishment it is always an invitation to life all of his commands lead to life all of his commands lead away from what destroys and invites us into what sustains us he does not give commands you know like uh dig a hole and now fill it back up just because he's trying to think of things to keep us busy he gives us commandments because he has this dream over our lives that we would enter into the fullness of joy the truth will set you free it's not just knowing a truth it's living in experienced truth is where true liberty and freedom comes from in every aspect and part of our life so the lord gives us these commands and in this case he's talking to a group of people that have been filled with compromise and james is absolutely going head-to-head with them confronting them which how many understand we need when when we are in that kind of error we need somebody that cares enough to stick with us and stick it to us and say listen so there there's there's this whole demand if you will for for repentance so let me get back to uh verse 11. we'll start then then we'll go back towards the beginning it says do not speak evil of another brethren he who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law if i judge somebody if i pass judgment if i criticize and pronounce judgment on a person i am judging the law of god what is the law of god the law of christ is the law of love if i pass judgment on a person i am judging the law because i'm announcing it's inferior to my own opinion don't do that when you pass judgment on a person it's very easy especially in this political climate to just point fingers and do all kinds of stuff in fact i took some time uh on the last two weeks i don't remember how many times now just to read over isaiah 58 over and over and over again and in there he says if you stop pointing the finger that's that judgment thing that's that accusation that's that criticism thing if you stop pointing the finger if you stop you know try to nail somebody else and prove they're wrong that you're right if you knock off that nonsense there'll be a real really a restoration of heart and mind and god will put us back into a place of blessed abundance and uh so that's uh just really really big on my heart right now go back to verse one now where do the wars and fights come from among you do do they not come from your desire for pleasures that have warned your members you lust and do not have you murder and covet and cannot obtain you fight in war and you do not have because you do not stop right there i doubt i i was looking uh this up and i doubt very much that that you're looking at a a group of believers that have a reputation for killing each other there's no record of that in of that happening here uh in church history you don't you don't have groups of believers that incite wars what james is doing is he is identifying something that we need to see covetousness is at the root of every war read history wars will start because this nation thinks they deserve better agricultural land this nation has it and so they go to war because they want what they have this nation wants better sea routes trade routes and they don't have sea ports so they go to war with this one to take their seaports so they have better trade routes sometimes there's the oil fields there's the resource of minerals there's all these different things in other words i want what you have and what james is doing he's doing us a favor if you allow that thing to reside in you that those are the seeds of war that's why there's so much conflict in our own soul when we get into that mode of operation and if you if you can imagine god has god has blessing in line for every person that responds to his word i i i don't believe that your income shows your spirituality i don't like that but i i don't like the lack of things proving spirituality either i i think both are just horrible horrible uh misapplication of truth the whole of scripture testifies that when we obey the lord and all these things will be added unto you he likes the blessing to be the addition to the life not the pursuit of the life and that's the deal is see as long as i'm seeking his face first as long as i'm giving myself completely anything you want god you've got all of it then he can trust me so i told his own disciples who left everything to follow him he said in mark 10 he said and i will give you a hundred times as much of what you left back into your life with persecution in other words because you left it for me i can trust you with it but the persecution will keep you honest and if you don't understand that level of well a friend of mine calls the persecution he calls it income tax i said what do you mean income tax he says the more income the more tax and that's just the way it works in life so jesus promised his own disciples a hundred times as much he wasn't talking about mansions and and that sort of stuff he was he was truly talking about what paul would later testify of he says i've learned how to abound and i've learned how to be a base i've learned to i learned what it's like to have too much all right man the last thing in the world i wanted to do today is at make this about about money but it kind of comes down to that in this sense sometimes sometimes a believer will look at another believer and want their position want their favor want their title want their gift want their blessing it's legal to use the breakthrough of other christians to inspire you to seek the lord but if i want what chris has and i begin to lust or jealously uh covet what he has that what i am done what i've done is i have broken the cycle of blessing and i've moved into the spirit of war to obtain out of divine sequence see when god provides for us proverbs says this makes it clear when the lord blesses you there's no sorrow to it but when we fight for it on our own it always comes with a balloon payment of sorrow there are many leaders in our country political let's just take a business there are many business leaders who have all the money and more that they ever wanted but they lost their family in the journey they were willing to sacrifice relationships personal integrity they maybe started with these great values but they sacrificed them in order to have personal gain and they have great sorrow in every day of their life they've got to shove down this thing called a conscience where they know they violated their design to obtain something that is the nature of war and that's the warning of james these things wage war within your body and it doesn't matter to me if it's wanting somebody else's house car or title or if it's just jealous over the fact that they have favor and you don't or they are recognized and you don't doesn't matter to me what slot you put it in it is all the same thing it is the spirit of war and right now in this nation we have the spirit of war robbing the souls of many bull people many people on both sides of the aisle it's it's not a political matter it is a moral issue it's a righteous issue of what will we let feed and fuel our hearts and to allow ourselves to be careless in a time where we point the finger accuse or desire a plot or do any of the stupid stuff that that we've been known to do um it actually fuels that spirit of war see covetousness makes me take outside of divine sequence god has a sequence faithfulness and small things i learn to steward great things there's a sequence and when it's his turn to release something into my life it comes without sorrow but if i take it out of course i'm actually in war and i'm fighting as a thief to take something that's not mine it does not mean that it's not in the heart of god see god is interested in process i'm interested in outcome i like you know i fasted for three days i prayed this and that i cried out to god i got up in the middle of the night i walked the my living room and cried out to the lord for this breakthrough and the breakthrough came i like the breakthrough he likes the process he liked the fact that you actually skip food and you talk to me you know he actually likes the fact you didn't lay there in bed just toss and turn you actually made a decision to get up and pray that's what he likes i like when you did that son see he likes the journey i've i value outcome he values journey and so when we talk about the outcome let's just take it a material thing just because it's so easy to monitor to gauge so i want somebody's possession their home i lust and covet and pursue and i do all these things to obtain i'm taking out of divine sequence i'm taking out of divine sequence and i'm actually even though i maneuver and manipulate and end up with the item i have i have functioned as a thief because a thief steals what is not theirs and that's the issue of covetousness is it's at the root the foundation of all wars all right that's enough on that verse four is very fascinating uh verse three as a new american standard says that you ask but you don't receive because you ask with wrong motives the heart is the issue of everything the purity of heart is what governs the true direction of our life you can have all the right words you can have all the right outward actions but when the heart is corrupt it's going to end up in failure but when we do things as unto the lord truly as yielded obedient to the lord then the outcome is uh the process is holy and the outcome is holy so here he says verse 4 says adulterers and adulteresses that's a strange thing to to term to use to talk to a group of believers adulterers and adulteresses there's there's no reason to believe that they are actually sleeping with other men's wives and other women's husbands the context is in the scripture adultery is frequently mentioned in the same phrase as idolatry idolatry is spiritual adultery and paul identifies greed the covetousness thing as idolatry so he's dealing with this this war that's going on inside of them i want your position i want your title i want your favor i want your open door i don't i'm not getting what i deserve things are not right around here and there's that that entitlement thing slips in in the passion for justice and suddenly i've actually moved outside of the spirit of christ and james says you're an adulterer why because you're moving in covetousness not in obedience to the process that god has created for you i hear your amens all over the city all over the world and it's encouraging to me all right adulterers and adulteresses do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with god whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of god this is a fascinating statement now the world is probably many things in scripture but i understand three first of all the world in scripture is what he has created the earth all that it contains that is the world he owns it all the second thing the world is it is it is a cis excuse me it is the people of the world for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so we have the creation itself we have humanity and then the third one which is the one he's addressing here is an order of things void of christ it is the cosmos it's the order of things without jesus at the center and many believers in order to appeal to non-believers embrace a worldview a wrong worldview in fact it's my conviction that many christians will vote in a horrible way to justify their twisted world view there is a world view that god has it's not what it's not what i think that matters it's not what you think that matters what does he say he has a certain value for life a certain process the way we go about life this whole thing of misapplied justice is destructive and yet that's how the enemy hides himself as he hides himself around misapplied truth and that's where we we have to get before the lord and in his word declarative heart and mind so that our authority is used in a right sense to bring people into freedom to bring them into liberty to bring them into life it's not about your opinion or mine or this group or that group it's worthless my my opinions don't impress me at all but i love the mind of the lord i love the mind of christ and i love when he speaks and here he says to love the world again that order apart from christ to love the world is to be at war with god so this whole message is really choose your war choose your war do you want to be at war with god do you want to be at war with the things that are seeking to spoil and and destroy and weaken your own stance before the lord it's a battle over the heart amen bill amen whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself to be an enemy with god yeah i don't do that that's that's not a smart decision um i i know that in times past the church has so reacted because of statements like this for the end the end result would be there's no interaction with unbelievers that's not smart we're not a whole up into a modest uh monastic lifestyle and call that love not the world that's not it jesus so loved the world that he gave his own father loved the world gave his only begotten son jesus loved the world he sacrificed his own life we must love the world in that same way but never to embrace their worldview or their order of things apart from christ at the center i i don't know if i said that well but i feel like it's a point that needs to be hit pretty hard because i watch through the years as more and more christians have a genuine heart of compassion for someone they don't know and they compromise their personal values in order to be accepted by that person you lose your authority you lose your power when you become like your audience there's a difference between having genuine value for a person that you listen you hear you respond to them you have compassion for their stuff and then there's a difference between that and actually mirroring the people you're trying to minister to and there's a number of believers around the country that i watch all the time they look more and more like the people they're trying to minister to in their worldview and they're becoming so twisted in their approach to righteousness and serving god they all hide it they hide it under this thing called grace and grace it doesn't lead to righteous living is in grace all right so i'm actually quite happy on the inside i'm just you know i just sound mad on the outside you guys have been patient enough with me for a long time so all right verse 5 or do you not think the scripture says in vain he jealously desires the spirit who lives in us but he gives more grace move on god resists the proud god he gives grace to the humble here's verse seven therefore submit to god resist the devil and he will flee from you i i guess it goes without saying it seems to it seems to be common sense it's common sense as we read it's not always common sense as we live it out submit to god comes first resist the devil comes second you know you can yell and scream at the devil all you want if you're not fully surrendered to jesus your yelling has no power has no authority whatsoever it's it's the place where we start our day it's the place where we start you know the assignment of god on our life is that we yield to his purposes this is really a big deal it's so ridiculously simple but once you start tasting of the blessing and the success of the lord it's easy to forget i still need to submit everything to him but it's true we sometimes grow out of our need to submit and that's not true maturity therefore submit to god resist the devil he will flee from you draw near to god he will draw near to you that's a fascinating statement how do you get closer to the one who's in you he's all around me he's here how do i get closer you understand it's not proximity it's heart again it's back to the heart one of the scariest verses in the bible is that depart from me i never knew you so that verse tells me there's one thing in my life more important than knowing god and that's him knowing me so when i worship god i worship in spirit means it's a spiritual activity i do it with the help the assistance the direction the empowerment of the holy spirit but in truth basically means nothing hidden i come to him completely open to him to rule and run everything i don't hide this i don't hide that i'm an open book before him you may say well he already affected i've had people call me a heretic because of statements like like uh that god you know you have to open up for him to know you he knows all about me he can tell you how many hairs i have on my head he can tell me which ones are going to fall out tomorrow you know he can tell you everything he can tell what every cell of my body what's happening but for him to know me in an experiential way relational way requires my response why open to him and that's a that's that's this thing right here draw near to god which means what god i'm opening up everything about me and you said seek your face and my response is your face i will see what happens in that moment he's already here but he comes so deeply into that inner place in us it's all a battle of the heart and when i open myself completely to him transparency vulnerable need uh thankfulness uh rejoicing celebrating victory all the stuff that goes on in our life all that i direct towards him there's a tenderness there's a nearness there's an awareness of him in my life that i didn't have five minutes earlier you know it's it's this uh this verse out of john 15 has become increasingly important for me in my own personal walk and that's a verse i've taught out many times that i i love it so much but it's become it's haunting me in the right way hunting is the wrong word but give me some grace here it's it's following me hard in a right sense remove that from the tape now too late it's the passage out of john 15 verse 7 where he says abide in me and my word abides in you you'll ask whatever you want what is he wanting he's not wanting me to be a self-willed believer he's wanting me to be a co-laborer who in prayer implement his purposes in the earth that has to happen for his purposes to be manifest in the earth i have to have a co-laboring role you have to have a co-laboring role but the goal the goal is the prayers that make a difference but he didn't start there he said abide in me so there's this acknowledged manifested presence of the spirit of god that my heart is in full acknowledgement of and engagement with abiding the illustration of context is a branch in a vine you can't tell where the branch begins and where it ends where the vine begins it's not a flat surface it is the intertwining of fibers so deeply and so profoundly that it was the best illustration for abiding in christ that you can't tell where i end and where jesus begins because it all is so saturated in among itself by acknowledgment of his presence the spirit of god upon me and the engagement of heart to heart is so intertwined i'm abiding in him and his word is all that matters to me what does god say about the matter i've laid down my right to an opinion what does god say about the matter and that thing just courses through my heart where i bring it up in biblical meditation god give me insight from this and it's in that posture of absolute surrender he says all right ask for whatever anything you want i'll do it that's what he's wanted he's wanting a family of co-laboring believers that are so yielded and surrendered to the manifest presence of god that he can trust them with any prayer and it will be done just like he did with solomon solomon was the only one that got his the one wish except for the church the church gets it countless times every day and we often times spoil the opportunity to ask for whatever we want we've got to learn abiding we've got to learn the indwelling word and in that position pray something that moves us knowing it'll move him if it doesn't move me it doesn't move him verse 10 is where we'll end humble yourself in the sight of the lord and he will lift you up i in fact i just released a book here recently called born for significance and the whole reason for that book was we we don't we don't know how to handle blessing well you know it either leads people to corruption or you know selfishness or i mean it's crazy old and new testament i like it the same happens and it's it's the proper stewardship of blessing that actually equips it and enables us to impact the world around us culturally is through managing resource blessing well it doesn't matter if it's money or favor position title doesn't matter to me what it is and this verse here illustrates a point that i like to make says humble yourself unto the mighty hand of god he'll exalt you at the right time we love it when people humble themselves under the mighty hand of god we're not always just happy with them when god exalts them we don't know what to do with an exalted person i mean let's be honest we don't know what to do why because we don't have a theology for that there's the passage that says that you pray in secret he rewards in public all right we seek him in secret he rewards us in public so we see people rewarded in public and become suspicious as to how they got there not realizing that god's the one who called the shots because he saw them in the quiet time the quiet place of their life so we don't have a theology that allows for someone to be openly extravagantly blessed before our eyes because of jealousy because of covetousness this is at the heart of what god is going after in this hour we love it when people seek first the kingdom of god we don't always like it when he has added everything back into their life and so this is a moment where we learn to monitor the pastor if you will the attitudes of our heart we see we little things creep up like we start thinking oh if only that was mine or maybe it's a it's a sharp word towards somebody it's impatient it's critical it's the pointing finger those little moments when those things begin to surface god has sent up a flare he's given us a warning saying this is not who you're designed to be you can forsake that way of life now you can forsake that as an approach to your life now you can abandon you can cleanse your hands from that influence now and he invites us into this lifestyle where god there's nothing apart from the heart of god that i want in my life i remember when my my kids were were small and and uh obviously all at home and and i would speak impatiently and i'd get i'd get the family together so you guys know all i want with my life is to honor jesus that's all i want will you guys pray for me and they put their little hands on me when they got older they were still doing it but praying praying for me i would become impatient with the situation and and confess to them and and they would just pray i would tell benny i'd say listen honey you know all i want to do is honor jesus if you see an attitude forming in me that i've not yet recognized please do me a favor i'm inviting you i'm begging you point it out to me why we've got to stay that kind of accountable to avoid the disaster that james warns about and we step into the promise that he prophesied over us humble yourself under the mighty hand of god he'll exalt you and when he exalts you remember solomon's word god has highly favored you solomon from the queen of sheba god has highly favored you because he loves the people around you the favor on my life has to benefit people around me or it's misused favor thanks for listening to the sermon of the week this weekly podcast can be heard in multiple languages on our betheltv 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 [Music] [Applause] 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 i i love when we get together with the body of christ in redding 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 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 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 when you're at the theater in weaverville we were gonna have this christmas play type thing and and we had to cancel it and uh uh for many reasons but we just had to cancel so i i got up and i announced the christmas uh musical uh is canceled 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 cancelled 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 canceled 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 to you about faith and but it'll be a little different kind of a faith 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 yieldness 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 uh 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 to 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 oftentimes we look in the wrong places for faith because faith doesn't come out of determination it really does come out of us 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 um 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 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 the 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 as 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're in the word all right let's just jump right into romans 6 since you you're giving me that um here in 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 uh 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 that's i'll buy into that one verse five 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 we know that the cross and the shedding of the blood made the forgiveness of sin possible yes blood can sin cannot be tone tone for apart from blood the shedding of blood jesus sacrifice made it possible but paul says in first corinthians 15 which is a 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 if 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 empower 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 you 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 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 that 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 this 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 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 out 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 cast 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 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 they were mourning in verse 10 and they did not believe morning will take you one of two places first of all mourning is biblical if it if it takes you to god blessed are they who mourn for they shall be what comforter say it again blessed are they who mourn 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 has for me as men 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 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 eleventh 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 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 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 crowd's crowd is there at least fifteen thousand probably is five thousand men besides women and children so we're looking at maybe fifteen or twenty thousand 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 where uh 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 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 have 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 hit 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 i was 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 in fact i was in one in new zealand do 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 him 20 each i said you earned this you earned this i did i'm impressed so i 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 turn 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 i i knew enough they need to hear me here i knew enough not not to judge her i was just it 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 yeah yeah oh yeah [Applause] 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] 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 the 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 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 draw 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 want to 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 to 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 in faith because that's my design it's my nature i'm in a creation created to believe and i 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 a relative gets saved or you get that promotion that you've been praying for 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 so i realized i could feel the vibe in the room here honestly i they walked 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 we're working through that one but father i ask that you'd 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 army 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 [Music] [Applause]

Channel: The Teachings Of GOD

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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: AIJ814yK0Ic

Length: 82min 22sec (4942 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 18 2021