Strategies for Transformation - Bill Johnson (Full Sermon) | Bethel Church

beautiful good morning good morning good to see you here we have a few people in the room which is kind of cool that way i don't have to talk to empty chairs and by faith i see all of you out out and about um i love the fact you know this is a weird season let's be honest but but it's been amazing to see how many people can be impacted through through vidi video so many people that i don't think did anything online previous to this season are now becoming pros professionals they can dial up anything and uh and that's it's been really uh really refreshing for me uh the encouraging thing has been the impact to see the measurable impact on individual people's lives on homes on honestly cities cities and nations this last week i i spent a bit of time with leaders from iran iranian leaders ministering to them and what my goodness what an honor to sit in to talk with these folks and to share with them a bit and pray together and you know you wouldn't have been able to do that you know a few months ago but now we're kind of geared up for that and uh and it just it works you know there's no space there's no distance in god uh there's just no distance and living with that realization really helps us to be able to grab hold of our moments um right after i was through with the leaders the iranian leaders i got to minister to a whole bunch of leaders from the uk so i i had an international trip and got no miles for it i got no miles but i also have no fatigue and it was just wonderful you know so i didn't i didn't uh have to eat any of the weird food on the plane and although they're trying to get better i'm just thankful for all kinds of things so all right um a funny uh story i heard a while back is a a police officer a highway patrolman pulls over these three little old ladies in their car and they're going 35 miles an hour on the freeway and he pulls him over he says hey you guys can't go this slow the driver says i was going the speed limit the sign said 35. he said he started to laugh he said no that's highway 35. highway 35 the speed limit is actually 70. she said oh he says by the way why your passengers look so terrified oh because we just got off of highway 105. and so that makes a lot of sense all right i want you to open your bibles to uh matthew chapter 16. uh last week i i i had uh the chance to talk uh to you and talked about uh prayer and some things that are pretty critical for us and um and i postponed something that i'm going to uh begin to try to crack open today uh for those of you that did our our study our small group study on my book way of life you will have touched upon this subject in that book i think one of the most important books of this era is a book by a dear friend ed sovoso called ecclesia l e ekk i a ecclesia and um it's it's a profound insight in scripture and a profound strategy for bringing transformation to this world i i in some ways i feel like it's the most important book of this era of this particular period of time and uh and he's stirred up some stuff we we have uh i think most of us have grown up in an environment where we knew that the church was not a building we knew that church was much bigger and different than that we knew i grew up my dad saying all the time the church isn't building it's not a denomination it's none of that it is actually the people of god that have gathered together in his name but there are some very specific things that if we have them in mind as we do life it changes everything for example the great commission go into all the world preach the gospel did you know that the active verb in that verse is not go it's actually to disciple the word actually the act the word actually means as you go in other words you're going to be going here and there throughout life as you go do this it's already determined you're going to travel on vacation to this city it's already been determined as you do business you'll be dealing here and dealing there it's already determined that your life is one of going so as you go do this and when you see the weight of authority and responsibility that god puts upon the people of god i i don't know what happens to you when i realize oh this is my responsibility suddenly i become very sober-minded about what i the opportunity that is before me i live with a i think a fairly heightened sense of responsibility and um and i i i pray that over every one of us that uh not the burdensome kind but the challenging kind the invi the invitational kind that says here god says this belongs to you now go occupied go take care of this and and that's kind of the mandate we've been trying to live for goodness 20 some years now and uh and we we keep trying again and learning another lesson and coming coming from different staff members another layer of this truth upon another and so anyway um this is uh this is what's on my heart today i believe that the lord is uh i'm gonna use the word force it may not be the kindest word but work with me he's forcing us to learn the strength of the church he's forcing us to learn where the strength is i love the large gatherings i do i've been you know i've ministered in groups up to goodness i think 60 or 70 000 that's fun i love when we get together just getting a thousand crammed into this room and overflow and i mean i love it i just love that i love i love all those kinds of things but what's happening right now is the lord is forcing us to discover the strength of the church is actually the two or three gathered in his name the strength of the church the large gathering i believe is critical i believe is very important it creates identity which is huge we belong to something that is bigger and more significant than our little world of influence that's important there's also a prophetic sense of direction that is given in the corporate setting that i never hear in the smaller setting i'm not saying it can't happen it's just there's something about people coming together in large groups with that prevailing word over a group of people that there is that there's that prophetic sense if you will of this is the mandate of the lord upon us i know for me since i was since i first started in ministry i i remember going to to weaverville in 1979 i remember we had a little business card i was on staff here with my dad here for five years and i remember when i went up there i wrote a little note on the back of my business card from bethel i just put this note and i kept it on my desk for i i think just about all of the 17 years that i was there i kept it on my desk and it said whatever feeds me feeds them so the responsibility was for me to be well fed into things of god and then give away whatever he gives me but make sure that processes through through my lifestyle first through my own experience through my own devotion to christ let it filter through that and then offer that to the people that you love and care for and serve matthew chapter 16 we're going to actually read a little bit out of here and we'll jump over to chapter 18 and we'll i think we'll end up in john 15 just to keep you busy matthew 16 verse 13. when jesus came into the region of caesarea philippi he asked his disciples saying who do men say that i the son of man m so they said some say john the baptist some say elijah others jeremiah or one of the prophets and he said to them but who do you say that i am simon peter answered and said you are the christ excuse me you are the christ the son of the living god and jesus answered and said to him blessed are you simon barjona for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my father who is in heaven and i also say to you that you are peter and on this rock i will build my church and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it and i will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven let me take verse 19 again the new american standard says this so much better and it's a footnote in my bible it says whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven a much more consistent translation with the way jesus taught and lived is whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven it's it's it's it's mirroring that reality here and that is the overall theme of jesus when you pray your will be done on earth as it is in heaven your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven so the backbone of the commission for every believer is learning how to partner with god to bring the reality of his reign his dominion into the specific areas of our human experience and so um let's go back uh through through this uh particular portion of scripture so i'm gonna read that verse again but i'm gonna read it the way i think it should be written how's that let's go right to verse 15 who do you say that i am peter answered and said you were the christ the son of the living god jesus answered and said in blessed are you simon barjona for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my father who is in heaven this wasn't a slap or a put down jesus was acknowledging that he just heard well from the father he was pointing out i i used to do this with with my kids my my kids would be playing on the floor and one of them would treat the other one with unusual kindness kindness and i would stop and say hey guys stop stop say eric do you know what that was and he would look at me like he was in trouble you know and i said son that was a fruit of the spirit that was kindness and that's what jesus is doing here he's he's stopping the procession and he's saying peter you just heard from the father that's what it sounds like when you're hearing from the father blessed are you simon bird john for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my father who is in heaven and i say to you that you are peter peter is actually a word that means rock but it's a small rock and upon this rock that word is the massive rock i will build my church i personally i do not believe that peter was the rock that the church was founded on it was an illustration the rock it was founded on is verse 16 you are the christ the son of the living god it's the revelation of jesus as the messiah the son of the living god that is what the church is actually built on it's built think about this the church is built upon revelation the essence of your faith is that you heard god speak and you responded there is no salvation apart from hearing god speak people say i just don't hear from god well you must have heard something because that's how you got born again it's the only way you can get in is there's an acknowledgement that god has spoken i am convicted of sin i i am he's given me a gift to turn from this way of life to follow after him and it's that invitation if you will or compelling uh exhortation by god that enabled us to turn in faith to him every every part of our life is hinged upon that willingness and ability to hear from god and every time we say i just don't hear well we're shooting ourselves in the foot instead of acknowledging what we do well we point to what we don't do well i don't hear as good as this person this person has open visions this person is the slightest impression i just don't hear that well well you must have heard something because you're alive man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of god there is life continuously flowing in us and through us because we hear from god it would be much wiser for us to say i hear from god but i'm but not as good as i want to i'm improving i'm on a journey to increase my capacity my ability to perceive when god is speaking it's a whole other subject but his first language is not english or spanish or whatever else other language you speak there's this whole world of impression and and pictures and and things that are that are otherworldly which is his language and it's how he actually teaches us how his world works another subject but you get the point so here this revelation of jesus as messiah is the foundation for the church but look at verse 18 again he says upon this rock i will build my church in the gates of hades shall not prevail against it i never heard anybody say that the gates here were the gates of the church that kept us protected from the devil but somehow when i grew up that's how i saw the verse i i saw that god is going to keep our gates strong and keep us protected from that big bad devil that's outside trying to break inside the church and steal and kill and plunder and do all the stuff that he does and that's not it at all it's the gates of hades that will not prevail in other words the demonic kingdom and gates in scripture refers to positions of authority so we're not just talking about gates like to a city or something that get torn down so we take the enemy's possession that's that's figurative but it's it's in the picture but it's the gates of a city is where the authorities of the city would be seated they would be sitting there to make uh decisions so when we talk about the gates of hades we're talking about the hierarchy the ephesians 6 principalities and powers we're talking about the hierarchy of this of the world of darkness will not be able to stand against what against this prevailing group of people i'm just going to throw in here something that is probably worthy of studying at another time please notice it doesn't say gates of hell we actually talk about hell as a place where the devil reigns from or rules from or or has influence from hell is his place of eternal punishment it's his place of eternal punishment it's it's technically it's not it's not you know the gates of hell will not prevail it's it's this realm of darkness that cannot withstand against a church that responds to the assignment and the call that god has given and where we function as he has assigned us to function and in these verses he gives us the beginning strategy if you will on bringing transformation to the world around us so here we have um will not prevail against at verse 19. i will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven this is a very significant assignment that jesus now gives to every single one of us as individuals now jump over to chapter 18 and the subject matter in chapter 18 is actually correction for people who will not repent and it's actually given in that light but there are principles in these verses that i would like for you to grab hold of because they are they are they're they go far beyond the immediate application he says in verse 18 again i say to you whatever you bind on or shall have been bound in heaven whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven again i say to you and here's our verse if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask it will be done for them by my father in heaven verse 2 20 for where two or three are gathered in my name i am there in the midst all right so here's the deal when the lord said i will build my church he did not use a term that would have been very uh commonplace for the jewish culture that this was taking place in it was not a synagogue nor was it a temple the word is ecclesia it's very important boring for a moment but stick with me ecclesia is a group of two or three people that are citizens of a particular country or government and whenever they gather together they actually represent the government of that country they are from so if you have roman citizens that are in greece and uh they get together and they are they work together say at a bakery and they get together at lunch and they talk together they are actually representing the government of rome that's actually the term that is used here jesus used a secular term he was he was known for using secular concepts i don't think he was borrowing from the secular world i think he was taking back what he inspired them to think and to do in the first place and he he did this by using the term apostle which was a greek and eventually a roman term he did the same with ecclesia these are secular terms these are secular terms that refer to a gathering of two or three people that have the authority to make governmental type decisions and so when jesus uses this term ecclesia he's actually using a secular term that everyone in that known world would be aware of because it was a part of their culture so he says when two or three of you gather i am there in the midst so here's the deal the presence of god is the mark of divine authority the presence of god the manifested presence of god upon a couple a married couple the presence of god that rests upon that couple in unity before christ they carry a governmental responsibility to represent him and to bind here what is not free to rule there and to lose here what is already loosed there it is a god-given mandate and responsibility it is it is the backbone of our dis of our assignment to disciple nations it is a very specific responsibility it is not this is not peripheral this is not uh you know extra you know like you you buy a car and you you want something extra on why i want the one with the sunroof this is not this is not extra this is the heart and soul of how you and i were designed we were designed and assigned by god to be on this planet as citizens of another world and as citizens of that world i'm to look for the one or the two others with whom i can meet and come into a place of agreement so that the manifested presence of god would settle upon our gathering together and then in that position we make decisions that actually shape the course of history now in john 15 this i i've been messing with these verses for so long i i don't know if you're tired of hearing me talk about them but john 15 is uh provokes me because do you ever do this do you ever read a portion of scripture that blesses you so much but you know you don't get it yet yeah that's that's kind of how i approach the subject of abiding in christ is i i know i get it and i know i don't know what i'm talking about i i know that i have experience there and i'm so thrilled with what i've experienced but i also know i'm in preschool and i have barely started this journey and that's how that's kind of how i feel with this whole subject so just take one verse the entire 15th chapter is worth the read but we're just going to take the one verse if you verse 7 if you abide in me my words abide in you you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you goes on to say by this my father's glorified you bear much fruit the fruit in this context i believe is answers to prayer so i owe god answers to prayer the lack of answers to prayer is not on his end of the equation the lack of answers to prayer are on my end of the equation and it is connected to my ability and willingness to abide the felt presence of god is the absolute key to continuous answers to prayer and living apart from that doing our best to mimic god's will doing our best to pray for things that we think ought to happen it's not that the prayers are wrong it's not that what we have requested is is against his will it's just we're we're missing the strength of abiding when you have the manifested presence of god upon you on jesus and you come before the father with request there is this clout if you will that we have been invited into abide in me let my words abide in you what is that it's the acknowledged felt presence of god and it's not just a recognition of the almighty god being here but is it is my engagement with him abiding is an engaged participation with a person there is this there is this encounter there is this exchange there is this fellowship there is this intimacy there's a connection that is otherworldly and in that connection i am positioned to think different to feel different to see different and i'm sitting here with another brother a sister family member whoever whoever and he says in that context the weight of the government of my world is upon your shoulders and for that reason you can bind anything here that's already bound there in that position we're much more prone to see discern the reality of that world we do okay with binding here what's already bound there we do because we know for example that somebody demonized we know that that doesn't exist in heaven we know that uh somebody addicted to alcohol or or drugs or whatever we know that doesn't exist there so so we we know the devils work well we know what it is to bind we know that if there's death lost destruction we know that's the devil's fingerprints and so we know all right this addiction has to end so you pray for your cousin or whatever that is addicted to drugs you pray we bind here what is already bound their addiction does not exist in heaven and we pray i remember one sunday night we had this uh uh it was a fairly quick altitude about 20 people as i recall came forward and they stood right here and we just prayed they responded to an invitation to get rid of addictions and we prayed this corporate prayer over them i don't recall i don't think there was any laying on of hands we just prayed over the group six months later one of the indian individuals came to me and said do you do you remember when you had that uh invitation for uh for for prayer concerning addiction i said yeah i do he said well me and another person both have been addicted to heroin for over 20 years and we were both instantly set free that night in a corporate prayer we sometimes we have degrees of difficulty in our mind that he doesn't have in his you know this this one's easy this one's hard it wasn't any harder for god to set two people free of heroin addiction in a moment probably a five-minute moment of prayer wasn't any more challenging for him than it would be to bring encouragement to somebody who was discouraged it's all in his wheelhouse so to speak so what we do is we bind here so you're praying for that relative of yours or or a close friend or whatever that has that addiction we're binding here what has already been there we're familiar with that responsibility in measure our problem is on the other side of the responsibility we're supposed to lose here what is already loose there and without heavenly encounters and heavenly experiences and heavenly perception we have no idea what we're supposed to release in the place of what we just bound the whole concept is i'm removing something and i'm replacing it jesus taught this in the gospel of luke when he said when a house is clean and swept it's got to be filled with something or the enemy comes back seven times worse so sometimes we we we have this we have a perpetual problem because we bind but we don't replace how do we know what to replace it's you know it's not uh forgive me for the hunting analogy but a flock of ducks go by a lot of hunters just shoot at the flock you don't get anything that way you have to pick one out it's not it's not guesswork it's very specific very strategic addressing an issue replacing it there has to be ongoing increased understanding of how his world works and what our responsibility is we are not leisurely coasting downstream we are aggressively going upstream against the tide because we represent another world and we continuously run into things that he has nothing to do with they don't exist in heaven and sometimes you'll see a dear friend of yours a part of the very thing that doesn't belong here sometimes i'll see a well-meaning believer a part of something and they have no clue most of the time i feel that my responsibility is just to go behind the scenes and pray and try to break that thing because if they saw the spirit that was behind what they said yes to they would never participate but generally a debate doesn't convince anybody it's better that if you see there's a demonic power behind something love the person but get behind the scenes before god and bind and lose if you can see with me i i don't think it's uh uh i i don't think it's a careless joining of unique scriptures matthew 16 matthew 18. both carry the theme whatever you bind here has to already have been bound there but then the losing the increased heavenly perception where does that come from well i think there are unique experiences that people have before the lord i'm actually reading a book right now in heaven that it's just mind-boggling that i i love so much when i'm when i'm finished i'll tell you what it was maybe if i remember i i love seeing glimpses of how he works how he thinks how his world works because every glimpse of his world of his ways and then his world equips me to release his influence in the earth see there's a lot of people that think his influence in the earth is going to be when he returns and it'll be this military invasion who knows what that's going to look like all i do know is that i have the assignment now he didn't give us authority to keep us busy till he returned he gave us authority to make a difference in the world we live in and most of the stuff is not dealt with face to face with an individual i'm not saying avoid conversation all of that i'm just saying so often the powers that be are demonic realities that are surrounding an issue and that's where we go to battle that's where we get on our knees that's where we make prophetic decrees we are not fighting against people every one of us have had a bad idea at some time and we actually partnered with the enemy and not with god every single one of us and probably most of us more than once or twice and somebody was merciful to me so let's let's let's show the same mercy the enemy is not people the enemy there are powers behind realms of thought there are powers behind they're behind even geographical areas i don't want to get weird and spooky on you but i'm just telling you there are certain places they are dark in that area because there is an individual that has partnered with the demonic realm at such a level that that thing has to be broken over that person's life you see it with a man of the gadarenes jesus brought deliverance to this one guy actually the son of the gospel say there was two the point was they got free jesus brought deliverance to the one the people were so freaked out it says it says that this demoniac you know he had so many demons that his demons were possessed you know he was he was set free it says he was clothed and in his right mind and the city was afraid as long as the guy is writhing you know and breaking chains and running around naked everybody's fine but somehow when he gets freed people get concerned you know it must be that cult it must be that church down the road and it says the people they were afraid because there was a power that operated outside listen every people around you don't mind a god who looks like them they will they will try to reduce the nature of god to their nature instead of having a god you must give an account to and the responsibility in this moment is jesus brings a deliverance to this guy the city gets afraid and it says they chase jesus and his disciples out of the area sometime later it says that when jesus came back to that area every person from every village came to hear him speak what happened there was one credible witness one person upon whom the kingdom had come something was bound something was loosed he was a living illustration of what that world looks like he had sanity he had engagement with people he was a different person and when that leaven was put into the lump of dough that entire region that had rejected christ when that leaven was put into that lump of dough when jesus came back they all wanted to hear what he had to say because something was bound and something was loosed david made this statement he said he said daily i set the lord before me it's a strange statement daily i set the lord before me well just so you understand you can't grab a hold of god and put him where you want he wasn't saying that i believe what he is saying is since you can't imagine a place where he isn't you might as well imagine him with you is he everywhere yes that means he's here what is abiding in christ it's acknowledging the presence of god who is with you to a point of engagement relationship awareness something happens in that heartfelt connection with the presence of god the spirit of god who is with me and will never leave me something happens in that heartfelt connection where i i live more aware of what he wants i live more conscious of his will the way i like to describe it is i live more aware of his mood and i don't mean he's he's moody in some temperamental way i mean i just mean i i live more conscious of his mood of how he feels about a given subject about a given person we've talked before about i remember years ago somewhere as not that long ago maybe three years ago now i was looking through a magazine it had all these different conferences in this magazine and i don't it was horrible when i got to the end of the magazine i realized that i had skimmed over every conference because i just i looked at the speakers that were in the conference with almost a disregard and i thought that kind of um complacency of heart towards another brother in the lord is not healthy so i actually went back to the beginning of the magazine and i slowly turned the pages until i came to a conference i looked at each speaker this took me a while i took i looked at each speaker until i could feel the pleasure of the lord for that individual when i could feel the pleasure of the lord for that person then i turn the page and go to the next one feel the pleasure of the lord when i did something changed in my perception i found that i was can i say it this way i was careless i'm embarrassed to even say it i was careless in my attitude towards those who were not a part of our stream it wasn't it wasn't a conscious thing that was i didn't know it was there until it till it surfaced as i was looking at these speakers and i felt so embarrassed and ashamed in a sense i knew enough to not think critically but the answer to not being critical was just to ignore and that's not kingdom see the opposite of love is not hate it's complacency finding that that pleasure if you feel you can sense that that heart of god for any given issue it may be a politician it may be somebody who's completely opposed to anything you think and and their decisions or whatever you take just that extra moment to realize here is someone made in the image of god i have the responsibility to treat them as one made in the image of god policy issues those are other issues they cannot color my approach or value prayer felt value for an individual it's a deception the religious spirit the political spirit are both vying to capture our emotional condition or both vying for influence to to influence my perception of people of groups of people to discolor so because if if a person if there's a person i find repulsive to me or i want nothing to do with then we've just cut off my ability to demonstrate the love of christ and he didn't say bill you're assigned to a few and you can be mad at the rest you know you love this person love that person but you can hate everyone else it's just silly it's the fact that whoever he puts me before i have to be able to honor and to celebrate so here we have this responsibility jesus said the ecclesia the two or three people the work down here at such and such a grocery store they take their lunch break together when they come together in jesus name in that lunch room and they have this predetermined idea we will partner together for the invasion of god's blessing and presence upon this business that i don't own a business that i am here is a representative of another world the government of god is resting upon the two or three but not just the government the governor the one who runs the government is with us as we gather if we had just a heightened awareness of purpose and the reality of presence we would live think and pray differently our decrees would be much more intentional our decrees our pronouncements our prophetic uh uh words that we release would be much more anchored in a faith that sees a possible outcome paul in romans 12 talks about talks about people who would prophesy according to their faith faith is supposed to be the guiding the guiding power if you will behind the prophetic faith by faith i see what is it naturally visible so i'm perceiving something that isn't yet but it's about to be because i'm about to speak it i'm about to declare it so you take the ecclesia you take the two or three and maybe a husband or wife in our homes i would encourage you of that has a facebook page it's actually it's not about his ministry it's just the ecclesia everywhere i think it's called ecclesia everywhere and then there's going to be a website and you just sign up and say you know my house is in ecclesia my place of business isn't ecclesia you just sign up let them know that there are thousands upon thousands and i hope eventually we get well over a million all scattered all over this nation that says you know what we're tired of letting the enemy have his way we are here representing another world god himself the governor of that world is here present with me and he says if i'll just connect my heart to him and i'll live aware of him and i'll let his the words that he breathes infect my soul until i think what he thinks i want what he wants i dream what he dreams and as that abiding presence becomes that kind of an influence in my conscious and unconscious mind i can ask anything anything anything god and you as a majority and in that gathering he says the gates of hades all the powers of health that are known for killing stealing and destroying they are no contest no contest we get so overwhelmed and impressed by the success of the powers of darkness not realizing that all it takes is two or three but look at the movements that are destroying this yeah yeah thousands and sometimes millions of people yeah but two or three god's there god's there and when god is there anything can happen to shift the focus the direction the flow of the life of an entire nation i i think we've probably known or thought or talked about some of these things for quite a few years so today what i'm wanting to do is have an altar call not where you come forward but where you just acknowledge my house is an altar my house is an altar my wife and i our kids we are in ecclesia we have made a covenant before god that we will learn to recognize his presence we will learn to flow from that presence my dream is to dream what he dreams my passion is to think what he thinks do you remember that passage in romans 8 it says all things work together for good yes shake your head yeah if you don't read your bible all things work together for good those who love god called according to his purpose great passage right before that the holy spirit intercedes for us right after that jesus intercedes for us that's why all things work and learning what they are praying is the key to our ongoing continuous breakthrough in prayer it is supposed to be that the will of god invades earth because we prayed what you stand i i know there are people that participate with us online i love this fact there are so many that join with us uh who are not a part of the bethel family we're just we're just glad you're here we we've got people all over the world that consider themselves we consider you part of the bethel tribe the bethel family we're we're honored to join with you in any way we can but there are many who just for whatever reason maybe stumbled across us on a youtube channel or bethel tv whatever it might be and you are in this moment very much aware of your need for god and i believe that the lord jesus himself set the stage for you today to be able to step into life for the simple faith to measure faith that every person has been given according to scripture that that faith would be placed in jesus christ as lord as absolute savior and we've got pastors that are online ready to talk and to pray with anyone who would just simply express just write it in the chat box just say i want to know jesus i want to be forgiven of sin i want to be a disciple a follower of jesus because you were born for something much more significant than what you have known up to this point i remember many years ago uh one of our dear friends in weaverville chris and i were still in weaverville and one of our dear friends buck steele he's a what what a great man such such an unusual grace and gift on his life but i remember he prophesied once that there would be an individual from a particular city in our county trinity county that would be saved and that he would become a key to reaching many people in that city and he prophesied this word well he was at the office one day and we got a phone call from the sheriff's department and there was someone in the cell the padded room who had just tried to kill himself and uh so buck was there i said buck you want to go down and pray for buck never resisted a chance to go pray for somebody and to you know lead someone to christ or whatever so he went down there he did the most unusual thing he went down there and he found out this man is from the city i just prophesied about and that there was a key person about to be saved that would be key for touching that entire city and he came in with this word that this individual was chosen for such a time as this and all of a sudden a guy who wanted to kill himself suddenly realized i have purpose i have a reason for being alive i've got a reason for being alive i have a chance to have a relationship with god and that he would actually use me to impact an entire city that i live in how many know when you find purpose you don't want to end your life you want to start your life and that's exactly what anybody watching right now and everybody in this room this is it it's engaging with divine purpose there is nothing greater there is nothing greater so i encourage you online please just uh in the chat box do whatever but get help because there are people that would love you and care for you father i ask that there would be an impartation first for the realization of the presence of god second that in that discovery of your manifest presence upon us we would come to know more and more your thoughts your heart your mood what you feel about different things that this partnership with the almighty god and the two or three gathered in his name that we would see in this abiding presence the will of god being manifested on the earth in ways that have been thought to be impossible impossible until now incorporate us in this last days plan to demonstrate the presence and power and government of god into every aspect of society i pray this in jesus wonderful and mighty name amen amen

Channel: Bill Johnson Teaching (Official)

Views: 173,833

Rating: 4.8338461 out of 5

Keywords: bethel church, church at home, bill johnson, bethel sermons, holy spirit, bill johnson sermons, bethel, bethel.tv, jesus, bethel tv, signs and wonders, sermons, christian sermons, bethel redding, bill johnson ministry, coronavirus church, quarantine, bill johnson bethel, sermon, how to change a habit, strategies for transformation, heavenly realm, the power of prayer, Gods Kingdom, full sermon

Id: jnb37q398Xk

Length: 47min 39sec (2859 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 08 2020