What does it look like to create space for God to fulfill His promises in your life? In this sermon clip, Bill Johnson teaches from Isaiah 54 and the command to the barren woman to rejoice before receiving the fulfillment of her promise. God wants to bring increase in our lives, but He wants to do it through co-laboring with us. Our part is to respond in faith to His promises with confidence in His faithfulness; full of joy as we anticipate the fulfillment of those promises.

what does it look like to create the

room for God to do whatever he wants

before he does whatever he wants do

everything you can to anticipate what

does it look like if God were to bring

the increase you’ve asked for

everybody in this room has areas of

fruitfulness and every one of us have

areas of bareness every one of us have

things that just they haven’t worked

like we’ve prayed like we’ve planned

like we’ve anticipated we have great

testimonies we have extraordinary things

that God has done but we all have

experiences in bareness as well and here

is he’s saying shout for joy and then he

says cry aloud that word cry is actually

the word scream so we’re talking about

deliberate extreme expressions of Joy

it’s not a stream of pain or fear or

Terror it’s a scream of anticipation

[Applause]

now

how many believe this is true

all right all right so this is what it

says it says shout for joy

while you can’t have kids

face the thing that you have the least

breakthrough in the most Barren area

it may be the salvation of your family

members

it may be a health condition it may be

you lose job after job after job it

could be any number of things but there

it is right in front of you and the

instruction in scripture is to shout

with extreme celebration before the

answer comes now someone said well

that’s not reasonable it isn’t

reasonable from Human perspective it’s

totally logical and intellectual from

God’s perspective

it’s the intelligent response when you

see the Promise and the eyes of the

promised Giver

the one who has never lied the one who

has no respective persons the one who’s

the same yesterday today and forever

when you see that then it’s the

perfectly intelligent thing to do

because for from the one who gave you

the promise

he lives in eternity and in his sight it

is already completed

so when he gives us a promise he goes

into our future and he brings back the

word that is necessary to get us where

he saw us

so he brings us the word that actually

enables us to enter the very realm that

he intends for us

so it’s the intelligent thing to do

to get happy before you need to

you know it’s it’s

[Applause]

I have that’s all

[Applause]

[Applause]

all right

[Applause]

I like it

I like it

so he says all right don’t just

give emotional expression I believe

emotional expression is vital in fact in

this case the emotional expression is

the clearest evidence of faith in this

chapter

to try to do the Christian Life without

emotion and emotional involvement if

emotional expression

is to avoid the nature of the Gospel

because the kingdom of God is

righteousness peace and joy two of those

are felt realities

now it’s true that throughout history

there have been those who every have

embraced personal experience above

scripture and it ended up denying

scripture that is obviously a danger

it’s equally dangerous

to approach the scripture on an

intellectual basis and have no personal

emotional involvement or relationship

when I got married to my wonderful wife

I did not get married so that I could

have a marriage license

I believe it or not I didn’t get married

so that the state of California would

consider me a married individual I got

married because I was partnering with

someone for a lifelong journey together

relationally before God that was my

purpose

when we came to Christ it was not to

have fire Insurance to escape hell

it was an ongoing relationship with our

maker who according to this scripture

becomes our husband that makes

fruitfulness in our area of greatest

barrenness even possible

you may not like the illustration but

he’s trying to show you listen this is

how near I am to you I become one with

you so that you become fruitful in your

area of greatest barrenness

and because of that you have reason to

Joy so he says not only should there be

emotional response before you see the

answer

he says lengthen your cord strengthen

your pegs what he’s saying he said

listen if you want a child

and you have a one bedroom home

at a at a bedroom

at a bedroom before you’re pregnant

you need to create the room for God to

fill it

it’s a great story of Jack Coe

I tried to find it this morning I

couldn’t but it it goes something like

this he was going to pray for he’s one

of the great healing revivalists of back

in the 50s in fact his son Jacob is a

personal friend just talked with him

again this week

but his his uh there’s a story about

Jack Coe who was going to pray for I

think it was five people in a wheelchair

so he had set up this appointment to

meet with him and when he walked into

the room he noticed that none of them

brought shoes

and so I said come back tomorrow and

I’ll pray for you but bring shoes

and so the next day he prayed for them

and all five got out of the wheelchair

and had shoes to walk with the point was

is you have to you have to anticipate

what’s about to happen

and be re be ready add the room on add

the what what would it look like see a

lot of people actually don’t have time

for Revival

because we we’ve filled our life without

God

what does it look like to create the

room for God to do whatever he wants

before he does whatever he wants

so he says stretch out the curtains of

your dwelling

at they lived in tent so he’s just

describing what it is to add the room

before the child comes do everything you

can to anticipate what does it look like

if God were to bring the increase you’ve

asked for

some of you have received a unusual

promises from the Lord about Prosperity

about increase

don’t wait till it comes to figure out

what to do get your values intact now

get your values in Tech now

it may seem like a strange illustration

to you but Judas hung himself there were

11 Apostles there were supposed to be

12. so they appointed a 12th one at the

end of chapter one of Acts at the

beginning of chapter 2

in in Acts the outpouring of the spirit

game in other words they got the wine

skin ready and then the wine came

get the context prepared for what God’s

about to do

all right

[Applause]

make deliberate choices demonstrate

there’s genuine Faith there make

deliberate choices to get ready

two things are mentioned as our

inheritance in this chapter the first

one that I’ll mention is verse 17.

the ability to condemn the voices of

Darkness that oppose us

that’s part of our inheritance but the

other part of our inheritance is in

verse 3 it says you’ll expand to the

right and to the left your descendants

will inherit Nations

and and and make desolate cities

inhabited have you ever has anyone ever

looked on on online to see some of the

pictures uh in China that have

anticipated great growth in certain

areas of their nation and they have

built entire cities

skyscrapers everything and there’s

hardly anybody living in them

it’s a weird thing to see

so I mean they’re brand new houses are

built the high rises are built and

there’s hardly anybody there the Lord is

saying

that’s what I’m going to feel but I’m

going to give to the people are joyful

I’m going to give it to those who know

how to express Faith through their

emotion

they anticipate before they see any sign

of breakthrough they already are

anticipating preparing their ground it’s

those people I’m going to give the

Nations to and I’m going to let them

fill the desolate cities