In this sermon clip, Bill Johnson exhorts us to rediscover our first love, and the simplicity of our devotion to Christ. Whether you have drifted from Christ, or you feel a fresh hunger stirring in you, this message will draw you deeper into surrender and the refining fire of Christ, abandoning all for the sake of His glory and Presence in and upon you.
it doesn’t mean where i was was wrong it
just means there’s more and i have to
leave something behind to get there
see you can only live where you’ve died
if you could picture you know what a
grain of wheat is like
you have the the stem and the wheat
grows and around each
grain of wheat is
chaff all
success
has chaff
which basically means every bit of
progress we make
has something to be discarded
and not knowing that
has us actually embrace things
that the lord is wanting to free us from
they’re not evil things they’re just
unnecessary things
and i can i can just
feel it i i wish i had better language
but it won’t leave me alone so i’m not
gonna
i’m gonna keep talking until i say
something that’s what larry randolph
used to tell us
i’m gonna take keep talking until i say
something
i believe that the lord would bring us
into a place of personal intimacy and
personal breakthrough tonight not
someday but actually right now tonight
in in a in a way that’s fresh for us
every one of us there’s a door to
freshness
it doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean where i
was was wrong it just means there’s more
and i have to leave something behind to
get there
see you can only live where you’ve died
and so when he invites us to come
deeper
there’s actually that abandonment that
we come with we come with that
abandonment that surrender
it it doesn’t mean
even necessarily that anything is wrong
it just means that sometimes
we hold to things that are simply
unnecessary in the purpose and the plan
of god in our life
in revelation
chapter 2 is the passage about first
love
and the lord speaks to the church in
ephesus
and he compliments them first for what
they’ve done right
they were a church that understood
spiritual authority
unusually so
they were able to spot false apostles
they were able to
bring adjustment to order and structure
they did it well
but in the structuring of things they
lost the passion
they had good order
they had a good understanding of
government
but there’s this strange thing about
government in the bible
government’s not bad government is is
absolutely righteous and ordained of god
but the the one of the unusual
pictures of government in the bible
is when the book of revelation has
this unusual strange picture
of the bride
coming down out of heaven
four square fifteen hundred by fifteen
hundred by fifteen it’s just most
unusual picture
and it gets kind of confusing until you
realize that all structure
is supposed to come out of romance
it’s keeping things tender
it’s keeping things
simple
the apostle paul talked about the
simplicity of devotion to christ
it’s one of my most favorite phrases
that he uses the simplicity of devotion
the problem with maturity
is you can become
impressed by your own growth
it’s still all by grace
on my best day it’s only by grace
it’s all by grace
and there’s something about remaining
childlike
i’ve been talking i i have a message for
tonight but i may just scrap it
well we’ll see i don’t know no promises
yet
but i’ve been talking a lot
in recent days about longevity
it’s really been on my heart
i’ve been noticing these people in
scripture
that some did well some didn’t
and some of you perhaps were here when i
talked about hezekiah i’ve done it quite
a few times in recent months
and he he did so good he was my favorite
reformer one perhaps my two most
favorite reformers in all of history
and yet he ended so poorly
and something happened
where he lost the tenderness
he lost the the fire
he still maintained the routine
he still i’m sure gave the sacrifices to
the lord
they still had the songs they still had
the worship because he restored davidic
worship
but something happened here
when
he has a history
of when there’s a crisis to cry out to
god
they’re surrounded by enemy nations
absolutely about to be destroyed they
cry out to god god gives them prophetic
direction they take it god delivers them
isaiah told him
you have a disease from which you’re
going to die
he cries out to god
god brings a word to him i’m going to
add 15 years to your life
but when he becomes complacent
he received
he misbehaved
and the lord brought a word
that there was going to be great
difficulty for his own descendants
specifically his own sons
would be carried off to babylon and made
eunuchs
he has a history with god
he cries out to god god meets him and
there’s deliverance he cries out to god
god meets him there’s deliverance
he received the worst possible news in
his life
but it came at a time when he was
complacent
and he failed to respond
with childlike faith
to get a breakthrough
sometimes we
we grow past our passion
sometimes we grow past
that fire
in us
and i’m
saying
most all of this
as a personal
confession of determination
to make sure that i keep
things simple here
we didn’t get to this place we are
because we were intelligent
i believe in intelligence sanctified
intelligence is glorious i i have
friends that i’m so
i admire them so much the brilliance
that god’s given them i look at some of
the teaching gifts that we have in this
house i’m i’m stunned by the brilliance
that comes out of their lips week after
week after week i’m thankful for insight
i’m thankful for intelligence i’m
thankful for revelation knowledge of the
word
but what i can’t afford to do
is to let this
get bigger than this
and i can feel it
i can feel it i can feel it’s like it’s
at hand
it’s at hand for me
it’s at hand for me i can feel it i can
feel
that my heart right now needs to expand
at a faster rate
he’s wanting to give me more insight i
know he is i know he is
i know that his heart
is to satisfy the quest that we have
to perceive his ways
to perceive his
his um
his his his purpose and plan
for why he has brought us together from
the four corners there
there’s many places around the world in
which god is moving and this happens to
be one and i’m so thankful
but none of it
is because
of any of our significance
i remind you the lord spoke to israel
and he said i chose you because you were
the least
run that over in your head a few times
the moment you start becoming impressed
with your success
remember all success has chaff
it has good
but it also has something worth burning
strange message huh
but i i i’ll do it again later when i
get my act together but right now
i’m just bumbling through this
i i believe
that tonight we’re to have an altar call
in which all of us come
and to make it work i may just bring the
altar to you
i i do believe i believe we’re supposed
to pray
into
this next
i want to say season
but for me it’s this next moment
i’m not thinking about my potential i’m
not thinking about my goals my vision i
we’re supposed to carry those and that’s
that’s the bulk of what we emphasize
here
we talk mostly about our identity and
where we’re headed the assignment god’s
given us we’re here to shape the course
of world history i believe all that but
in this moment
all i am
is a son
that needs a dad
a father
a wonderful father
and i was thinking earlier today about
this
this
statement jesus made in matthew 6 33 he
said
seek
first
the kingdom of god
and his righteousness
and all these things will be added to
you say that with me
seek first
the kingdom of god
and his righteousness
and all these things will be added unto
you say it again
seek first
the kingdom of god
and his righteousness
and all these things shall be added to
you
let me tell you what that means to me
it means that
every action every thought
every ambition
every possession
everything about my life
i am to seek first
the absolute dominion
of a perfect loving father
until his own nature
flows in and through me
seeking first his righteousness his very
person his very being his very nature is
evident and seen in and through me
it’s not that we’re to decrease or
disappear
but his significance
is really
the only place
i have found significance