Familiarity can create resistance in our understanding of what God is doing. Bill Johnson challenges us to return to what brought us to where we are today. Let us continue to be hungry for more of God.
[Applause]
all right is it still morning yes it is
good morning
nice to see you guys it is just
wonderful
to have humans in the room it’s
it it is amazing i i’ve told you in
recent weeks i have discovered i am
addicted to humans
and it’s a very serious addiction it’s
uh
it’s so good to be here i uh
how many of you remember when you were
kids and they would sing that little
song
liar liar pants on fire
anybody remember that i saw a meme again
this week that i
thought was worth repeating it said
if liar’s pants really caught on fire
the news would be more fun to watch
[Laughter]
[Applause]
that’s when i wish i would have made up
i wish i could take credit for that one
all right in fact i’d record it
i better stop right there before i get
in any more trouble
why don’t you open your bibles to the
gospel of luke
chapter 10 and then uh
we’re not going to read the poem sunday
the the story
although it would certainly be worthy of
our time it’s just
the time that we have and and what i
feel i needed to do but what i want to
do is just take you on a mental journey
back
to the gospel of john so just walk
through this with me
in chapter 11 lazarus
is resurrected at the beginning of
chapter 12
mary takes the costly ointment
and pours it over jesus following that
is the triumphal entry where people lay
down clothing
and palm branches as jesus enters the
city
don’t ever underestimate the value of
abandonment in your worship
and how it affects and impacts the
atmosphere and climate of an entire city
it was following that priceless
act of worship that we have people
crying out hosanna
passion translation passion translation
says
jesus be our savior hosanna
be our savior an entire atmosphere of a
city changes
i’d like to suggest in response
to an offering of one person because it
was
everything it impacted the atmosphere of
a city
we’re going to move from that into the
subject of prayer which has been
um been on my mind a lot just from what
the lord’s doing
here i had somebody say to me
i i want reformation
not revival
of course you do we always want a
resurrection without a cross
is where we experience the holiness of
god
the power of god and it’s costly to live
in it
it’s where you die it’s where
i’ve watched as people have said yes to
what god was doing in them
and it cost them everything i watched
years ago
25 years ago last month when outpouring
began here
and family members left and some stayed
it cost them everything
they had to make a decision whether or
not they wanted the more of god
or they wanted something else
i don’t say that to in any way point a
finger criticize
anyone who would have left because
that’s that’s not the intent and
and a lot of really good people left for
whatever
my point is is that revival is expensive
moves of god are expensive they’re
costly
it requires people to die
and see what revival does is it
introduces you to the holiness and the
power of god where reformation
introduces you to the mind and heart of
god
and what happens in revival in revival
your yes is so significant significant
and so big
that you obtain favor with god at a new
level now i understand everybody has
favor
but do you understand that favor grows
it can grow or decline
and well-used favor is the way you
increase favor
but here’s the point the lord said
that when we have found favor with god
he makes even our
enemies to be at peace with us the point
is
is that the way you get you obtain favor
with man
is by first obtaining favor with god
when you pursue the favor of man instead
of the favor of god you get neither
you get political agreement you get
social interaction
but you don’t get favored the kind of
shapes history
if i pursue the favor of men and i’ve
watched people compromise their
testimony
in order to obtain favor with man
but it’s not the kind of favor that will
change the shape the course of history
what the lord has called us to is
honestly to be a people
that experienced the ongoing fires of
revival the costly experience
of saying yes to god chris shared a word
with us
a couple months ago and it’s it’s been
echoing in my heart and mind for quite a
while
in fact andrew mason uh sent a little
video clip
it’s of the rocky 3 movie and uh
i’m not even danny silk and i’m talking
to you about movies i
of course if i were as good as danny i’d
have the clip up here for you
but um it it really is a moving scene
it’s really affected me
uh deeply the scene let me take you
through it
rocky three he’s wealthy he’s powerful
he’s
successful he’s had ten fights where
he’s fought
young guys coming up and he beat them
all and he wants to fight this one guy
that he’s heard of this up-and-coming
fighter
who is so hungry and he goes to his
trainer he says i want you to train me
for one more fight
and he says i won’t do it i quit and he
says what do you mean
he says you’ll lose what do you mean
i’ll lose i beat all these 10 people he
says they were hand-picked
he says you mean those fights were raped
he says no you beat him but they were
hand-picked
and he goes on in his dialogue and he
says
he says well i want to fight this guy
and i want you to train me again he says
he’ll kill you to death which is the
worst kind of death
is to be killed all the way to death but
that’s what he says in the womb says
he’ll kill you to death
you will lose and so the scene goes on
and on they have this exchange finally
the music dials down into this this very
mellow
uh score and they sit down on a couch
together
and the trainer turns to rocky
because rocky asked him how come how
come you say i won’t win
and he says this one line
the trainer says we’ve become too
civilized
we’ve become too civilized you see
favor gives you opportunity
to settle
and it’s not that the favor is wrong
it’s not that the favor
is isn’t a gift from god it’s just it
serves
a purpose different than what we are
accustomed to what typically happens is
people pay this great price for revival
they experience the move of god
they see the miracles i tell you what i
would have come today for that song
in fact as far as i’m concerned we can
start with that and end with that i just
for two hours let’s just sing that song
i’m already a mess i cried my eyes out
for
service and i’m still a little bit
damaged
i’m damaged merchandise from that song
wow don’t tell me he can’t do it
don’t tell me he can’t do it come on
come on
you know hotel back east and
just two weeks ago week and a half ago
and a gal
who worked at the hotel behind the desk
one of the i think managers or whatever
she said i’m concerned
i fear she said for the people who
who listen to you
because that we were talking about what
god is doing and
and i believe that god is still do in
fact don’t tell me he doesn’t do that
stuff that’s that’s what i’m saying
and she was saying that he doesn’t do
that anymore
she said i fear for you and i said well
i fear for you
and so when i checked out she followed
me she says why do you fear for me
i said because you’ve made it spiritual
to disobey jesus
he’s the one who said heal the sick
raise the dead cast
out devils
cleanse the lepers
so what if you stink at it you don’t
have the right to change the assignment
[Applause]
our conversation was hospitable so i
well when you hear one side it and i
don’t i don’t
mean to do that it wasn’t dishonoring
but it was honest
what happens is people die
so to speak they say no to everything in
their life and yes to god and something
takes place where
things happen that you’ve only dreamed
about things that i i never knew i’d get
to see my lifetime
and yet i get to see them and and i’ve
seen just in the last couple weeks
hundreds and hundreds of people
been completely healed set free from so
many different things hundreds of people
seeing what i never know i never knew
i’d get to see
but what happens is it opens up favor
which is a gift from god the challenge
is
favor opens up doors that you’re not
supposed to go through
i know it opens right doors too so
anything i say today
you will have the opportunity to
completely abuse
i i i say just enough to give permission
to people to be weirder than they
already are so if that’s your ben
i will give you permission today but
it’s worth the risk because maybe
somebody will get it right
so here favor brings you into this place
of blessing
of breakthrough of things happening that
you’ve never seen happen before
suddenly start moving into reformation
which is what it’s where life works
people want their families to be healthy
they want their businesses to succeed
they want the educational system to
actually function well they want
children to grow up with dreams and
all these things are a part of
reformation well what happens in
reformation you get favor
why because life works but what happens
is we forget that in that season of
favor
it’s easy to become too civilized
and forget what got you there forget
that it was the painful yes it was the
yesterday
everything else it was the willingness
it was the willingness to be
ostracized criticized abused all
all the stuff i i hardly ever ever ever
talk about this stuff
but i’m i’m i’m feeling something so
strong
in this season not just today but in
this season
we have we have prayer meetings out
there
cold oh goodness a couple weeks ago how
did it get so warm all of a sudden
somebody’s prayer worked i’ll i’ll call
you next time we’re in need i’ll tell
you
man one of the last ones i was in was so
cold perfect i was in the school of
ministry teaching i was freezing
wrapped up i should have had a big old
goose down blank uh
sleeping bag around me mummy you know
talking about the top of it
just freezing but you know what i kind
of like it
i i’m not into self punishment self a
basement call it spiritual
but something’s happening right now
where i feel like
i i really don’t want to make anything
easy for anybody
not into punishment i’m not into any of
this stuff but i just i remember
weaverville we had a prayer meeting it
started at 11 at night
because i didn’t want to make it easy if
you wanted to pray
starts at 11 show up
and i’m i’m sorry but i’m in that mood
again i just feel like
i feel like i know what it’s like to
work out in the old gym and i also know
what it’s like
to stay in the five-star hotel
and i’m thankful for the journey
but i fear what happens if we forget
what got us here
and sometimes you just need to train in
the old gym
sometimes it’s just it’s just a hardcore
inconvenience it’s the it’s the no to
everything but what god’s doing
in this absolute moment is worth my
entire life
because what happens is clatty keith
gave us an example years ago how many
how many of you were here when cletty
keith was here oh not very many oh well
well
blame claddy if you don’t like the
example i’m not a gambler and he used a
gambling example so
i’ll just blame him he’s such a great
man
but he talks about you know you start
with so little in life
these chips and you put them all to the
middle of the table and then you win and
you get this pile of chips
it’s time to put them all in the middle
of the table again and you keep winning
and you don’t ever want to find that
place where you level off
and live off of your most recent
breakthrough
but you continue to invest in what might
be possible
that the world has never seen
think about this the lord has promised
to do a new thing is it possible
he is actually thinking of a new thing
is it possible that he’s actually
thinking of something that’s not been
done before
see the way things work throughout
revival history is he pours out his
spirit upon people who usually don’t
know anything
they don’t know enough to resist it’s
true you read history it’s true
just a bunch of young people just
started praying they just started
walking the street they didn’t know
enough to know how god moves they just
got so hungry they were
unwilling to live without it and they
begin to pray
i remember when i was a teenager here
my late teens early 20s i remember
about 18 19 years old we’d ask for the
keys to the church
just so we could come and pray all night
we just get people together just pray
we didn’t know what we were doing our
prayers were pretty pitiful
you know i i we didn’t know the the
effect of worship we didn’t know the
effect of any of that stuff
but we had seen caught a glimpse of what
might be possible in our lifetime
and we just met to pray we just did the
best we knew how we stayed here all
night we prayed
we asked god to do something significant
we’re in that moment again
in luke chapter 10 i almost forgot
i’m going to blame it on the song
don’t tell me he can’t do it
[Laughter]
it happened verse 38 it happened
they that they entered a certain village
a certain woman named martha welcomed
him into her house
she had a sister called mary who also
sat at the feet of jesus
and heard his word this is the one who
really in some ways
ushered in a movement in jerusalem
through her sacrificial worship
she sat at jesus’s feet and heard his
word but martha
was distracted with much serving say
that with me martha
was distracted with much serving
you know you’ve heard the statement that
good is the enemy of best
and if ever there was an illustration
for that it was here
martha was distracted with serving
busyness is artificial significance
it gives you the illusion
of importance
some of our greatest accomplishments
actually come out of rest
if we knew that we’d fight for it more
martha was distracted with much serving
i’ve heard people say if we didn’t have
martha’s in the church nothing would
ever get done
that statement was invented by a martha
who needed to legitimize her
labors that jesus never instructed
dick joyce our dear friend dick joyce is
in heaven now would say
martha was making sandwiches or tacos as
he would say
tacos that jesus never ordered
she was distracted with much serving
and she was wanting to pass her gift of
distraction
under her sister
most people who have dysfunction that
want to share
okay let’s just read it you can see it
for yourself verse 40
martha was distracted with much serving
she approached him saying lord do you
not care that my sister
left me to serve alone therefore tell
her to help me
it’s awesome i just thought first
service this morning wouldn’t it be good
to do a bible study on all the bad
counsel
that people gave jesus like when peter
said man don’t die that’s not a good
plan don’t die
here’s another good one right here tell
her to help me
jesus answered and said to her martha
martha you are worried and troubled
about so many things
but one thing is needed mary has chosen
a good part which will not be taken away
from her
my goodness i’d like to suggest that it
was that one thing right there
that impacted the climate the atmosphere
of an entire city
that brought in what we celebrate today
palm sunday
chapter 11 verse 1. it came to pass
as he was praying in a certain place
when he ceased that one of his disciples
said to him lord teach us to pray
as john also taught his disciples to
pray
stop right there for just a moment we’ll
read through it you’re very familiar
with the prayer
but just walk through this with me for a
moment the disciples i don’t know of any
other thing they asked jesus to teach
them now let’s put ourselves in their
shoes
if you see him multiply food if you see
jesus walk on water if you see
jesus raised the dead if you see
jesus calm storms there probably would
have been a lot of things on my list i
would have had him teach me
but for some reason all that stuff
in their mind they could trace back to
this one thing
and the only time they asked for jesus
to teach them
was in this verse where he said teach us
to pray
there’s a place where john the baptist
is beheaded he’s killed
and they uh they come and report it to
jesus
and jesus is impacted remember he has
all the same feelings and
temptations that we as as people have
although his was without sin
but he still experiences the
disappointment the loss those kinds of
things to deal with
i i personally think that joseph
probably died prematurely
because you don’t see him in the picture
later in life
it was something that jesus had to walk
through
but at least in this case we see john
the baptist dies
jesus looks for a place to pray by
himself
he searches for a place to pray by
himself but the crowds follow him
and when the crowds follow him he’s he’s
torn and so he’s moved with compassion
he ministers to the crowd but then it
comes to the place where he has to go
pray
and he sends them away the crowd and
then he goes up to a mountain to pray
what the disciples noticed is when he
came down from the mountain
every single person that was sick in the
crowd got healed
so they are seeing the miracles but
they’re not asking teach me the miracles
they’re asking teach
me to pray because in their observation
there was one source for all the stuff
they ached for
there was one source that drew the
crowds there was one
source that set the standard for
everything jesus was and everything that
jesus
did and taught and it was prayer and so
they said teach us to pray
and so jesus taught them a prayer that
is commonly called the lord’s prayer
not real accurate title because it’s not
a prayer he could have prayed
because and it is the confession of sin
and he had none but go through the
prayer with me in verse 2.
so he said to them when you pray say our
father in heaven
hallowed be your name your kingdom come
your will be done on earth as it is in
heaven
give us this day our daily bread forgive
us our sins
as we also forgive everyone who is
indebted to us
and do not lead us into temptation but
deliver us from the evil one okay stop
right there
sometimes familiarity almost creates a
resistance
to the freshness that god has on a
particular passage
sometimes i’ll get a different bible so
i see it on a different part of the page
oftentimes i’ll get a different
translation i’ve got to do something to
jar
my my sense of oh i know it’s here i’ve
gotta
i’ve gotta change that sense that i
actually know what he’s talking about
and come back as a child to relearn
again
i i think it’s i think it’s one of the
most safest ways that we walk with jesus
is to do
whatever we can to stop at the hard
places
re-examine have the word examine us
and so here we have this incredible
prayer this prayer
if you can look at it this way is a
template
that reveals the values of god if there
would be some way that we could take
this prayer and put it as a template
over
our thinking what would happen is it
would shape the kinds of values
that are natural for us to have stirred
up inside of us
it’s like this this template this
pattern
anything that doesn’t survive that
template shouldn’t be in our life
in the first place he gives us this
prayer
and this prayer i like what jack hayford
says about this prayer he said
he said this prayer is not a formula for
repetition
worship is to be longer than a sentence
petitions are not confined to bread
forgiveness is to be requested in
specifics not generalities
prayer for the entry of god’s kingdom
into present earthborn
situations is not accomplished in a
momentary utterance
the whole point is is this is much more
than a prayer that is recited
it is a template it is a pattern for
prayer yes but for values
for thinking because our our it’s
it’s our if you can look at it this way
this
pattern for thought gets where the mind
of christ becomes evident in us
and out of our own christ-like nature we
think what he thinks and we pray
what he would pray if he were standing
in our shoes not just religiously so
we know enough to make ourselves
dangerous we know for example there’s no
cancer in heaven so automatically there
shouldn’t be any cancer here is that
true it is absolutely true
but how do you pray to get rid of it
it’s the part that’s not asked as
as we we come out of just guns blazing
thinking that we know exactly how to
deal when we don’t always
because jesus every situation he handled
differently
because he’s paying attention to the
father it wasn’t that he needed to
figure out
is it the father’s will to heal this
blind person that was a given
that’s why he healed every person who
came to him he just needed to know how
ah this one i spin in the dirt i put mud
in the eyes
and then i tell him to go find this lake
sounds like the most cruel way to get a
blind guy healed
but he never does anything out of
cruelty he always does stuff
to build something in us and in this guy
who had to rely on other people who
knows the issues of his life
but he had to rely on other people to
get to that pool of cylon
so he could cleanse his eyes to discover
he could see
it was a process that built a man
and the lord has invited us into a
relational journey
where his value system as revealed in
that prayer
kingdom of god come fact jack taylor
taught us
this years ago he said it’s not actually
a petition the original language isn’t
you know god we want your kingdom to
come it wasn’t a petition it’s a decree
it’s kingdom of god come
will of god be done it’s the absolute
confidence that this is the heart and
mind of god and living with that’s
that template over our thinking changes
our options
changes how we approach any given
problem
kingdom of god come
it’s the absolute cry for the expressed
realized felt discovered measurable
lordship of jesus in any given situation
when we pray for the kingdom to come
we’re not praying about heaven we’re
praying about the reality of the
lordship of jesus
to be felt and realized here
the rest of the prayers various
petitions
that are all important obviously
but what i’m feeling in this particular
day
as i’ve i’ve i’ve watched now this is
we’re soon be going into my 48th year
in ministry
and i’ve seen the waves of prayer i’ve
seen the waves of breakthrough
and i’ve seen the settling into the
favor
that breakthrough provides
and the biggest danger to me
maybe for me
is to settle into the favor
that breakthrough provides
see the problem is is revival you get
opposed you get used to it
reformation you start getting favor you
get used to it
and it’s just easy to forsake
what got you here what got you here it
was the fire of god’s presence
what got you here it was the risky
obedience what got you here
it was the fasting the cries the all
nights in prayer
what got you here it was that stuff
but now we’re in breakthrough i know but
i feel like i’ve got to get back to the
old gym
i i it feels like it feels like i’m
it almost feels like i’m not allowed to
function
out of what i’ve learned that’s probably
not 100
true so just take it as a thought
if it feels at least in measure that i’m
not allowed
to live from what i learned up to this
point it almost feels like
a child that for the first time has
picked up a baseball bat against
a child who for the first time has
picked up a tool or whatever it might be
in it
and the point is is relearning
things his way because
the fires of revival
were never meant to be abandoned
for the greater thing
because when the fire is abandoned for
reformation the reformation is
short-lived
it’s the cross it’s the it’s the
willingness to
to to withstand whatever comes whatever
comes
i’m i’m going to obey jesus it doesn’t
matter what i’m going to be kind
i’m going to be honoring i’m going to do
whatever i’m supposed to do i’m going to
make sure that i
protect and guard my relationships but
bottom line is
i’ll do what he says
and i know what it is
to pay that price i know what that one
looks like
and i don’t want to have the t-shirt
that says been there done that
the way i oh i don’t know if this is
making sense to anybody
else it’s i i may be talking to me this
morning i had about three things i felt
to talk about and i’ve been confused all
day so
sometimes you get it right sometimes you
just you know
it’s just goulash you just take
everything in the kitchen put it in the
pan and heat it up
yeah thanks i’m i’m not looking for but
thank you i’ll i’ll take i’ll take
whatever i’m
i’m processing chris’s things jumping on
me i’m processing out loud so
i’ll blame i’ll blame chris here i got
to get on this side over here
maybe maybe dan say help me
i don’t want external no there’s several
things i do not want to externally
process
i i saw i saw one thing and said you
want to walk in my a mile in my shoes
that would be boring spend 30 seconds in
my head that’ll scare you to death
not me that’s uh somebody else’s
so here here we’re repositioning for
a next season it is different it’s just
every i don’t know what it’s going to
look like
i mean i i believe that all the things
we’ve been able to experience and see
and witness i i just believe they
continued i’ve not seen any slow down
anywhere
where i’ve been going it’s only
increasing
but i also have this sneaky sense
that um
the simple is better
simple is better
simple
if your eye is single your body will be
full of light jesus said
if your eye is single the word singles
is the number one the word voyage
if your eye is set on one reason for
being alive it’ll affect
everything about you and i feel like
the lord’s let us taste of so many
wonderful things and i’m thankful for
every one of them but it just feels to
me like
at least for me i have i’ve been
finding my way to the old gym again
it’s just
yeah the tears
cried my eyes out first service of that
song don’t tell me
don’t tell me he can’t do it sheesh
i couldn’t have had a better song for me
today
i probably should have just sat in the
front row and just had them sing that
for about 45 minutes and that would have
been
clear and a clear enough message
i want you to stand because we’re going
to pray and talk as we
pray and wrap this up
i guess i feel somewhat like a broken
record
and that it would be pretty redundant
for me to emphasize prayer again we’ve
been hearing that for weeks and weeks
and weeks and probably months actually
and
so i know that i how many of you have
felt really challenged in your own
personal prayer life what for here’s
here’s what my prayer life looks like if
i have 10 minutes to pray
i’m probably going to spend about six or
seven minutes in worship
if i have an hour it’s going to be
probably 40 45 minutes in worship
i the heartfelt connection the awareness
of god
and the heartfelt intimate connection is
more important to me than any of the
things on my list
as valuable as they are that’s where i
live from is that
and i i’ve been having this sense that
i talked to you a couple uh weeks ago
about the
the war that’s involved in prayer
and um i’m i’m becoming more painfully
aware
of the atmosphere and climate that we
live in things that are happening
in our nation at such a dramatic pace
that
um i’ll tell you what to not praise to
be stupid
and prayers of authority prayers of
absolute abandonment to the purposes of
god are essential in this
and this season uh they always are but i
i feel it so deeply and so strongly that
i it’s it’s going to take
you know any time in my life for me to
say this nation would be saved it would
take a miracle it would have always been
true but it’s never been truer than
today
it just got multiplied and uh
but don’t tell me he can’t do it
so that’s that’s right that’s my new
t-shirt right there don’t tell me he
can’t do it
that’s right
you know i don’t think there’s probably
not a person in the room that would
question what he can do
where we question is what he wants to do
what he’s willing to do what he’d be
willing to do through
me through you
so father i ask that you would cause
infectious
vision
the willingness to go back to the gym
the old gym
the simple ways of just deep affection
the simple ways of crying out in the
night
the simple things it just it’s
it’s all laid out in front of us because
all we want is for jesus to be exalted
what i thank you i pray for our online
community i pray the same thing
that there would be a mighty visitation
of god in our online community
our believers all over the world that
joined with us day after day
god i’m asking that you would teach us
how to pray
that you would teach us how how
to come off the mountain and to see
everyone impacted
in the same way that jesus did we hunger
for that
we hunger for not just routine and
formula we hunger for the reality of
presence the glory of god
the days that are that are directly
ahead of us
if we’ll yield to it will be
demonstrations of the glory of god
unlike anything we’ve ever seen or heard
of before
it will rewrite our understanding of
god’s intentions in the earth
god i pray that you would actually teach
us by the glory
by the manifest presence of jesus you
would show us your heart and that this
template for prayer would actually
filter all the things out of our life
that have no value
and empower the things that do i pray
this in jesus name
i know there’s always a chance when
there’s this many people in a room
that we could have somebody here that
doesn’t have a personal relationship
with jesus
and that’s important it’s the most
important reason
for our being here today is that anyone
who cannot say i am a true disciple of
jesus
i am a true disciple of jesus i have
been born
again and forgiven of all sin
if there’s anyone that’s outside of that
and you would say bill i don’t want to
leave the building until i know
i have peace with god and i have truly
been changed and transformed
anyone here in that shape all i want you
to do is to put a hand up
and just say that’s just that’s me and
i’ll just acknowledge you right where
you are just want your eyes to catch
mine
and we’ll just come into agreement
together online
uh we have a bunch of people online
we’ve had so many people saved
online lately it’s just been amazing so
i encourage you
put it in the chat box we have teams of
people that will be there to pray with
you to talk with you
we’ve had extraordinary miracles online
yeah crazy
tom last week in our prayer meeting here
our prayer meeting sunday afternoon we
had
with two guys that were professional
sinners
they were professionals
they were not church brats they were
professional sinners from another city
that heard that something was going on
in a tent up here and i drove from
another city they came here
they sat through a two-hour prayer
meeting and at the end tom had the
courage to stand up
to a bunch of christians and say does
anyone need to get saved and these two
guys said that’s me
that’s me so we prophesy that
online or here i just encourage you
listen i don’t know i don’t know how
this works
but time is getting shorter
somebody asked vernon tompkins is this
the last generation
she said i don’t know but it’s my last
generation
that’s probably what we ought to
remember is that uh we really need to
use this time well so
tom why don’t you come on up are you
wrapping it up come on up and
bless yeah you’re welcome