Is it possible to live in such a way that our love and passion for the Lord only increases? In this full sermon, Bill Johnson talks about the importance of maintaining our first love and staying childlike in our approach to the Kingdom. The difficult situations we face in life will either harden our hearts or draw us nearer to the Lord. A hardened heart can still go through the motions of the Christian life, but without a heart of surrender, routine becomes religion. Respond today to this call to return to your first love. May you continually grow in love, joy, and hope as you steward a tender heart of deepening affection for the Lord.
there’s something about first love
that needs to be revisited on a regular
basis for every one of us key verse for
my life is proverbs 4 23 where it says
watch over your heart with all diligence
because from it flow all the issues of
life watch over your heart so monitor
the condition of your heart
[Applause]
hey
please
please be seated wow
i have missed you where have you been my
goodness gracious you just
you sure don’t come very often
actually i think it’s my first time in
like six weeks or so i was scheduled a
few weeks ago and benny had had a real
rough week so
i i chose to stay with her but uh this
week was good and we’re thankful
so thankful thank you
a pennsylvani a pennsylvania man is
suing smart water
for not making him smart
i’d like to formally announce my lawsuit
against thin mints
[Applause]
sometimes i get road rage walking behind
people at the grocery store
every once in a while i go outside and
run the vacuum cleaner over the driveway
just to ensure that my neighbors leave
me alone
i asked my daughter to give me the phone
book
she laughed at me and called me a
dinosaur
then she lent me her iphone
so now the spider is dead the iphone is
broken my daughters are furious
some of you follow that one that’s good
you know
my mind still thinks i’m 25. my body
thinks my mind is an idiot
ever take a nap so good that you thought
you missed the school bus but it’s
sunday and you’re 50 years old
all right
i just watched my dog chase’s tail for
five minutes and thought wow dogs are
easily entertained
and then i realized i just watched my
dog chase his tail for fun
i tried donating blood today never again
too many questions
whose blood is this where did you get it
from why is it in a bucket
[Applause]
if i had a dollar for every time
socialism worked i’d have no money
[Applause]
coincidentally if it did work i’d also
have no money
i i have to be able to get one of those
in every once in a while all right i’m
gonna this will be the last one
no there’ll be two more
research shows that laughing for two
minutes is just as healthy as jogging
for 20 minutes
so now i’m sitting in the park laughing
at all the joggers
[Music]
all right last one if you’re fasting
and still gossiping go ahead and eat
all right
jason and lauren belton have a little
girl edie
and they sent me a little video of her
you have to you have to pay attention
quickly it’s chris’s granddaughter
you guys ready to play that why don’t
you play that for us
hey edie
who’s on who’s on that dollar
don’t pop the
who’s on who’s on that dollar
don’t pass the bill
has to build on the dollar
oh my goodness
he must be very special
i’m gonna demand royalties
all right all right i
was
more famous than i thought it was it’s a
little scary all right grab your bibles
open uh if you would to first kings
we can actually have two portions of
scripture
one is chapter three we’ll read one
verse and then we’ll spend a little bit
of time in chapter 11. so put your
finger there let me talk for a few
minutes to try to set this up
i think it’s been like six six weeks or
so since i’ve
had the chance to talk to you so i’ve
i’ve been pondering a lot
uh just
thinking a lot about the hour that we
live in in fact you know what we need to
pray just a moment i forgot to do this
uh roe v wade was defeated this week
thankful for that
i think
yeah very important
[Applause]
it’s important to realize it’s not over
and much prayer is needed pray for our
supreme court justices for their safety
but also
i think if our nation saw
the root
demonic inspiration
for that value system that chooses
rights over responsibilities i think the
entire nation would be
in absolute shock
to see the roots of the devilish worship
that existed in the old testament where
they would sacrifice children
uh it’s it’s critical that
we can’t win that with
you know with retaliation arguments and
accusations
it really needs to come from the spirit
of god so i want you to stand with me
just for a moment if you’re watching
from home
sit or stand unless you’re in your car
don’t stand
uh but let’s let’s take just a moment to
pray i want you to pray number one for
safety
for all of our decision leaders if you
give them safety
uh the lord would give them safety and
secondly that the lord would release an
understanding over this nation because i
think i think if we could see it for
what it was i think we’d be appalled
appalled at what we’ve tolerated
all right so lift your voices pray pray
out loud let’s go for this
thank you god
just bring great safety in the world
great great safety
great safety to our supreme court
justices
for their families
that there would be literally a
a circle of fire the fire of god around
them for safety
and we also pray for our media that you
would put revelation
on our media that
would be known for wisdom for truth
and help us as a nation to recover what
we’ve given up so easily
we pray this in jesus name
amen amen all right thanks so much go
ahead and be seated
um
i’ve been
for the last several weeks i’ve had
something on my mind
that i’ve just been giving more thought
to than i than i normally do to be
really honest with you
um i’ve been pondering and thinking
about how is it
that people can go from
this passion for the lord
this
zeal for the lord and then just go
through the experiences of life
where they become
almost defiled maybe embittered
disappointed maybe betrayed all the
stuff that just happens in life and
let’s be honest the longer you live the
more history you have of things that
went wrong
and what i’ve noticed is some people as
they go through life they actually end
up in a place
that is they become quite jaded quite
resistant to what god is doing they
still have the routine
but see routine without surrender
is just religion
routine without surrender surrender is
the element that makes everything we do
come alive
if you give quote unquote the sacrifice
of praise without surrender
you’re not giving a sacrifice of praise
you’re making a business deal
you’re giving him this because you want
this in return
and the lord is working at bringing us
literally from glory to glory now this
is his design
his design is that i go from faith to
greater faith
from glory the realms of his presence to
greater realms of his presence there is
no end to that cycle or to that routine
to that progression he never wrote in uh
they’ll come to this point and then
they’ll level off for the rest of their
days he never ended that we’re the ones
that ended we end up by becoming
embittered becoming disappointed by
letting these things control and rule
the attitudes of our heart and that
determines where we level off but the
lord never determined that we would ever
level off at a place shorter than being
like jesus
he never designed that we would ever
level off at a place that was shorter
than us actually being like christ
that’s the design
all of us have been predestined to that
target
it’s all the same
and sometimes we fight to persuade
people that we are right
and we never become like christ in the
process
there’s a personal gratification but
there is no christ-like transformation
surrender is always the target in this
journey
great faith does not come from striving
it comes from surrender
it comes from yieldedness
it comes from our yes
to cooperate with his purpose his plan
his heart his mind
so as i’ve been pondering this i was
actually we don’t have time to do a very
extensive study even if i had the full
time today
but i’ve been thinking about three guys
saul david and solomon
king’s soul
king saul i don’t know if you remember
this or know this but king saul actually
started quite good
he started as uh as a humble man he was
not exalted in his own eyes he was not
arrogant he actually uh he was sheepish
to take responsibility he was he was
hiding when he should have been standing
and and he just wasn’t this arrogant guy
he didn’t start off that way
he demonstrated the zeal for the name of
the lord he rose in a time of great
conflict led the armies of israel into a
tremendous victory it took amazing
courage and faith for him to do that but
he was the guy he stood as it is may
recognize his moment the spirit of god
came on him and he led israel into great
victory so here’s saul
who later becomes
this guy who consults with a witch to
get information on what god wants and i
mean he just he compromises
the extreme issues of his own heart for
personal gain and personal protection he
tries to kill the very guy
whose
military prowess has exalted his own
position as king
but he’s jealous
jealousy comes from fear everything we
do is out of fear or love
and this issue of jealousy this thing of
fear
exposes a secu an insecurity
and insecurity is wrong security exposed
insecurity is god being merciful to us
exposing where we have wrong securities
it’s never shame it’s always an
invitation to find a correct security a
correct place of stability so we have
saul
so he starts this tenderhearted innocent
lover of god
saying yes to a commission that was far
above his pay grade and he knew it and
it was a place of dependency childlike
innocence that he had in his beginning
but he ended up
this jaded calloused resistant de fire
of the name of the lord
david
david prob most of our hero
you know
many kings for hundreds of years
afterwards were compared to david
he followed the lord like his father
david it was always that standard that
was said
david even in his older years
became
can i say entitled why
when kings would normally go to war
he was at home in the comforts that he
deserved as king
and it was in that moment of not being
where god gave him a grace to be that he
faced a temptation he had no grace for
and in that moment he fell with
bathsheba and ended up having uriah
killed
even the lord when he spoke of david he
said you know there’s nobody like david
david followed me with all of his heart
except for that situation with the uriah
and he and he goes in i’m glad that the
lord tells the truth about about all of
us
all you all
and
but here’s the guy actually want to look
at for the next 10 or 15 minutes is i
want us to look at real quickly the life
of solomon
he’s one of my heroes he’s he’s
i i’ve studied so much about his life in
the last maybe 15 years
maybe more than any other figure because
i admire him so much
i admire his i admire his yes
um and he blew it bad
in fact we’re going to end with to we’re
going to read the end
one of the saddest stories in the bible
let me tell you or call your project you
saw
us uh
announced that once again earlier
and that we bought an additional 20
acres
to the original 30
and one of the first things we’ll be
building on the 20 acres is called the
house of generals it’s actually a
library museum
about revival the revivalist of history
and i’ve got i i’ve been
i’ve been buying stuff for 25 years plus
and i mean we’ve got over 12 000 volumes
just in books
thousands of them uh we’ve got uh
kathryn kuhlman’s white gown that she
administered and i’ve got
john alexander dowie’s pulpit chair and
we’ve just got all kinds of stuff full
gospel businessmen first you know
plastic podium that they had just all
this stuff from from revivals through
the years
but i mentioned it for this reason
i i felt early on
25 years ago when this journey started
for me of collecting this stuff
i felt i was supposed to
honor
the yes
of those whose lives ended poorly
they entered they ended in drunkenness
maybe suicide
whatever
at some point in their life they said
yes god used them powerfully and then
this that i’m talking about they became
hurt betrayed
offended
i want the whole story
but i want especially to honor all the
yeses
and i don’t want to hide the fact that
this life ended in tragedy i just i just
want to hold it into perspective that
god used them for a season
and uh so anyway that’s just beside the
point but solomon is one of those guys
who his his yes to the lord was so
extreme
that literally the only time in all of
history the nations of the world came to
sit at the feet of a man to hear about
god in his perspective on life it’s
never happened in the measure that it
happened with king solomon i believe
it’ll happen in the coming days with the
body of christ but
let’s let’s read just a few verses and
then uh i’ll i’ll talk to you all right
in first kings chapter three we’ll read
one verse that’s verse 3.
solomon loved the lord walking in the
statutes of his father david
except
that he sacrificed and burned incense
at the high places
okay look at it again
solomon
loved the lord
walking in the statutes of his father
david
except
how many how many of you can say you
don’t want there to be an except
when god’s talking about you
yeah except he sacrificed and burned
incense in the high places
the surrounding nations there was
something in solomon that was broken
i it started off i think as something
very subtle but he never dealt with it
he had some sort of an admiration or a
value
for the surrounding nations and how they
worship their false gods because they
sacrificed on the high places
this was an unsanctified place of
worship
it was a place that violated god’s
design
god had designed
ways processes
locations
and what they were supposed to do in
response to god he violated that to copy
the surrounding nations now to his
credit he was only worshiping the lord
and so sometimes
the end justifies the means to our ways
of thinking when i’m doing it for the
lord
but the more
the more
self-will
becomes involved in our worship the less
worship it actually is
if self-will drives my worship i’m
worshiping self-will
chapter 11
verse 1
king solomon loved many foreign women
as well as the daughter of pharaoh
the women of the moabites the ammonites
sidonians hittites
from the nations of whom the lord had
said to the children of israel you shall
not intermarry with them
nor they with you
surely they will turn
away your hearts after the gods after
their gods
solomon clung to these in love
and he had 700 wives
princesses
300 concubines
and his wives turned away his heart stop
right there
these are from the surrounding nations
that worship these these demons these
demonic gods
and part of their worship was the
sacrifice of children
of burning alive their a kings would
even offer their own sons at times as to
appease or to please their god so these
surrounding nations that’s what they are
steeped in
and their entire worship system
is interwoven with gross extreme
sexual perversion and immorality as a
part of their worship for god
solomon marries 700 of them
demon-possessed devil worshipers who are
perverts
and they are all vying for his affection
and he no longer stands in a place of
resolve for worshiping only the lord he
gets sucked in because of his own
appetite for wrong things he gets sucked
in to establishing
a way of worship in israel i’ve not
researched this myself somebody else
gave me this information but they said
it took israel 300 years to recover from
what solomon brought into the country
when he was king
they were so deeply steeped
in the worship of demons
the devil’s real
mario merolo told us years ago he said
the
devil’s real he says he’ll enter a bar
of soap if you worship it
he just wants attention
that’s it
so here’s solomon
who
who is trying to bring peace to israel
here’s the bizarre thing why is he
marrying the daughters of these kings
and these leaders from surrounding
nations he wants alliances so that they
have peace
all right that’s the intent bring peace
the intent
was kind of stupid to my way of thinking
because he was trying to obtain what he
already had
he already had peace they were already
leaving everything even kings leaving
the comfort of their own throne to sit
at his feet to receive instruction on
the nature of god in the heart of his
kingdom
he’s already got them eating out of his
hand if you will there’s absolute peace
they are paying him because i figured
out though the amount of money once just
the surrounding nations something like a
billion dollars a year just in gold
tribute to him there’s already peace
but he feels somehow
again this self-will thing sacrifice on
high places that self-will thing never
got dealt with and it surfaced later and
led him into the worship of false gods
these
subtle little things that get ignored
if they’re not dealt with
they creep up later at the most
inconvenient time
and they affected in this great man
a value system that he wrote against
solomon would have done fine if he would
have just kept reading his own book
you know if if if he just would have
kept reading proverbs he would have been
fine he already warned everybody about
what he just did
verse 9 says the lord became angry with
solomon
because his heart had turned from the
lord
god of israel
who had appeared to him twice
i have that phrase
circled
who appeared to him
twice
look at it again verse 9 the lord became
angry with solomon
because his heart had turned from the
lord god of israel
who had appeared to him twice this is
this is the lord’s description he says
solomon loves me with all of his heart
except the high places and now he says
i’m angry at him because
i appeared to him twice most people
don’t get one
solomon got two visitations of personal
deep encounter here’s the deal you’ve
got to understand this we are people who
pray constantly more more lord increase
lord give us greater breakthrough get we
we want to see you we want to see your
hand at work we want to be involved more
with your face and the presence of god
that’s yours our greatest treasure and
that’s absolutely 100 true
the frightening part of this equation
is that the clearer
the manifestation of god’s voice or his
presence the greater the responsibility
to walk consistent with that voice in
that presence
it’s the reason jesus taught in parables
was to conceal truth
from those who weren’t ready to obey
it’s the mercy of god to speak in
principles concepts truth so that only
those who who were hungry enough to
penetrate to pierce into this truth to
discover what god is saying only those
people would see with clarity what god
was saying why because only they were
ready to obey what god had actually said
so god in his mercy conceals things to
keep us from a responsibility we’re not
ready for
what did he do with solomon
showed up twice
twice
most people in all the record of
scripture never got one
solemn got twice
and he
was
the most exalted
in my opinion the most exalted human
being
in stature
in
intelligence
in perception of reality
in
human power and a sense of being able to
persuade and to train and to raise
nobody higher
and yet
certain years go past
and things happen
where there’s betrayal and i don’t know
what happened to him i just know there
was there was this thorn under the
saddle that he never
stopped long enough to remove from from
the self-will involved of sacrificing
high places and pretty soon that thing
demanded expression
and then we have a guy who
god’s angry with
because he has now welcomed
the demonic presence
of all the surrounding nations
that were eating out of his hands he has
welcomed them in and brought an entire
nation into compromise
that’s a bummer of a story and i i don’t
mean to depress you
just be thankful i’m not sending you
home now i’m going to give you a few
more minutes give you a little little
pep talk here
so i’ve i’ve been i’ve been pondering
this stuff for a while because i
you know one of the one of the great uh
privileges of my life is to as i as i
have friends all over the world and i
mean
some of the greatest people i’ve ever
met in my life
i’ve become acquainted with in the last
20 25 years and personal friends where
we visit one another even take vacations
together and
share meals together and just just do do
life together just talk about what god’s
doing pray for each other get on benny
and i have been on numerous numerous
face-time calls with some of our dearest
friends praying together and they’ve
been ministering to her and it’s we’re
just thankful but also in that journey
is running into
a number of people that in one season
we knew them well as
as the childlike
innocent lover of god
who just had
tough stuff happen
and somehow
the the the joy’s gone they still do the
routine
but somehow the surrender is not there
anymore there’s there’s the there’s the
outward there’s the same songs there’s
the same
you know
encouraging sermon there’s all that
stuff but something’s missing here
because because the the innocence
is gone the
the first love passion just
just isn’t there anymore it doesn’t it
doesn’t go away in one day it’s not like
somebody wakes up one morning goes
i’m tired of loving god first i’m gonna
do something else you know it just
doesn’t happen that way you just you
just kind of get hurt you know you get
spoiled to get in different maybe
distracted so many people lose that that
love for the lord because they get
distracted by by the blessing of the
lord and then they get sucked away into
all kinds of things things that are
wrong and i listen i i’m i’m saying this
today for me as much as i am for you i
didn’t come this far
this long to be stupid in the last mile
that’s
that’s all i’m saying i
i didn’t
i haven’t said yes to god a million
times over and over and over again by
about so many different critical and
difficult and challenging things i’ve
not done that so that i can now just get
stupid
and lose
the first love lose
the child-like approach
and so i in my ponderings in my thinking
in my
praying
about this subject
i i felt impressed of the lord it wasn’t
it wasn’t a voice i i don’t want to
exaggerate it i just felt this
impression of the lord that there were
two themes in scripture
that if i could grab hold of them
they would complement each other
and these two themes
this is what i felt he said
they’re
different sides of the same coin
and the two themes are this mark chapter
10
where jesus says
unless you become
as a child unless you receive the
kingdom as a child you can’t enter
think think through the words here
unless you receive as a child
you can’t enter you can only enter
you can only enter kingdom realities in
the measure you’ve received it as a
child
there’s an innocence
of the child
there’s adventure
there’s humility
children
think of themselves
as dependent
they they they don’t wake up with a
burden to go earn money you don’t have a
five-year-old saying man we gotta get
some groceries for the family you know
you just don’t have that not not in a
healthy environment you don’t
you’ve got you’ve got this sense of
adventure on children you’ve got this
you know put a batman cape on them and
you you’ll find out what they’re capable
of doing
i mean they just there’s there’s nothing
impossible for him i remember gabe my
son one of his one of his kids was
playing t-ball t-ball is the ultimate
expression of baseball
it’s baseball in its purest form
where you put a ball on a stick and the
kid hits it and isn’t sure what
direction to run that’s it’s just
it’s just the coolest thing in the world
and
and so gabe was out with his little
five-year-old that was out there and he
was uh
supposed to be playing third base wasn’t
quite in the right position so gabe
walked out and kind of walked him over
put him in the right position
and this little guy who looked up at his
dad says he says dad
you better get off the field you might
get hurt
so that’s
that five-year-old was pretty certain he
was the greatest ballplayer to ever live
and he was protecting his death but
that’s that’s the innocence of
of
being childlike
there’s childish but there’s childlike
so here’s what i felt impressed of the
lord
there’s the childlike nature of the
kingdom the innocence
the innocents
and the other was
revelation chapter two
i have this against you
you left your first love
we sang it this morning
now we should sing that like every day
for the next
100 years
first love there’s something about first
love
that needs to be revisited on a regular
basis for every one of us key verse for
my life is proverbs 4 verse 23 where it
says watch over your heart with all
diligence because from it flow all the
issues of life watch over your heart so
monitor the condition of your heart when
you start seeing uh unbelief mourning
whatever the morning will take you one
or two places
blessed are they who mourn they shall be
comforted so mourning will take you to
the holy spirit to be comforted or it’ll
take you to unbelief
and every one of these situations in our
life they have the potential of taking
us into greater expressions of the
kingdom or into greater rigidity and
resistance
first love
and childlikeness two sides of the same
coin
i i don’t know that i’ll ever think of
those two things
the same way ever ever again
because i see them as they’re so
unique and different and yet they’re so
complimentary
so what did he say in revelation 2 he
said
he said you’ve lost your first love
repent
and then he said
do the deeds you did it first this is
fascinating because what he he didn’t
say he didn’t say to this group of
believers he didn’t say you’ve lost your
first love
um put on a worship cd worship me for
eight hours today by the end of eight
hours i will have renewed your heart
your spirit you would have been restored
to your first love
he didn’t say uh you know go on a water
only fast for 21 days
and and then you’ll recover first love
you didn’t say it didn’t say triple your
bible reading because that will help you
recover he didn’t say any of the stuff
that we might
encourage someone he said do what you
used to do why does he say that he says
here you need to rediscover what you
used to do in your childlike innocence
in your deep profound defection for me
you need to go and reactivate those
exact things you used to do well i don’t
want to be phony if i do that now that
was it was real then but i don’t want to
be phony i don’t want to go into just a
routine oh shut up and do what he said
he said he said do what you used to do
why because god looks at physical
obedience and he touches it with power
and something gets re reactivated in us
our own history with god it’s like he
brings out the pen again and is ready to
write right where he left off on that
page where we stopped
having him as our first love something
happens it gets reactivated just simply
by our raw obedience to acknowledging
him for who he is
i i believe these two themes
are going to be really important for us
in this next season we’ll understand
i just told you to shut up i’m so sorry
it felt so inspired when it came out of
my mouth but now i’m
starting to wonder
i didn’t tell you so it was them other
people
you know all the other ones
the ones that don’t listen that’s the
ones i was talking about
it says he takes us from glory to glory
takes us from faith to faith
is it possible for you to end your life
and your days
with a greater joy than your first day
of salvation
with a greater faith
with a greater sense of presence
a greater sense of innocence
a greater sense of affection and delight
father that’s what we pray for
i pray for that right now lift your
voices of the mind we pray we invite you
to teach us
deeply and profoundly what
what real
innocence and childlike lifestyle looks
like
and
and this first love
thing remind us
the simple things
that we used to do
to reactivate them again
i’m i’m just my cry
is that we honestly would go from glory
to glory
from victory to victory from triumph to
triumph
i pray this in jesus name
real quick question is there anyone here
that you’ve never given your life to
jesus christ you’ve never you’ve never
said i give my life to jesus to be a
disciple a follower of jesus the only
one who has the right to rule and to
direct my life if that’s you you’ve
never been what the bible calls born
again
but you want to be i want you to put a
hand up right where you are we’re just
going to make an agreement today for a
miracle in your life put you in the park
because i don’t want to miss you
wait wave it at me if i if i miss you
all right
all right well i’m going to
i’m going to assume you’re all in all
right we’ve got a banner up here and
anyone who would like to receive prayer
we’ll have a ministry team up front
who’s helping me hear who’s who’s coming
to deliver me you are come and deliver
me
wonderful
listen to her she’ll tell you what i’m
so glad that you uh watched this video i
do pray that it’s a great great strength
and encouragement to you and i’ve got a
verse that it really is my cry for all
of us and it’s uh psalms 20 it’s verse
4.
may he grant you your heart’s desire and
fulfill all your plans
that’s my prayer that’s my prayers that
this would be the season of rich rich
fulfillment
thanks for joining us
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