More than ever, we can find reason for offense every day. In this sermon clip, Bill Johnson explains the enemy’s strategy in tempting us with offense, and what it does to our hearts. While there is often a legitimate reason for offense, allowing ourselves to become offended clouds our hearts and becomes a poison that makes us bitter and keeps us from effectively demonstrating the Kingdom of God in the earth.
and what hopelessness does is it robs me
of the delight of obedience
i may still be locked into the
discipline of obedience i still may do
all the right things externally but
because of hopelessness my heart doesn’t
get to feast on the joy of obedience
thanks thanks thanks
you’re nice
well good
morning still morning
so good to see you
and all of you online by faith i see you
laughing at your own mistakes lengthens
your life
laughing at your wife’s mistake shortens
it
[Applause]
there’s a lot of wisdom in that
statement right there
um this fall we have a a eight-week
small group study
from my book strengthening yourself from
the lord it’s probably a good time to go
through that
in this particular season
and so anyway we have that uh taking
place this fall in our small groups
and uh we’d love to have
more and more leaders
uh help to lead these particular groups
too and so you can stop at the table in
hebrews and they will give you all the
information that you need
the leadership training for that starts
next sunday morning at 10 30. so if
you’re interested in that
stop by the table
give a pint of blood
social security no no just just go talk
to them and they’ll they’ll help you out
um i’ve been looking forward to today
i actually was wanting to talk last week
i’m glad i didn’t because daniel brought
such a brilliant word my goodness
i was so
so glad i didn’t uh insist
um
and i brought such a such a good word so
refreshing if you as always if you
didn’t have a chance uh to be here to be
a part of that then it’s online and i
would encourage you to see it but i’ve
been looking forward to being with you
because i wanted to talk to you about
hope
and how to take responsibility for the
level of hope that lives in your own
life
um
i’ve been uh i’ve been learning to cook
yes i have
and nothing extreme yet but i
this last year or so i’ve been exploring
and uh just to let you know
friday i cooked this
sea bass with asparagus
i had seafood i’m telling you it wasn’t
red meat
occasionally i like to explore the other
vegetable world
[Applause]
asparagus mushrooms and
some of the tiny little potatoes we grow
in our garden and
all cooked in duck fat which is just the
best way to to cook
anyways can i hear an amen
a salad
huge salad
with uh
parmesan cheese that i actually had sent
over from italy
it’s it’s it’s the
proper yeah grated over the salad
olive oil and balsamic glaze it was a
glaze i put on there it was tremendous
okay you can go now
[Applause]
but i also took supplements i i take
supplements to help fill in
weaknesses in the american diet
and the encouragement that you receive
from other people
i guess you can live by it if you want
to but it’s not the meal
it’s just supplements
the meal
is what you find on your own to feed
your own soul with
and we each have the responsibility to
maintain the level of hope in our own
life
many people live in a place of of
actually famine
needing someone else to bring them good
news
when god has given you actual
legal access
to an unlimited resource
of refreshing and good news
he oftentimes hides what we need the
most
in the most
offensive situation or circumstance
in proverbs 25 and verse 2 it says
it’s the glory of god
to conceal a matter
it’s the glory of kings to search out a
matter so the glory of god to conceal a
matter
he hides things for us not from us
uh my oldest grandson judah uh works for
me at my house and he helps take care of
things that
i either don’t want to do or don’t have
the time to do most of it’s the first
one i don’t want to do
and and and i pay him i pay him well and
um
uh i think it was
last week or week before last he found
an easter egg
that has been there for probably two
years
now if you’re thinking hard-boiled egg
no
we put money in plastic eggs
and i have one grandson that when he was
younger we had hard-boiled and
money eggs
and he’d pick up an egg shake it if it
rattled he’d put it in his basket if it
didn’t rattle it’s hard boiled he threw
it back in the bush
[Applause]
he was a cash only kid he just
but my my grandson judah actually found
an egg that we had put there with cash
in it
probably two years ago
god hides things
for us
and then it goes on and it says it’s the
glory of kings
it’s the glory of people who know who
they are
that know what they have
legal access to
and responsibility for
think of it this way there is a treasure
hidden within reach that you have a
responsibility to find because you’re
discovering that treasure will affect
multiple generations
we’re not talking about just personal uh
you know
just encouragement for yourself that’s
huge but it’s not just personal pleasure
personal success it’s the responsibility
of creating a momentum of being a
generation who hopes in god in all
situations a responsibility
i have a responsibility to find
to apprehend to lay hold of what god has
put within reach
i remind you that that’s the way he
described the kingdom of god the kingdom
is the realm of his dominion so
everything that exists in heaven that he
wants to be
released if you will on earth
on earth as it is in heaven
is in that realm called the kingdom and
he said the kingdom is at hand it’s
within reach it’s here it’s now and it’s
obtainable
unfortunately many
choose to live with the theology of a
kingdom that is present but never
learned how to find the treasures that
have been hidden
the enemy works hard to keep us
distracted through anxiety through fear
all that
those family of bad decisions
to keep keep us anxious so that we lose
sight of we lose
awareness of the solutions
that god has for us
the enemy works to make us anxious
so that the problems we face appear
bigger than the solutions we carry
god intends
to work the impossible through a yielded
people
what hope does is it positions me for
surrender what hopelessness does
is it removes from my awareness
the beauty of sacrifice
hopelessness robs me
of an awareness of why
obey
why sacrifice why pay a price
let’s
make it simple if if let’s say that you
and your family we’re going to take a
special vacation next year
and that vacation um you’ve got 12
months to save up for it so you’ve
decided to
i don’t know cancel the movie channel uh
to not eat out uh
you know for six months or whatever it
is it’s you just you make sacrifices
because you have something more valuable
more pleasurable
at the end of the sacrifice
and what hope does is hope keeps
the long-term
situation in view it it keeps
it keeps perspective on the pain that i
experience right now
the self-denial that i have in this
moment will be worth it because we’re
going
here for a vacation
does that make sense
and what hopelessness does is it robs me
of the delight of obedience
i may still be locked into the
discipline of obedience i still may do
all the right things externally but
because of hopelessness my heart doesn’t
get to feast on the joy of obedience
every commandment of the lord is to
ensure that i succeed
every commandment of the lord is to tie
me into
the purpose for why i’m alive
the commandments of the lord connect me
to why i’m alive and they they ensure if
you will they ensure my
success
success is a biblical term i realize
wall street has a definition don’t fall
for that there’s a there’s a better one
the absolute fulfillment of why we’re
alive the gifts that we carry the the
joy and the satisfaction of doing all
that he said to do that he directed us
to do every one of us will appear before
the lord to give an account of our life
and and the commandments of the lord
actually link me to to my design
there’s also this thing this element
called the testimony that’s the spoken
or written record of anything god has
done
in his partnership with people
the reality is god can do
everything better than we can
and he does not need to say here people
teach all the time god needed us so he
created us no
no don’t be stupid
the one who lived eternally past
he has no needs he has lots of dreams
and you’re the dream
you’re the desire
hopelessness robs us of
a potential
and hope
always leads to great faith
hope anticipates
hope actually attracts
circumstances
that aid us in fulfilling our purpose
hope is a magnet
people with hope actually attract
opportunities
actually attract the building blocks of
prophetic words if you will into their
life so that they can fulfill their
reason for being
hope really is a magnet it magnetically
attracts into our life the building
blocks the things that we need
hope comes
from his nature
our hope doesn’t exist because we’ve
psyched ourselves into well we just got
to do better we just got to believe
it’s it’s hope is not the product
of determination
much like faith hope is the product of
surrender
it’s yielding to the reality of who he
is
i want you to look in your bibles at
psalms 42 we’re going to look at just
one simple passage in a moment
but to help us with this
hope actually is the product of his
presence
nobody looks into the face of god and
walks away without hope
hopelessness only reveals the distance
between
my face and his
it grows in the it grows in the space
between encounters
it grows in the space between awareness
of the spirit of god upon my life in my
life
hopelessness grows when i give my heart
to what other people will call common
sense
i have never been impressed with any
thought i had that was common
there’s nothing life-changing that is
common
just a brief little tangent here
little one
the more the fear of man controls your
life
the more you will think to fit in
and to be
pleasing instead of to be
changing
challenging transformative
it’s not that we become careless in our
regard of other people it’s just
that we
regard his thought of us
more than anybody else’s in a time of
heightened heightened social awareness
people live
monitoring their life by how many likes
or approval that they have
and the one way to silence many
christians is just to call them a
conspiracy theorist
it only affects those with the fear of
man
all right i feel better let’s move on
let’s
actually go to the bible and see if we
can find
in verse
5 of 4 psalms 42 did you find that
20 minutes ago all right
verse 5 why are you cast down o my soul
why are you disquieted within me hope in
god for i shall yet praise him
for the help
of his countenance that last phrase
i don’t know what it is i forgot to look
in new american standard and some of the
others
but i there is a translation that i
really like it’s the complete jewish
bible
instead of for the help of his
countenance it says for the salvation
that comes from his presence
so let me read that verse again with
that last line because it actually helps
the reason i’m reading this
is
it
i’m reminded in this scripture
the birthplace of hope
in my heart the place
where this
tangible sense of the spirit of god
become so pronounced in me
that the circumstances around me can all
shout one thing but i’ve got something
burning me burning in me that says
another
it’s that element of hope
and hope is displayed as hope in the
middle of controversy
in the middle of conflict
so let me read that verse again with
that in mind it says why are you cast
down on my soul why are you disquieted
within me hope in god for i shall yet
praise him for the salvation that comes
from his presence
hope in god
there’s this
verse in uh it’s exodus excuse me
ezekiel we’ll start with an e ezekiel
39 verse 29 that says the lord speaks
and he says i will not hide my face from
them any longer for i will have poured
out my spirit on them
okay so think through this
god says i’m not going to hide my face
now when we think of the face of god we
have to think of
the perfect affectionate loving father
whose countenance
expresses delight and joy
over his child
so we talk about the face of god we are
talking about
that which displays favor
that which displays delight that which
marks us with eternal purpose it’s all
in that countenance so
he says i’ll not hide my face from them
any longer why because i will have
poured out my spirit on them what is he
saying
the outpouring of the spirit always
contains the face of god come on
the spirit of god begins to move in a
room maybe it’s in worship the face of
god is there
anytime god begins to move in a room and
people start getting healed or people
come to christ
marriages start getting restored
people abandoned their bitterness the
resentment that they came into the room
with and they start getting freed up and
delivered what’s happening in that move
of the holy spirit the face of god is
behind it all which is what the
delightful face of a loving father is
behind that outpouring
and it is the birthplace of hope
seeing
who is there
seeing
his heart his purpose his plan
you cannot help but have hope
in that situation
the lord
the lord gave us statements like
all things work together for good
to those who love god called according
to his purpose all things work together
i’ve even stated in recent weeks this
this reality
it’s a good reminder for me it’s a good
reminder for you all things work
together for good
my favorite restaurant
is french laundry
amen
glory to god
in napa
youngville actually
and i remember the first time i went to
this restaurant now i i just like things
when i can tell the chef or the
architect or the you know the
author or whatever it might be they were
so intentional in the way they laid
things out
in this case
uh just the way they prepared this
food so i’ve got nine courses
so
all small but you end up full i don’t
know it’s a miracle i don’t know how it
happens
so i sat down first time benny and i are
there and another couple friends of ours
were there
and they brought me this course
of
dominated by two things i did not like
immersed in a sauce
the two things were oysters
i know some of you like them
to me they remind me of something else
[Laughter]
slimy things yeah you’re good all right
oysters and
caviar was never a fan
so they served this and i looked over at
ben and i said honey i’m paying too much
money for this to not at least taste it
so i took a bite and i looked at her and
i said
i want a chili bowl full of this stuff
how how could he take
two things that i don’t like mix it
together with a bunch of things i do
like
and make it to this date one of the best
things i’ve ever eaten in my life
the same way our master chef takes the
bitter
the tasteless
the meaningless
the stuff that’s too spicy this stuff is
too sweet
the stuff is too sour
and then put it together in the perfect
blend
and at the end of your life you look
back and you say
i wouldn’t change a thing
i wouldn’t change a thing
because every single part of my life he
took by his grace and he worked it
together to what brings him glory and
it’s the most satisfying meal i’ve ever
had in my life i wouldn’t change a thing
he has promised us
he has designed life in such a way
that there are always discoveries to be
made he’s the one who said
though i walk through the valley of the
shadow of death
i fear nowhere because you’re with me so
in other words the great treasure is in
the middle of the greatest loss you can
feed your soul on whatever you want
but you have the opportunity
to encounter god
in a way
that you’ll never have a chance outside
of the valley of the shadow of death
it’s not self-determination surrender
it’s yielding to the purposes of god’s
yielding to the word of god he is the
one who has declared this to be so
he goes on and he says he sets a table
before me
that table is a place to eat
brent’s laundry
it’s just almost time for lunch i’m just
doing you a favor i’m giving you
motivation here he prepares a table
before me what is that it’s a place of
fellowship of encounter
of engagement of personal pleasure
delight joy
he sets that table in the presence of my
enemies if all i see are the enemies
i’ve missed the table that he put there
and we all have different stuff going on
most of you know
what
my family and i have been facing the
last month
the tragic tragic loss
without question
but there’s also a table there
there is a table
there’s a table of intense
fellowship of great delight
of personal
pleasure of satisfaction of fulfillment
it’s there
it’s much like
the easter egg that’s been hidden in a
bush
i know it’s in there
in our easter egg hunts we
put small amounts of cash in most of the
eggs but there’s a few eggs
they’ll have a much larger bill in them
and one of my grandsons
one of them went to his dad before
everyone was released to go find the
eggs he said dad
where is the one with all the money
and brian excuse me my son
was so impressed that his son had the
courage to ask that he told him right
where it was
[Applause]
so he went over and got i don’t know it
was a 20 bill or what was in there but
it was a it was a good egg
you know what
sometimes you just ask the one who hid
it
just
it’s a funny story and there’s there’s
more but we’ll leave that right where it
is but just think with me for a moment
he wouldn’t have asked if he wouldn’t
have thought there was a possibility
of him being rewarded for asking
there was something about his own
father’s nature
that he responded to an inviting nature
of exploration discovery personal
success
and if you’re sitting in the middle of
maybe a personal loss maybe a financial
crisis legal matter
whatever whatever we all have stuff
there’s a table there
he says so
the one who cannot lie
the one who cannot lie has declared over
your life
there’s a table there
and that table
will nourish you it will strengthen you
anybody else glad that he made food
good except for cilantro
[Applause]
i in my opinion
god sees people eating cilantro and he
says
it was a decoration
i just offended three quarters of the
women
but some of you are with me
come on be bold put your hands up all
right all right
what are they eating bad for i was a
decoration
the table that he set
is not just for your strength
it’s for your pleasure
i want you to look at this uh
verse with me in psalm 68
excuse me 78.
hopelessness is heart disease
in the church
it is the root of heart disease
we were designed to be robust believers
in the nature of god
faith does not put me in control
faith does not control god faith does
not manipulate him to where he has to do
what i want
faith puts me in the greatest place of
co-laboring with him for he is able to
fulfill his own desires through a
cooperative people yes
how many of you believe on earth as it
is in heaven is the will of god
i mean honestly you that’s actually what
he what he intends
is it happening
what’s not happening is not because
he lacks the desire
or he has he has not
put at our disposal what is needed
that may be too large of a piece for me
to take with 13 minutes left but let’s
just try
it’s not because there’s lack on his end
of the equation
he’s done everything necessary
now it’s up to you and to me to explore
and discover what he’s put at our
disposal
well why did this happen i don’t know i
i don’t have answers for most things
but i do live aware of the fact that
there are realities that surround
certain problems that we’ve not yet
learned how to dismantle
and in this pursuit of the one who hides
things for us
is the pursuit of solutions answers and
breakthroughs
one by one
that aligns that part of this world with
heaven
and that is our task
that’s our responsibility
is to implement on earth as it is in
heaven
psalms 78 is uh
is a tremendous psalm it’s it’s uh it’s
an air if you could it’s an aerial view
over israel’s history their successes
their failures their failures their
failures their failures and a moment of
success again and then their fail and
it’s it’s kind of an aerial view on how
and why these things happen and it’s an
extraordinary psalm but what he does in
this psalm is he highlights the elements
that brought about their success
the elements that made life work for
them the way he designed it to work
do you remember when when the lord spoke
to the nation of israel they’re captive
in egypt they get released and he gives
them the promise
of the promised land remember anybody
remember that story or you’re just
staring at me all right
dan remember so i’m going with you dad
you and me all right
so we got this whole thing of the
promised land a whole generation
did they get in
nope
what did god lie
nope
they just disqualified themself for what
he promised
and what we’re learning to do is how to
not disqualify ourselves for what god
intended
sometimes we get it good sometimes we
miss it by a mile
is anybody tracking with me here
all right well let’s talk to me then all
right
so let’s go to verse uh psalm 78. and um
verse five he says he established a
testimony in jacob
and appointed a law in israel okay
testimony spoken written record of
anything god has done and a law
once again god gives us commandments to
ensure our success
his commandments are not
restrictions or restraints
they are not to keep us from pleasure
his commandments keep us from immediate
pleasure that destroy long-term pleasure
immediate success that destroys
long-term success
thanks
my credit
will allow me to buy things
i will regret buying later
every month
being a slave to that payment
and what the lord does with his
commandments is he commands us for the
long-term success instead of just
immediate gratification
and if we could see that we would
celebrate every time he said yes or said
no
we would celebrate every no because we
know it’s connected to a better yes
he established a testimony in jacob
appointed a law in israel which he
commanded our fathers that they should
make them known to their children
that the generation to come might know
them
the children who would be born that they
might arise and declare them to their
children
that they may set their hope in god
new american standard says that they may
set their confidence in god
okay think through this with me
the lord says i’ve given you
commandments
these are the directives i have for your
life they ensure your success suck it up
and do it
the testimony don’t forget the god who
invades the impossible these two things
if you’ll make them known to your
children and then make sure that they
make them known to their children
it will be instinctive for that next
generation to place their hope in god
why because seeing the commandments and
the fruitfulness of the commandments of
the lord and the testimony of the lord
sets a person up for hope
so i would say this hope comes from the
presence
from the testimony and from the
commandments when you see them as god
designed them they give us reason to
hope
david would talk about waking up in the
middle of the night
and meditate he would meditate on the
testimony of the lord he would meditate
on the commandments of the lord
it probably wouldn’t hurt for all of us
to pick up a little better
habit
of contemplating the directives that
god’s given us in our life
so for some of you the lord has
restrained your activity in this area of
life because he wants you to give
yourself to this area of life
and just to stop and to think and allow
god to work in and through your
imagination releases such great hope
because you have this anticipation i’m
saying no to the movie channel today
because this next summer we’re going on
vacation it’s the long-term delight and
pleasure
that keeps us filled with anticipation
and hope
hope deferred makes the heart sick
desire realizes the tree of life god
designed us
to live in the strength of hope
but here’s the bottom line the measure
of hope that you live with the measure
of hope that i live with is entirely up
to
me it is what i choose to feed my soul
if i feed my soul on all the things that
didn’t happen
i will have what’s called common sense
very common and little sense
but when you take on the mind of christ
and relays i i don’t need an explanation
for this what i do need is a sense of
presence
and to know what to do next i just need
to know what does he require of my life
this psalm i love this psalm for many
reasons
but one is he says
make them known to your children have
them make
these things known to their children
that they may hope in god what’s the
point
a person who embraces the word of the
lord and the testimony of the lord this
miracle
these miracle components
embraces these two things
cast such a long shadow
that multiple generations are inspired
into hope because of the decisions
they’ve made
think about it
you stand before the lord and you see
people that you never met you never knew
their name
but you find that you made a hard
decision in this moment you made a
challenging decision here you chose to
save instead of spend
metaphorically speaking you chose to
restrict yourself here and had such
influence that multiple generations grew
up inspired to just believe god just to
trust god because of your decision
it’s the beauty of a hope-filled life
won’t you stand
job said though he slay me
yeah well i hope in him
it’s like
what options do you have
you can hope in him or yourself
oh boy
you can either hope in the one who’s
perfectly faithful
or the one who isn’t
as the most logical thing in the world
in the kingdom
is to trust the one who is perfectly
trustworthy
so i pray for that i pray that for you i
pray that for me
that uh that this would fit into
whatever you’re facing
their online community same thing is
that all the challenges that we face
i i pray that we would that we could
face them this next week with robust
hope
robust hope a an infectious hope that
says
i don’t know what’s going on
i’m not even sure what to do all i know
is that i serve a father who is in
charge
and i trust him
so father i pray that for us as a family
that you would give us a grace
for unusual levels of trust and hope in
this next season
i want to give opportunity for anyone
here who has never
placed your faith in christ
for
your salvation
there’s an opportunity
for people online people in this room
overflow
it’s an opportunity
for those who would say
i know that i’m not at peace with god
but i want to be i want to be a disciple
a follower
one is committed
to follow jesus if there’s anybody in
this room that is in that place where
you would say i don’t want to leave the
building till i know i’ve been forgiven
of sin that i’ve become a part of god’s
family
if that’s you just put a hand up where
you are we’re going to take just a
moment for this just to
just on somebody way back over here
wonderful yes i see this
anybody else raise your hand
[Applause]
i’m sorry is there another one here i i
missed it anybody else
okay
all right wonderful
so all right oh that’s a two-year-old
child that’s awesome
i see that hand that’s beautiful
that’s the best that’s awesome
thank you lord
all right here’s what i want to ask
those who just raised your hand
to commit your life to jesus it’s very
important that you do this next thing
over here’s a banner to my left we’ve
got people over here that we know and
trust i want you to come to them and
talk with them they will pray for you
it’s not about membership here it’s just
simply about a relationship with jesus
so anyone in this room that is
interested in that come over here i’d
like to have the ministry team come to
the front
and come on up right now if you would
we’re going to open it up and leslie
come on up and tell them what to do but
the ministry team come on down and those
of you that are responding to the
opportunity to surrender to jesus come
to my left right over here a guy waving
his hand he’s the guy you want to talk
to
yeah i’m so glad that you watch 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 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
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