Bill Johnson - The Beauty and Wonder of Hope
And what hopelessness does is it robs me of the delight of obedience. I may still be locked into the discipline of obedience; I 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! It’s so good to see you, and all of you online. By faith, I see you laughing at your own mistakes. Laughing at your wife’s mistakes shortens your life; there’s a lot of wisdom in that statement right there. This fall, we have an eight-week small group study from my book, «Strengthening Yourself in the Lord.» It’s probably a good time to go through that in this particular season. Anyway, we have that taking place this fall in our small groups, and we’d love to have more and more leaders help to lead these particular groups too. You can stop at the table in Hebrews, and they will give you all the information 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 go talk to them, and they’ll help you out.
I’ve been looking forward to today; I actually wanted to talk last week. I’m glad I didn’t because Daniel brought such a brilliant word! My goodness, I was so glad I didn’t insist. He brought such a good word—so refreshing. If, as always, you didn’t have a chance to be here and 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.
I’ve been learning to cook—yes, I have! Nothing extreme yet, but over this last year, I’ve been exploring. 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 vegetable world: asparagus, mushrooms, and some of the tiny little potatoes we grow in our garden—all cooked in duck fat, which is just the best way to cook! Anyway, can I hear an amen? A huge salad with Parmesan cheese that I actually had sent over from Italy—it’s the proper grated over the salad with olive oil and balsamic glaze. It was tremendous. Okay, you can go now.
But I also took supplements. I take supplements to help fill in weaknesses in the American diet. 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 lives. Many people live in a place of 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 situations or circumstances. In Proverbs 25, 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.» He hides things for us, not from us.
My oldest grandson Judah 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 pay him well, and I think it was last week or the week before that he found an Easter egg that had been there for probably two years. If you’re thinking hard-boiled egg, no! We put money in plastic eggs and I have one grandson who, when he was younger, would pick up an egg, shake it; if it rattled, he’d put it in his basket. If it didn’t rattle, it was hard-boiled, so he threw it back in the bush. He was a cash-only kid! But 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 to say, «It’s the glory of kings—it’s the glory of people who know who they are, who 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 discovering that treasure will affect multiple generations. We’re not talking about just personal encouragement for yourself; that’s huge, but it’s not just personal pleasure or personal success—it’s the responsibility of creating a momentum of being a generation who hopes in God in all situations. 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. 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 learn how to find the treasures that have been hidden. The enemy works hard to keep us distracted through anxiety, fear—all that family of bad decisions—to 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: let’s say that you and your family are going to take a special vacation next year. You’ve got 12 months to save up for it, so you’ve decided to, I don’t know, cancel the movie channel, not eat out for six months, or whatever it is. You just make sacrifices because you have something more valuable, more pleasurable at the end of the sacrifice. What hope does is it keeps the long-term situation in view; 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 vacation. Does that make sense?
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 ties me into the purpose for why I’m alive. The commandments of the Lord connect me to why I’m alive, and 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 better one: the absolute fulfillment of why we’re alive, the gifts that we carry, 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 lives, and the commandments of the Lord actually link me 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 has no needs; He has lots of dreams, and you’re the dream—you’re the desire. Hopelessness robs us of 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; they attract the building blocks of prophetic words, if you will, into their lives, so they can fulfill their reason for being. Hope really is a magnet; it magnetically attracts into our lives the building blocks—the things that we need. Hope comes from His nature. Our hope doesn’t exist because we’ve psyched ourselves into it—well, we just got to do better—we just got to believe! It’s hope that 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 Psalm 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 space between encounters; it grows in the space between awareness of the Spirit of God upon my life and 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: the more the fear of man controls your life, the more you will think to fit in and be pleasing instead of changing, challenging, transformative.
It’s not that we become careless in our regard for other people; it’s just that we regard His thought of us more than anybody else’s. In a time of heightened social awareness, people live monitoring their lives by how many likes or approval they get. 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 Psalm 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 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 helps. The reason I’m reading this is I’m reminded in this scripture of the birthplace of hope in my heart; the place where this tangible sense of the Spirit of God becomes so pronounced in me that the circumstances around me can all shout one thing, but I’ve got something 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, O 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 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 when 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. 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 abandon 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 gave us statements like, «All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.» All things work together! I’ve even stated in recent weeks 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! I remember the first time I went to this restaurant. I just like things when I can tell the chef, or the architect, or the author—whoever it might be—they were so intentional in the way they laid things out—in this case, just the way they prepared this food.
So I’ve got nine courses—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; the first time, Benny and I were there, and another couple of friends of ours were there, and they brought me this course 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—slimy things! Yeah, you’re good. All right, oysters and caviar—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 could he take two things that I don’t like, mix them 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, the stuff that’s too sweet, the stuff that’s 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 worked together for 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 no evil 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; it’s surrender; it’s yielding to the purposes of God, 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! We all have different stuff going on. Most of you know what my family and I have been facing the last month: a tragic, tragic loss without question, but there’s also a table there.
There is a table—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 that have a much larger bill in them. One of my grandsons went to his dad before everyone was released to go find the eggs. He said, «Dad, where is the one with all the money?» Brian, my son, was so impressed that his son had the courage to ask that he told him right where it was!
He went over and got—I don’t know if it was a 20-dollar bill or what was in there, but it was a good egg! Sometimes, you just ask the One who hid it. It’s a funny story, and there’s more, but we’ll leave that right where it is. Just think with me for a moment: he wouldn’t have asked if he hadn’t 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.
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! Is anybody else glad that He made food good? Except for cilantro. In my opinion, God sees people eating cilantro, and He says it was just 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!
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 verse with me in Psalm 78—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, that’s actually what He intends! Is it happening? What’s not happening is not because He lacks the desire or 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 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 that align 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.»
Psalm 78 is a tremendous psalm. It’s an aerial view over Israel’s history—their successes, their failures, their failures, their failures, and a moment of success again—and then their fail. 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 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 are you 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 themselves from what He promised!
And what we’re learning to do is how to not disqualify ourselves from 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—Psalm 78. In verse 5, He says, «He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel.» Okay, testimony: spoken or 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 destroys 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. 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. The 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 meditating 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 lives.
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 realized is a 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 realize, «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 He requires 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, yet will 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. 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 this would fit into whatever you’re facing, our online community—the same thing! As all the challenges that we face, I pray that we would face them this next week with robust hope—robust hope! 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 grace for unusual levels of trust and hope in this next season. I want to give the 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, the 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 who 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 until 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—oh, somebody way back over here—wonderful, yes, I see this.
Is there another one here? I missed it. Anybody else? Okay, all right, wonderful. So—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. 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.