Bill Johnson - The Secret Place of Power
The nature of God is not redefined by whatever we have or have not experienced. He is absolute, and the loss and disappointment that every one of us goes through in those moments are invitations to discover power on another level. Good morning, nice to see you. You know what? I should have grabbed my phone. Would you just toss it to me? Thank you. It’s important that I have my phone because adulthood is saying that after this week things will slow down a bit. It goes on and on until you die.
All right, having dug to a depth of 10 feet last year in New York, scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years. They came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago. Not to be out by the New Yorkers, in the weeks that followed, in California, an archaeologist dug to a depth of 20 feet. Shortly after, headlines in the L.A. Times read, «California archaeologists have found traces of 200-year-old copper wire and have concluded their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred years earlier than the New Yorkers.»
One week later, a local newspaper in Texas reported the following: after digging as deep as 30 feet in his 2,000-acre pasture near Cut and Shoot, Montgomery County, Texas, Bubba Rathbone, a self-taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Bubba concluded that, 300 years ago, Texas had already gone wireless.
Why don’t you grab your Bibles and open to First Corinthians chapter 2? I love the church. I love all the different parts, the different flavors. Honestly, one of the great privileges of being able to travel is that you get to meet so many amazing people from such different backgrounds, and they all share a passionate love for Jesus. It’s just fun; it’s just fun to have such a high value for diversity.
Oh, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t trying to hit you. Let that wisdom come, Lord, any moment now. Sorry about that. One of the great privileges is seeing such diversity in backgrounds and practices, but they all love Jesus, and I like that. I love partnering with so many different parts of the church—not the buildings, not the organizations. Those are necessary, useful tools, but it’s the people. I love it so much.
Yet one of the things I’ve noticed, which has actually become very common, is that there seems to be a greater faith for the return of Christ than in the power of the Gospel. In other words, the faith is in the return of Christ to fix things instead of Him returning for something that has been fixed. The thought is that He needs to come to fix things instead of us seeing the full effect of the power of the Gospel. Because of that, the hope is in escape instead of demonstration.
We have a sense of indebtedness; we have an obligation, and that is to display the Gospel of power. It may work for you; it may not work for you. We’re going to talk about this throughout the morning, but the design of the Lord is that this Gospel is the Gospel of power. It is the only kind of Gospel there is. Unfortunately, in the hour that we live in, the church often creates buffets where you get to choose chicken or beef or pork, string beans or corn, or whatever. You get to choose a Gospel with great power, minimal power, or no power at all. You get to choose loud worship, quiet worship, or no worship. You get all these options, and none of it was designed by the Gospel of Saul.
The Gospel comes in one form, and it’s the form that transforms lives. I don’t think the problem exists in this room at all that we don’t believe in the transformative power of the Gospel; I mean, you’re here because you believe that. I remember one Sunday night, a number of years ago, we invited folks forward who had any kind of addiction. We’ve done this many times over the years, but we had a group of about 10 or maybe 12 people right here, and we prayed over them corporately. We didn’t lay hands on them this time; we simply prayed corporately.
One of the guys came to me about six months later. He said, «Bill, I don’t know if you know this. Do you remember that night you prayed over addictions?» I said, «Yes.» He continued, «My friend and I had both been heroin addicts for over 20 years each, and instantly in that corporate prayer, we were completely set free; we have never desired heroin again.» We believe that! We know that is the reality of the Gospel; we know that is absolutely true.
Unfortunately, not as many who believe in that miracle of transformation of the individual have the same confidence in the transformation of a family. Yet according to Scripture, in the Old Testament, one lamb was sacrificed per household; it was always meant to be families that were brought into the kingdom. Even where I can find people who truly believe in the power of the Gospel to transform a family, there are not as many who believe in the transformation of an entire neighborhood.
There are some who believe for one household to be changed, but maybe a few others, but not actual transformation. Even though sometimes I can find someone who believes in the transformation of a neighborhood, it’s hard to find one who believes in an entire city, state, or nation. But it’s all the same Gospel; it’s the Gospel of power.
The Apostle Paul, certainly one of the ultimate heroes in Scripture, scares me. I think I’m going to walk up to him in heaven like this. Yes was so extreme; I love it. In Acts chapter 17, he preached at a place called Mars Hill, which was known for philosophers gathering to exchange ideas. It was almost like the weirder the better. They just invited everyone in with a strange idea, listened, discussed, and debated.
Well, Paul decided to go there to preach, and he preached a sermon that is actually studied often in Bible schools and other places where people are trained in preaching the Gospel. They study the sermon because it was so succinct, abbreviated, and yet so complete. Strangely, at the end of this profound message, which needed absolutely huge transformation, there were only a small handful of converts as a result of this message. Chapter 17 ends with that story.
Chapter 18 starts with Paul’s journey to Corinth from Mars Hill. I want you to turn—did I tell you where to turn in your Bibles—to First Corinthians chapter 2? If Paul is anything like every other preacher I know, after they do their best, they then review: «Did I do it right or not? Did I get it right? Could I have done better?» There’s something people call the Monday blues. I refuse to do blues, but I understand. So here’s Paul.
I’d like to suggest something; it doesn’t say this in the text, I’m just guessing. I’d like to suggest to you that from Mars Hill on his journey to Corinth—Corinth is a city of perversion on steroids. A part of their worship to false gods involves immorality; they have a thousand prostitutes working in the temple. It’s a place of extreme perversion.
Sin starts as something of the flesh, but when repeated over and over again, it becomes a spiritual sin that is empowered by the demonic. It becomes supernaturally empowered, and in a city like this, massive, massive deliverance is needed. Paul knows it. He’s going into the hellhole with the Gospel, and as he journeys, I’d like to suggest he’s reviewing what happened at Mars Hill.
I’m sure he felt good about what he shared because it was truth, but there wasn’t the impact he was hoping for. He makes his way to Corinth, and this is what he writes after his visit in verse 1: «And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.»
These five verses describe the frame of mind of this great Apostle as he comes into Corinth, and he says something that you wouldn’t want to promote in any Bible school on the planet: «Make sure you go with fear, trembling, and weakness. Go completely without confidence.» That’s not what you’re looking for. Yet, somehow, after experiencing the Gospel of power demonstrated with so little power, maybe this moment will take a risk.
He says, «I wanted to ensure that your faith wasn’t in the wisdom of men.» Now, listen carefully: anytime you move in the wisdom of God, it will be called the wisdom of men by your hearers. In other words, you will be credited with what you just said. I don’t think that made sense.
All right, it was better than your response. When you function in the wisdom of God, people applaud you for your wisdom. It’s the challenging part of navigating the Gospel. You lay hands on the sick, and you automatically gather some credit. Part of it’s okay because it was your obedience; it was your faith. But it’s never independent of the source.
I don’t know if it does any good to say, «It wasn’t me, it was Jesus.» I’m not sure that works. I keep teasing you with the story of someone who comes to me or I come to them and say, «It’s a beautiful song you sang,» and they say, «It wasn’t me; it was Jesus.» I’m thinking, «If it was Jesus, it would have been amazing.»
So, you do pick up credit. If you will, probably the best illustration, as strange as it may seem, is when the ointment was carried into the room. The woman broke the vial, the container, and poured this ointment all over Jesus. From her point of view, it was a gift to Him entirely, but she walked out of the room smelling just like Him. Everything we give to Him splashes on us.
As she wiped the ointment with her hair into His feet, she walked out smelling like Him. There’s something about this cooperation with God in the ministry of the Gospel that also benefits us, and that cannot be denied. But wow, there’s this tender moment where you realize: I’m a carrier, not a source.
Yes, He is honored in the «yes,» but at the end of the day, it’s entirely by grace. People will say, «Oh, you did a good job raising kids,» or whatever it might be. You did a good job. Yup, I know; but at the end of the day, it was entirely the grace of God. There’s not an alphabet that originated with me that would hold any eternal benefit.
Back to the story: here’s what Paul says in verse 5, «That your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.» If it were not recorded in Scripture, that today would be called heresy. No one today in their right mind with the heresy hunters would say, «I want your faith to be in the power of God.» We would say, «I want your faith to be in the Lord Jesus Christ; I want your faith to be in the Gospel of Jesus.»
But see, in this day, there is no difference between the Gospel of Jesus and the power of God. See, today it’s compartmentalized; it’s like a buffet. You get to choose this, choose that, but the Gospel only came in one way. When you go into a city like Corinth, you don’t need a philosophic message. You need a demonstration of the raw power of God, which separates people from the torment that has kept them in bondage.
I love this part of the story so much because Paul decided—I’m not sure this is the right way to put it, but work with me—not to dumb down the Gospel. We are supposed to be a people of intelligence. We’re supposed to answer hard questions; we’re supposed to display the wisdom of God. We’re supposed to bring solutions to earthly dilemmas, etc.
We’re part of a team on the planet that actually serves humanity in that way. Yet somehow, he was able to make the choice to come in lower than normal—these are my terms, not his—perhaps to recover from the lack of breakthrough in the last place. Here’s the great mystery; I want to read this for you. It’s out of Second Corinthians. If you’re taking notes, write this reference: Second Corinthians 12:9. You’ll recognize the first part of the verse: «He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore, most gladly, I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of God may rest upon me.»
«I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.» I don’t know if this is making sense to you or not. Let me illustrate it this way: there are times when the power of God is displayed because of the aggressive obedience of the servants of the Lord.
I’ve seen moments where I’ve got friends who have aggressively stepped into a place—in fact, I have one friend who preached to an entire crowd and told them, «If that blind person is not healed, I will renounce this Gospel.» Thankfully, his whole team was going, «Oh no, oh no!» Then the blind eyes opened.
But there are times when this aggressive faith is coupled with something else. I was with Mario Murillo, and he was here at Bethel many years ago. He had this lady stand up in the center aisle and said, «Stand up!» She stood up, and he said, «You have a tumor right here that you haven’t even told your husband.» Then he declared that thing just disappeared; she dropped to the ground.
Sometimes there’s a display of the Gospel with just this aggressive display of faith, and I like that. This is like the power of God, which is kind of like two-part epoxy. When both are brought together, there’s an exponential increase in the demonstration of power.
The second part, however, comes in the strangest way: it comes in weakness. You can only discover the second demonstration of power by embracing loss, by acknowledging this didn’t work out the way I said it would, this disappointment that will forever mark my life.
This is a moment of weakness. It’s not that problems attract power; it’s that problems create the opportunity for surrender that attracts power. There’s a humility that comes into the heart of a person facing unanswered prayers, crises, and dilemmas. If you go low enough and keep your heart connected to the One, remember: the Gospel is not redefined by our experience.
The nature of God is not redefined by whatever we have or have not experienced; He is absolute. In this loss and disappointment and the stuff that every one of us goes through, I’ve got the stories, I’ve got the testimonies; I don’t lack there. But the ones that stick the most are the losses.
In those moments, they are invitations to discover power on another level. This time, son, you’re going to access the power of the Gospel through weakness. Through weakness! It’s embracing that which didn’t work; it’s embracing the moment that seemed to backfire. Embrace the moment that you’re criticized, mocked, written about, preached against; whatever it might be, fill in the blanks for you, for how it works in your world.
But the fact is, you took a stand for the Gospel, and it didn’t work out like you thought. Is that the end of the story? No! It’s the back door to the throne room where great power is demonstrated.
It’s almost like, this is a conclusion drawn from Scripture, not in Scripture; it’s almost like the Lord is saying, «If you can trust Me with loss, I can trust you with gain. If you can trust Me with your weakest moments, I can trust you with demonstrations of power. I can trust you with an increase in that which brings breakthrough.»
See, this school we are all in? Once you said yes to Jesus, you got put into school. This school is the aggressive faith that hears from God. It’s declaring the Word of God; it’s proclaiming boldly the Gospel. But it’s also, what do you do when it didn’t work? What do you do when you suffer personal loss instead of the triumph you had anticipated your whole life? What do you do then?
That’s the moment right there! That’s the moment where destinies are decided. In moments of weakness and brokenness, to still say yes opens the opportunity for God to say yes, and in His yes, there is a more complete demonstration of the power of the Gospel. I believe that’s what the Lord’s looking for—from you, from me.
We just had a testimony time earlier this morning in our staff prayer, and it was extraordinary—the stories again from this past week, the miracles that have happened. Sometimes I just pinch myself in staff gatherings where I hear the stories of miracle after miracle after miracle. I don’t ever get tired of them!
I like hearing them even when I’ve suffered loss. I like hearing them because I want to make sure that my compass is still due north. I want to ensure that my heart is calibrated to His nature, His covenant, His promise, and it doesn’t get twisted because of experience or lack of experience. I’m accountable for that; I’m accountable to protect this priceless gift called the Gospel.
Paul takes this group of people through this journey, and he tells them, «Listen, I came to you in a specific way.» I don’t know of any other time he came this way—where he came without the brilliant stories and without all the stuff. He can impress people; believe me, he can impress!
But he chose instead, can I say an experiment? —he chose to come in lower than normal, wanting to leave room for Him. Because when you have that moment of loss, of pain, of whatever it might be, the moment of weakness when He shows up, no one will give you credit—only God gets the credit for that.
They recognize the pain, the loss, but they also recognize you made room. That’s kind of what I feel we do—we create room in our time, with our words, our expectations, our prayers, our everything. We create room for God to show up and do what only He can do.
But only He can do. This story goes on, though—in verse 9, it says, «Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.»
Eye has not seen, nor ear heard—the very next verse says, «But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit.» It has never entered into the mind of a person before, but guess what? You’re now part of a tribe where it’s your norm to get things that eyes have never seen, ears have never heard; that now fills your heart stuff that could never be anticipated for all of history is now your responsibility.
He goes on to say, «We have received not the spirit of the world"—verse 12—"but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.» We haven’t received the spirit of the world, we’ve received the Spirit of God. Why? That we might know what no eye has ever seen, what no ear has ever heard, what no heart has ever delighted in, embraced, or enjoyed.
The Spirit of God was given to you and me because we are to know these things. He teaches in this chapter that the Holy Spirit searches the deep things of God. The Holy Spirit is the greatest search engine to ever exist, and He searches the biggest hard drive to ever exist—that’s the mind of God.
He searches through all this stuff called the mind of God to find the gems, the treasures, the pieces of information, insight, and imagination—all these things He searches to give to you to make you more complete as a person, to be a part of a tribe that experiences what no eye has seen and no ear has heard.
In other words, the Holy Spirit actually has the responsibility to find that which makes you more complete in expressing a full Gospel of power.
Create a context for this: Psalms 139 says that God’s thoughts about us outnumber the sands of the seashore. I don’t know if you’ve been to a beach recently, but man, there are a whole bunch of sand grains. This is one of the most mind-boggling thoughts in all of Scripture. He said, «My thoughts about you are more in number than every grain of sand on every beach on the planet, and they are all for your welfare, not for your calamity.»
So when the Holy Spirit does a search, He’s looking for one of those thoughts that will make your day. In verse 14, he says, «The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God.» Right now, in this room, there are pictures, there’s music, there are sporting events—even country music!
I mean, I don’t know. Eric, when he was a teenager, said, «Dad, I love country music.» I said, «Son, you want to be healed?» It was a joke! It was a joke. Lighten up! Leah told me, «Dad, I’m going to do a country album.» I said, «Honey, I’ll pretend to like it.»
Sorry, that’s enough; I gotta stop! All right, it’s one way to offend half the crowd right there. So, right now in this room, there’s music, there are pictures, there are videos, there are all kinds of things right here. You just have to have the right receiver. You put a TV receiver in here, and you can watch a movie, you can watch a sporting event; but it’s actually right here.
It’s actually right here. The music is right here; you just have to have the right receiver. Remember in the old days when they had radios? Some of you young people don’t even know what I’m talking about. It was a strange little box that sound came to. I don’t get it! But there was AM and there was FM.
You could take your dial and go across the band of your AM station; you could go slow to pick up every possible station. You could go from one end to the other, and no matter how much you claimed it, no matter how much you bind and loose, and no matter how much you prophesied, you would not pick up something on the FM band.
The carnal man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. We do not need a well-trained carnal man; we need a surrendered person. Where the Spirit of God filling the individual enables us to hear from God. It has already been given to us; Scripture says it has been given to us to know the mysteries of the Kingdom.
It is written in stone: this is your assignment, to know the mysteries, to know the mysteries of another world, because you will live from the reality of that world. As you do, you will inspire a generation to hunger and crave what you’re carrying.
I don’t believe we have the assignment to blend in with a world system. Our responsibility isn’t to become like everyone else so we’re accepted. Our responsibility is to demonstrate the reality of a world they all hunger for—and they don’t know it!
We need to put on display that which actually satisfies the cravings of their hearts. It has been given to us to know the Kingdom—the mysteries of the Kingdom. Jesus said, «My sheep know My voice.» It was written into your nature as a born-again believer to hear and know the voice of God.
You can become anxious; you can become fearful, bitter, whatever, and pile a bunch of junk on your capacity to hear. But the ability to hear is still in you; it is the nature of the believer to hear from God.
Sometimes it’s the weakness, sometimes it’s just stripping off the stuff and getting down to the most basic level of who we are as followers of Jesus that reactivates that capacity for hearing. The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God—they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them.
For many of us, the fears we have in life come to that moment where you feel like you have nothing, where what you have lost reduces you. This is actually what Paul said he would celebrate. Life is filled with choices. Every day we make choices.
Sometimes the kingdom shows up in the most unusual ways. The kingdom—the reality of God’s dominion—becomes manifest when we make the most unusual choice, and that is to celebrate weakness, to grab the moment of loss and say, «God, wow, this is going to turn out so good, and I won’t be able to take any credit for what’s about to happen!»
See, there’s something about grabbing these moments as a part of our «yes.» All of us experience them. Many people try to manage them; others deny them, ignore them. To embrace them in your «yes"—to embrace them in your surrender—is an unusual form of weakness where you just come in low.
In that place of absolute surrender, you become the person He can entrust with greater power. We’re not looking for, I don’t need to see power to be entertained. It’s not like I need another notch in my Bible. I feel like I’m in debt; I feel like I owe Him. He commanded me to walk in the power of the Gospel.
If it’s not happening, the problem is not with Him. The problem is not with Him; He’s not the problem. The shortage is not on His end of the equation. It’s either truth or it’s not. We should figure out something else to do with our lives.
But if it’s the truth, then we make every necessary adjustment for this Gospel to be demonstrated in the way it was through Jesus’s mouth. I see glimpses, I taste, I celebrate, I want more. I suffer loss; I have pain; I have stuff that doesn’t work. Two-part epoxy: it’s the second part of power that is about to be inserted into my life if I’ll grab the hard parts and make sure that I surrender those too.
I surrender them in hope, believing God’s going to receive a lot of glory out of this one! He’s going to receive a lot of glory because this is the part of the offering, this is part of my «yes.»
I don’t have the luxury of choosing when to give thanks and the responsibility to give Him a place to demonstrate who He is. Sometimes that’s a fear; sometimes it’s your own son that walks out of the room unhealed. It gets all of them—every one of these moments are moments to give as a gift, as an offering, knowing His way, His timing.
This Gospel must be preached with power; it is not optional. And for that to be done well, He’s got to get their heart stuff too.
Understand, bye. I just want you to notice my hanky actually matches my outfit. Sorry, very important! I had to point it out because it was intentional. I was afraid that nobody would notice.
It’s the big things; it’s the big decisions in life. We’re going to pray, and I feel like—every time we’re together, for me, I feel like a key word for me in the last whole bunch of years is the word «surrender.» It’s the «yes.» It’s the «yes» to Jesus; it’s not insisting on my way; it’s yielding to His way, doing the best I can to carry what He has given us.
I think it would be good if we just did that today. If we just took this last minute or so, if you would just maybe put in your hand whatever you know—loss or disappointment, whatever it might be—or maybe it’s an ongoing frustration.
I don’t care what it is; just put something in your hand that you can give Him thanks for. Just this acknowledgment—"Lord, I really do come to you in surrender. I don’t accuse you; I won’t accuse you. I release everything that I would do to, in my heart of hearts, blame you. I lay down my right to accuse you and I exalt you. I honor you; I celebrate as a perfect Father, the only one who has the right to rule over every part of my life, and I give it to you.
I give it to you.» Just in some way, put that on your lips—your own words—but «Lord, I truly surrender and give this to You.» I choose for this moment, this season in my life—weakness! Weakness where it’s needed, of absolute surrender.
Father, I pray that this would be a marked force of a graduation—a promotion of stepping into greater demonstrations of who You are, Your love, Your power, Your beauty. I pray for all of that for the honor of the name of Jesus.
I also know that anytime there are this many people in a room—certainly we have a bunch joining us online—I want to encourage you this is a day to surrender your life to Jesus. There are people in the room; there are people online who don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus. It’s actually about your «yes» to Him.
It’s not about Him fitting into your schedule; it’s about you fitting into His purpose and plan. If there’s anybody in the room that would say, «Bill, I don’t want to leave the building until I know I have found peace with God; until I know what it is to be forgiven of sin and born again,» which is the biblical term.
If that’s you, then I want you to put a hand up where you are. You’re acknowledging to me, «I want to know Jesus; I want to give my life to Jesus; I want to be a follower, a disciple of Jesus.» If you’re online, write it in the comment box, and one of our pastors will come and talk to you, minister to you online. If there’s anyone, real quick.
All right, then I’m going to assume you’re all in if we have a banner over here. We’ll have people down here ready to serve and to minister to. Why don’t they come on up? And I’d like to have the ministry team come to the front. They’ll be ready to pray for folks. Go ahead. Yeah, so much.