Bill Johnson - Prepare Your Heart for the Fulfillment of God's Promises
These are the areas that monitor well, keeping us in our lane so that by the end of our lives we can say with Solomon, «and everything that came into his heart came to pass.» That’s what I want to see. I’ve been praying that over my own life this week—God, I want to see everything that You have promised come to pass. I want to see every word You have promised fulfilled, that You would be revealed for who You are. While the offering bags are being passed, I’m going to read an oldie but a goodie. Is anybody ready for an oldie but a goodie?
A lawyer and an elderly gentleman are sitting next to each other on a long flight. The lawyer thinks he is much more intelligent and that he could easily get one over on this older man. So he asks if the man would like to play a fun game. The senior, tired, just wants to take a nap and politely declines, trying to go to sleep, but the lawyer persists. He says, «The game’s a lot of fun. I ask you a question. If you don’t know the answer, you pay me only $5. Then you ask me one, and if I don’t know the answer, I pay you $500.» This catches the senior’s attention, and to keep the lawyer quiet, he agrees to play the game.
The lawyer asks the first question: «What’s the distance from the Earth to the Moon?» The older gentleman doesn’t say a word, reaches into his pocket, pulls out a $5 bill, and hands it to the lawyer. Now it’s the senior’s turn. He asks the lawyer, «What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four?» The lawyer uses his laptop to search all references he can find. He sends emails to smart friends to no avail. After an hour of searching, he finally gives up. He wakes up the senior and hands him $500. The senior puts the $500 in his pocket and goes right back to sleep.
The lawyer is going nuts, not knowing the answer. He wakes up the senior and asks, «So what goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four?» The senior reaches into his pocket, hands the lawyer $5, and goes right back to sleep. I think I’ve met this guy. He’s humorous, he’s honest.
Listen, I want to talk to you today about the parable of the seed and the sower. I haven’t talked about it in several years that I recall, and I’m going to take a little different angle today. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus says, «If you don’t understand this parable, how will you understand any parable?» He is identifying that this parable is actually key to unlocking all the others. In this parable is the illustration of the nature and the purpose of the Word of God. I value the voice of God more than anything in life, but my value for the voice of God has to be represented in my value for Scripture. If I value the voice above Scripture, then I’m very open to deception. The voice will never contradict the Word. In a day when it’s so easy to have the Bible imprint in various translations, there’s no excuse for biblical illiteracy. So we give ourselves to the study of Scripture, but it is the voice that brings causes things to come alive.
The Scripture, excuse me, the Word of God is the seed. The heart is the soil. Tender soil receives a word deeply, and the life of God then brings about the change that God intended. In Thessalonians, Paul uses this phrase: he says that the Word of God actually carries in it the energy of God. The Word of God has the energy of God in it. So when God speaks to you, it comes in seed form to produce in us through the energy of God functioning in us, bringing about the fruitfulness that He intended. So the heart is the soil, and the seed is the Word of God. Jesus gives us an illustration, a parable, if you will, in Mark 4. It’s also in Matthew 13. This parable is to help us understand the process and purpose for the Word of God being deposited in our lives.
I want you to look at two passages before we go to Mark 4. So if you would, open your Bibles with me to Hebrews chapter 5, and then we’re also going to read from James chapter 1. I need to set the stage here for a few minutes, so just be patient with me as we try to lay the groundwork for this. By the way, I found a quote this week that I love so much. It’s from Martin Luther. He says, «We need to hear the Gospel every day because we forget it every day.» We need to hear the Gospel every day because we forget it every day. Hearing the Gospel recalibrates the compass of the heart—so to speak, as to where True North is. Why we are alive, what we are on the earth to do, what is important in God’s eyes, and what is to become important in ours—all of that stuff becomes defined in hearing the simplicity, the purity, and the power of the Gospel every day.
Hebrews chapter 5, verse 12: How many of you have your Bibles? Let me see them! Say this with me: «I love my Bible!» Oh, I do! I love my Bible! Alright, verse 12: «For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.» This tells us two things: the Word of God comes to us in several forms, or the Word carries several different roles or assignments. One is the milk of the Word. The milk of the Word is that which comforts and encourages. The meat of the Word, he identifies here as the word of righteousness, is that which provokes and brings about change. It is the transformational Word of God; it provokes us to recognize what God is saying needs to happen, and it brings us into a place where we yield to that which God has purposed.
So there is the milk, which comforts and encourages, and then there is the meat, which confronts, exhorts, and provokes us to change. But the third area that is going to be especially important for this morning is the area of promise. There are over 7,700 promises of God in the Scriptures, in the Word of God. What happens is the Lord, with His Word, deposits promise in us to describe our hope-filled future—what is possible for us should we embrace what God has said over our lives. We’re going to go over that process in a moment.
So the Word of God comes in dozens of forms, but there are three that I understand clearly: one is the comfort of the Word. The milk is that which soothes, gives peace, and encourages me. The Word of righteousness exposes what is in me that needs to change and gives me the motivation, if you will, to pursue the transformation that is the result of the Word of God. And the third is that which gives hope; it’s a promise for a hope-filled future. Alright, three things.
Now I want you to look at James chapter 1. We have one verse to read here, and then we’re going to end up in Mark 4 and read that parable. Alright, James chapter 1, verse 21: «Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted Word which is able to save your souls.» Receive with meekness the implanted Word. Okay, it’s a wonderful picture that James is giving us here. The New American Standard puts it this way: «In humility, receive the Word implanted, which is able to save your souls.»
The ability is in the Word of God; the life is in the Word, not the soil. The soil creates the condition, the atmosphere, but the energy of God is in what He said. The energy of God takes root in a person to illustrate who God is; it’s always to reveal Him. So he says, «In humility"—that’s a heart condition—"receive the Word implanted.» And here’s the phrase: «which is able to save your souls.» You say, «Well, Bill, I was already saved. I got saved 20 years ago at a camp meeting.» That’s awesome, you were saved, but you’re also being saved. And someday you’re going to be saved. There are those three realities all through Scripture. I was saved the moment I received Christ, but Paul exhorts the disciples of Jesus to work out their salvation daily with fear and trembling. Daily work out your salvation. So that’s the right-now process.
There was yesterday when I received Christ; there is today, and then there’s the future when Jesus returns, or I die and go to meet the Lord. Then I will be saved; salvation will be complete for me—past, present, future. This word, «In humility, receive the implanted Word which is able to save your souls,» is present tense. It is the transformation that takes place in a person’s life because of our «yes» to whatever God says. It is our ability, our willingness, our desire to hear and to receive what God says, and His very life and power come into the heart of a person to bring about the transformation they could not bring about for themselves.
Alright, yes, Bill, now—I didn’t do it in Hebrews 5, I didn’t read verse 14. Are you guys still alive? I need you to hang in for a few more minutes, and then we’ll get to Mark 4, and hopefully this all makes sense. In chapter 5 of Hebrews, verse 14 says: «Solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.» That’s a favorite verse for me for a lot of reasons. One is just because it’s so strange; it violates Western culture. It’d be a lot easier in an Eastern culture to adapt to this particular word. He basically says this: your maturity as a believer is going to be measured by your ability to train your own senses to recognize the difference between good and evil—your senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch.
Look at it this way: everything about you was perfectly designed to recognize and fellowship with God. Everything. Everything about you, every sense, every personality trait, everything in you that God put in you was designed so that you can recognize Him and commune in fellowship with Him. I remember standing down here years ago during worship; a young lady came—it’s always crowded down here. We now have barriers. We did have a guy run through here with a sword once—a wooden sword, half his face painted half blue. He was doing Braveheart that week. He ran through, so we now have protection. A gal started doing some strange things, but we’re used to strange things. What I noticed was that the temperature around me probably dropped 10 degrees, and I thought, «Well, that’s weird.» I walked over here, and it was warm. I walked back there, and it was freezing.
I remember a specific encounter that my brother had, where something like that happened. I had Summer—had dancer at the time—and said, «Summer, I need you to get up on stage and dance. I need you to break the spirit.» She raced across the platform, and as soon as she did, it was like this young lady was on puppet strings. As soon as Summer began to dance across the front, somebody cut the string; she collapsed into a ball. Benny leaned forward and just let her through deliverance because there was a demonic thing going on. She was being heavily tormented by the enemy. Senses trained!
Now, I’d like to say the heat outside is the Devil, but I’m not allowed to say that. So I’ll let you do that if you want. Alright, let’s get back to this. I want you to go now to Mark chapter 4. For those who are watching online, it’s hot, and we haven’t gotten to the hot part yet, so we’re praying in tongues all of us right now—constantly praying, «Jesus, have mercy on our souls!» How many of you love the heat? What’s the matter with you? Actually, I admire you. Bless your hearts.
Okay, Mark chapter 4, verse 3: «Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. It happened as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds of the air came and devoured it. Some fell on stony ground, where it didn’t have much earth, and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. When the sun was up, it was scorched because it had no root; it withered away. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. Other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased, and produced—some thirtyfold, some sixty, some a hundredfold.»
Verse 11: «To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God.» Say this with me: «To me it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God.» Say it together: «To me it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God.» He has already given us a key to perceive unseen realities.
Alright, verse 13: «And He said to them, 'Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? '» The implication is this is key to the rest. The sower sows the word, and these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts. Likewise, these are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness, and they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble.
Now these are the ones sown among thorns. They are the ones who hear the word of God, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desire for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. Then He goes on to talk about the seed that’s planted in good soil.
I want to briefly address the seed thrown on the wayside. It should be an obvious picture; it’s on trampled ground. It’s a very hard surface; it doesn’t receive seed. That seed sits there on the surface, and it’s easy for the birds of the air to come and steal that seed. When there’s hardness of heart, you may hear all the right things, but if there’s not a breaking in the soil of our own hearts to receive that which God is saying, then that seed is planted in such a way that it’s very easy for the enemy to come and take it away.
The second one is the rocky soil. Rocky soil should be fairly easy to understand. It’s the places in the heart of a person—rocks, regret, resentment, bitterness—all the issues of heart that just never get dealt with season after season. Those things become the very parts of our life and personality that reject and resist the word that tickled our ears and made us eager to hear when we first heard it. Yet because there was no depth in us to receive what God was saying, it couldn’t produce any fruitfulness.
But the one I want to talk to you about is the thorny one. Verse 18: «These are the ones sown among thorns. They are the ones who hear the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desire for other things enter in and choke the word.» Listen to me carefully: you and I, with our thoughts, our attitudes, and our appetites, have the capacity to put a stranglehold on the promise that God has given. He talks here about giving ourselves for weeds to grow.
Does anyone have a garden in here? I’m not; my wife is. We are in the process of doing a wonderful garden, and I’m cheering her on. «Go, Benny, go!» And as soon as my hot peppers are in full bloom, I will help her harvest. That’s my responsibility. We have a little orchard of about 30 trees, and I’m going to pick the apples too—that’s my gardening part. That’s my part—"Go, Benny, give me an apple!»
Why do weeds grow bigger, faster, stronger than the plants you want to grow? It’s a weird thing. It happened because of the Fall. Here He says weeds grow and choke the word of the Lord. The promise over your life can actually be choked, strangled, by the deceitfulness of riches, the cares of this world, and the desire for other things. Let me break down those three things for you.
The cares of this world— that word for cares actually comes from two words: number one is «divided,» and number two is «mind.» Divided mind—the cares of this world is the divided mind. A lot of people experience anxiety, confusion, and stress because their mind is divided. Too many options—Jesus and all these other options. Years ago, I remember hearing a story, actually reading a story in a book, about a gentleman who was a great athlete and loved competition and sports of all kinds. He ended up in a horrible accident and lost an arm. He spent considerable time after that trying to find some kind of a sport that he could be involved in with only one arm. For some reason, he ended up picking up the sport called handball.
Anybody ever played handball? Man, that is painful! Give me a racket; I’d rather hit the ball with a racket. It’s this hard little ball, almost as hard as a golf ball, that you hit off your hand that has a thin layer of leather over each hand. You hit it off the wall, as in racquetball, and it’s a very intense and competitive sport. He picked up this particular sport called handball, and he became so good over time that he became the club champion. Then his club entered him in the state championship, and he competed at the state level, ultimately taking first place in handball.
Following his championship match, a newspaper writer wanted to interview him. He asked him, «How is it that a man with only one hand can defeat all your opponents who play with two hands?» He replied, «Oh, it’s easy. Options.» The newspaper guy said, «What do you mean, options?» He explained, «When the ball comes off the wall, my opponent has to decide which hand to use. He only has one option—the decision has been made.»
Wow! Too many Christians have too many options, and we invite confusion. When you invite confusion, you create the atmosphere for anxiety and worry. All of those things don’t mean we will never face it otherwise; it’s just we always have the upper hand when we only have one option. When our only option is, «I am hungry for the will of God,» I don’t care what it tastes like in the moment. That’s what I am hungry for.
Jesus said, «My food is to do the will of Him who sent me,» and sometimes the will of God is very sour or bitter to the taste, but it’s always pleasant to the stomach. The will of man is always sweet to the taste, but it turns sour in the stomach. There’s something about the will of God that nourishes and strengthens. So here we have the issue of the cares of life.
Think about it this way: every moment you and I spend in worry and anxiety, we are actually feeding the beast that strangles the promise over our destiny. Every moment I spend in worry and anxiety, I am actually fueling, feeding the beast that is working to put a stranglehold over my destiny, over the promises over my life. The devil cannot read our thoughts. Anybody say Amen to that? He cannot read your thoughts, but he can read the thoughts he suggests, and I think he can sometimes tell when one of his suggestions—called fiery darts—has made it past the shield of faith because it affects our countenance.
Whenever that has happened, there is an agreement, and the enemy is always empowered by our agreement. Agreeing with the enemy empowers him to kill, steal, and destroy. I don’t want to over-exaggerate the devil’s role, but I do want to make us alert in the assignment because I believe so much—I’ve talked about this subject from different angles a lot in the last year. I feel like we are coming into a season of unusual breakthrough, but it requires the fulfillment of promise.
How many of you have a whole bunch of promises over your life that are not yet fulfilled? Amen. Alright, so here we have the cares of this world—the divided mind. The second one is the deceitfulness of riches. Notice it doesn’t say riches; it says there’s a deceitfulness that can come included with riches. Now riches can be money, resources, income, what you own, your possessions. But also, riches can overlap into areas of position, title, accomplishments—it’s the abundance that we have in life.
There’s a deceitfulness that comes with riches; it makes it easy for rich people to think they have power. That’s you and me! There’s an illusion of power and personal significance that increases with greater possessions and more money, and neither are true.
Neither riches nor poverty create heart; they reveal heart. People ask the question, «How much is too much money?» It depends; it’s whatever amount causes you to not trust anymore. For one person, $10,000 in the bank may cause them to no longer trust God because they only trust Him out of constant need and constant prayer. But as soon as they get a little pad in their income, suddenly it replaces trust.
How much is too much? It’s whatever amount replaces trust. For another person, it could literally be $100 million because their life is designed around the trust component. True spirituality is the relationship of trust; it’s not what I own or don’t own. So much of wealth is used to create image. What is image? It’s the soulish attempt to create identity. My identity is not in what I own; it’s not in my title; it’s not in how God uses me. None of those things. I am a son who was adopted by the most gracious Father in existence. My identity is in the one who called me to Himself. That’s it entirely—everything else is bonus, everything else is extra.
The deceitfulness of riches creates a sense of entitlement and a sense of identity that is deceiving. What I hope for is that you and I would grow profoundly in the area of trust to where He can entrust to us greater resources to impact the course of world history. That’s what I want to see happen, but He won’t give me more than my heart can handle.
The deceitfulness of riches, the last phrase here says, «deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things.» It’s interesting; the original language here actually means «and all the rest.» It’s like whatever is left. He didn’t even bother creating a list because the list isn’t important. What’s important is that in this person there is an appetite for things outside of that which God would provide.
Here’s one of my main goals for today: that everyone in this room could come to a place where we would say, «I only want what comes from His hand. I will not pursue anything in life that is not His heart, His plan, His idea for me.» I had a season in our lives where I could take you through my house, and I could show you this couch and this table, and everything seemed to represent a season. It’s that way again today, but it’s a different time in our lives.
I remember back when Benny and I were first married—probably married a year or two. I wanted to buy a hunting rifle. If you’re against hunting, pretend it’s a camera I’m going to shoot. I’m going to shoot photographs of wildlife and then for some strange reason eat the photograph, but anyway, we’ll just leave it at that. I had saved up money, and I was going to buy a hunting rifle. We had some bills come up, and I had even saved birthday money. You know how you do. Well, we needed help so I saved enough to buy a nice little rifle, but these bills came up, and I thought, «Who wants to be responsible when you can have fun?» That’s kind of like my approach—why be responsible when you can have fun?
But Jesus got the best of me, and I just sucked it up, paid the bills, and tried to be happy in the fact that we no longer had those debts. I don’t know if it was that week or two weeks later, but it was right in that immediate period of time. One Sunday night here at Bethel—this was back in 1974 probably—one of the older guys in the church, who had become a real good friend of ours after the service, came up to me. Before the service, he came up to me and said, «Bill, you need a rifle?» «Yes, I do!» He said, «Thus saith the Lord!» Yes.
He said, «Come to my house after church tonight.» So I went to his house, and he brought out this pre-64 Winchester—oh yeah, pistol grip, 3030, peep sight. It was just a classic old gun, and he gave it to me. That gun means a lot more than a gun because it came from the Father’s hand through one of His special chosen ones.
It’s very interesting. Some years later, I was in Weaverville, and somebody got into our house. We were gone for a few days, and they stole—I had three or four guns there—they stole them. That gun was with the others, but they didn’t take it. It was literally—they were all together in one bunch, and it was like the Lord just said, «No, you’re not touching that one. That is a prophetic emblem. This is a monument to prophesy that we had fellowship here, we had agreement here, we had covenant here, and this is where I met with my son.»
What I want for my life is the will of God because it’s so much more fun when you stay in your lane. So many of you would be more than happy if you had your present condition and you were put in some broken and impoverished part of the world because you would be doing so well compared to everybody else—let’s be honest. But because of your relatives that have more or your neighbor or the person you work with, the issue of comparison is the problem here.
The desire for other things—it can put anything else on the list you want—is pursuing things outside of the dominion of God. If I could just have this position, if I could just have this marriage, if I could just have this title, if I could just have this education, if I could drive this car, I know I would be happy. Amen?
If I could just have this or have that, if I could buy that house. What happens is the appetite for other things to satisfy. We pray for it because we want it to be in God’s will, but the appetite has pulled us out of our lane, and the appetite itself fuels the beast that chokes the promise of God over our lives.
Sometimes it has the very fulfillment of the thing we long for, but because the appetite has taken us out of our lane—does that make sense to anybody? The appetite pulls us out of our assignment, out of our lane, out of the sense of God’s timing. Then suddenly, the very hunger I have that could be fulfilled by the hand of God is now the very thing that works to choke the promise of God over my life.
Years ago, I had a friend in Weaverville. I’ve shared this story. In fact, I think I shared it recently. He had a friend—his wife—who was on vacation. My mouth is not yet ready to talk. Let’s just be honest; I’m still in vacation mode, and all I want to do is talk about how hot it is out there. You know, anything beyond that is just challenging to me at the moment. So just give me a break.
My friend received a phone call from his friend’s wife. One day, she called and said, «Hey, if I could schedule it, would you take my husband fishing?» They loved to fish. So without her husband knowing, she scheduled for him to have several days off with his boss and sent him to Weaverville. He spent several days with our friend Tom, and Tom took him fishing for several days. But the guy didn’t know it. The wife scheduled it, talked to the boss, packed the gear, packed his clothes, and then picked him up at work and said, «You’re going up to see Tom in Weaverville, and you’re going fishing for the next several days.» He said, «Wait, I’m supposed to go to work.» «Nope, you’ve got the tomorrow off!» «What about that?» «You’ve got the next day off.» She arranged everything, so every what-if was answered.
Now, how much more fun is it to go up there, her sponsoring the trip, than him demanding his right as a husband to be able to go fishing? Which is more fun? You having that promotion at work from God’s hand or being manipulated and whining and complaining until you got it? The point is, the desire for other things actually chokes the actual destiny of God over our lives.
It has to do with appetite; it has to do with stewardship. It has to do with the divided mind. These are the areas that monitor well, keeping us in our lane so that by the end of our lives we can say with Solomon, «And everything that came into his heart came to pass.» That’s what I want to see.
I’ve been praying that over my own life this week. God, everything that You have promised, I want to see come to pass—not just for my sake. I want to see every word He has promised fulfilled, that He would be revealed for who He is—that He would be revealed. I pray that over you. I pray that the Lord would help us as stewards of the Word. I hear so many people say, «I don’t know why I’ve got all these promises over my life and they just don’t come to pass.» Not you—it’s them other folks.
It’s when I travel—I’ll be honest—it’s when I travel. Those are the people. The problem is never on His end of the equation, and it’s not a time for guilt and shame, but it is a time to be able to say, «God, my appetite is for Your dominion to be fully realized over me. I hunger for Your will. I make any adjustments necessary because I want to see You exalted and revealed for who You are in the earth.»
So I pray that over us as a church family right now. I want to ask—I know somebody’s already come to Christ earlier—but if there’s anybody in the room that would say, «I need to get my life right with God, and I don’t want to leave until it’s done,» if that’s you, put a hand up real quick because I want to make sure that we take a moment to be able to reach right over here. Wonderful, wonderful!
Is there anybody else? If I miss it, wave it at me. Alright, let’s go ahead and stand. I want to ask the ministry team to come quickly to the front. This gentleman right here that put your hand up, if you’d come right down over here, we’ve got a team of people, and any others that would like to join them, come down. They will talk with you, pray with you, and just help you in this beginning of your life with Christ. Church, why don’t you bless this gentleman and others that will come forward right now?