Bill Johnson - Living for the Presence and Glory of God
I haven’t read this for years; it’s one of the first funny stories I found maybe 20 years ago. Goodness! After having dug to a depth of 10 feet last year, New York scientists found traces of copper wire dating back a hundred years. They came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than a hundred years ago. Not to be out by the New Yorkers, in the weeks that followed, an archaeologist in California dug to a depth of 20 feet. Shortly after, headlines in the LA Times read, «California archaeologists have found traces of 200-year-old copper wire and have concluded that 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 Wrath Bomp, a self-taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Bubba has therefore concluded that 300 years ago, Texas had already gone wireless. So all you Texans owe me! That’s all I want to say. I only half-jokingly tell people when I go to Texas, I bring my passport just in case something happens while I’m there. You know, I just got back from Korea yesterday, and that was a great trip. Great place; I love, love Korea. I counted through my photo records, and that was my 15th visit to Korea.
However, they are under martial law, and there’s great political upheaval going on there right now. It’s kind of crazy. As you think of it, pray for the praying Church in Korea because their redemptive gift to the body of Christ is their capacity and ability to pray. It’s really stunning! It’s fun to be in a place where they love to pray like that. I missed all of your prayer meetings this past week; that was a real bummer for me. I loved our morning gatherings so much last year. While you were fasting, I was feasting. I ate more than should be allowed while I was in Korea, and I never once thought of your fast. I never once felt guilty or anything, and it was glorious. So, I’m sorry about that, but you were headed to the promised land, while I was in the promised land, so that’s what it was.
I actually want to do one more week on this Promised Land study we started in December. I did three weeks, which I haven’t done in years. I’m fascinated by the story of Israel leaving Egypt and entering the land of promise. It’s my favorite story in the whole Old Testament, as it illustrates the normal Christian life. It actually does not illustrate entrance to heaven; it illustrates entrance into the reality of the Kingdom of God here on earth. Everything that takes place in Romans—Paul made this statement: «What was written in earlier times was written for our instruction.» So, in some ways, the Old Testament is ridiculously practical. You have to understand that some things ended at the cross, some things changed by the cross, and some things came through the cross unchanged. The entire Old Testament has that reality; something just ended at the cross. Animal sacrifice ended at the cross. The Sabbath rest, however, is now a continual 24/7 place for the believer. Unchanged by the cross was Davidic worship—the music we just experienced. There are so many things like that. Viewing the Old Testament through that lens will help.
But anyway, back to the issue: The Promised Land story to me is an ongoing invitation for more. Most of you are here because of your hunger for more. I mean, so many of you sold everything—left jobs or businesses—because you heard that God was doing certain things, and you came. You’ve been a part of our family, and we’re so thankful for you. But it was the hunger for more, the realization that there is more, and it’s possible for you to live and experience that, which brought you here. The amazing thing about the more of God is that once you taste it, you want more of the more. You’ve heard the statement «quality, not quantity.» I will go to a very fine restaurant, and as soon as I eat quality instead of quantity, I want quantity. You know, you’re sitting there eating what they’ve described as a once-in-a-lifetime meal, and halfway through the meal, you’re trying to figure out how you can get back here because you want the more. The more of the Kingdom is like this; you taste and see. Your experience in God will alter your perception. So you taste and see, which enables you to see uniquely and differently. It’s the experience in the Lord.
He invites us into this place where we taste and see, where we experience the more that we see in Scripture. Jesus illustrated the normal Christian life. If I could put it this way, there are two biblical standards for our walk with the Holy Spirit: One is «do not grieve the Holy Spirit,» and the other is «do not quench the Holy Spirit.» So, these two things act as guardrails on this trail, keeping us in the center of all that God is saying and doing. We grieve the Holy Spirit when we have wrong desires, wrong actions, or wrong attitudes. When we participate with the inferior or with evil in any way, we grieve Him; we cause pain to His heart. On the other hand, quenching is what you do with a garden hose. If you’ve ever had to water a thousand plants on your property, you take the garden hose, bend it in half, and stop the flow to walk to a different part of the yard. When you quench, you stop the flow of something. So, this walking with the Holy Spirit, on one hand, has to do with character—we don’t give ourselves to evil or sin—but on the other hand, it has to do with participation with the flow of the Spirit of God, which has everything to do with power.
It says of Jesus that the miracles He performed were so numerous that a planet couldn’t contain the full record, and that was in three and a half years of the Holy Spirit not being grieved or quenched. You might say, «Well, He’s God!» Yes, but He lived as a man dependent on God. So, what that tells me is that kind of impact is what’s expected for the New Testament believer. It was Jesus Himself who said, «Greater works than these shall you do.» I’ve heard people say, «Well, it’s because there are so many Christians on earth; of course, it will be greater.» That would be pointless. It’s not greater in number because there are so many believers. Yes, Jesus had people touch His garment, and they were healed. When Paul was around, they took garments from his body and sent them elsewhere, and they were healed. That’s greater.
So the Lord has brought us together, in part, to hunger for the more. Yes, the way we live this life well is by remaining thankful for what He’s given us while remaining hungry for the more that is possible. If I’m thankful without being hungry for more, I will become complacent and return to the past. If I’m hungry for what’s possible but not thankful, first of all, I can’t be trusted with more; secondly, I will frustrate myself and become anxious. It’s the combination of the two that helps us be trustworthy with the more that God desires to release. The picture of Israel going into the Promised Land was not a picture of dying and going to heaven; it was an illustration. I love the Old Testament for this reason: It uses natural things to illustrate spiritual truths. Physical obedience brings spiritual release.
Jesus, in everything He did, revealed our inheritance. He revealed what is available to every born-again believer. In Psalm 27, He says, «One thing I have desired and that will I seek: that I may dwell in the presence of the Lord, that I may dwell in the house, the temple of God, and behold His beauty.» So think about this: One thing I have desired— we have a thousand things going on in every one of our lives. If we can reduce it down to the one most important thing, it should be this: There’s one thing that drives me—I want to dwell in the manifest presence of God, and I want to see Him. Anything less is inferior. I remind you: You were born; I was born to host the presence of God; yes, yes, so good!
Now, I repeat this because repetition helps me. It says, «For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.» That means when we were created in His image, we were created to live in, dwell in, and cooperate with the manifested presence of the Almighty God. We are actually supposed to be marked by God with us. So, Jesus is revealed in the New Testament as Emmanuel— God with us. The distinguishing mark—Moses goes through this in the story we’re going to read—he said, «What makes us different than everybody else on the planet is that You’re with us.» In other words, it’s not our giftedness; it’s not our insights; all those things are nice, but they’re side issues. The real issue is who is with you.
I’d like for you to turn in your Bibles, if you would, to Exodus 33. I’ve told you for the three weeks in December that we went through this story that this is my personal favorite story in the Old Testament that helps me to learn. But my favorite story within that story is what we’re going to read now, and it’s Moses' encounter with the Lord and his desire to see the glory. In verse 7, we’ll start. We’re going to read verse by verse; I’ll read quite a few, so please, if you don’t have your Bible, sit next to someone who does, or crawl over the back of somebody who’s in front of you and just breathe heavily into their ear while you’re reading. That was a joke—just don’t do what I said; please. I’m in enough trouble as it is.
Verse 7: «Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and he called it the Tabernacle of Meeting. It came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the Tabernacle of Meeting, which was outside the camp.» One thing you will notice is that the more you set your heart to seek the Lord, the more you will have to leave the crowd to do it. I love corporate prayer meetings, but it’s individual passion that really takes us into our greatest places of breakthrough.
Verse 11: «So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. He would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the Tabernacle.» This tells us a lot about Joshua, who was to inherit the role of leadership in taking Israel into the place of fulfillment and promise. He was a man of the presence. I think there’s something about masculinity that’s been lost not only in present culture but in church culture. Here we have David, a crazy warrior who was a man of the presence, and now we have Joshua, who was a military leader and strategist that took Israel into victory over multiple nations. He was an extraordinary warrior, but he was, first and foremost, a man of the presence. I don’t mean that to be gender-specific; most of the people who scare me in the world are women, anyway. They’re ferocious warriors! A female lion is still a lion.
All right, let’s move on before I get stuck. Verse 12: «Moses said to the Lord, 'See, you say to me, „Bring up this people,“ but you’ve not let me know whom you will send with me.' Yet you have said, 'I know you by name and you have found grace in my sight.' Therefore I pray, if I have found grace in your sight, show me your way that I might know you, that I may find grace in your sight and consider that this nation is your people.» I love that prayer Moses prays here, and it’s one I learned. I remember when I first saw this: «Show me your ways that I might know you.» I remember as a young man when I first saw that I thought I need to pray that prayer, and so it’s been a repeated thing in my journey with the Lord for quite a few years: «Let me know your ways that I might know you.»
In the Psalms, I believe it’s in Psalms, it says, «Israel was acquainted with the acts of God; Moses was acquainted with His ways.» Let’s change the analogy. The Scripture gives us, I especially like the Old Testament because it gives us natural illustrations to illustrate spiritual truths. The psalmist says, «I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart. I will enter His courts with praise.» So, I enter the gates—I’m approaching the Lord, coming into a place of deeper personal encounter and relationship, and where I start is with thankfulness. From thankfulness, I move to praise. What is the illustration? Thankfulness is our response to the acts of God; praise is our response to His ways.
When it says «Israel was acquainted with the acts of God,» it describes their limited experience—they had limited themselves to His activity and not the relationship, not the personal aspect of who He was and what He was like. In thanksgiving, we give Him thanks because He healed our bodies or provided for us, but in praise, we honor Him for being the provider. We go into His personhood, into His personality, into His nature. Moses declares in his prayer, «Let me know Your ways that I might know You.» Why does a relationship need that revelation of His ways? Because whenever God reveals an aspect of His nature, it always comes with an invitation for encounter.
Wow, Abraham had his son Isaac on an altar. He was willing to do whatever God said, and God revealed Himself to him as Jehovah Jireh—the God who provides—which means what? Now he looks up on the hill, and there’s a ram caught in the thicket. God says, «I am your provider!» Now that I know you will give, you’ll obey me, and here’s your provision. Excuse me a second. Sorry about that, got a Korean dry throat. All that talk—I can’t blame Korea, though; I’m sure it’s my fault somehow.
So here he looks up, and the Lord reveals Himself to Abraham as the God who provides. It wasn’t to round out his theology; it wasn’t so he would have a clearer statement of faith; it was because he needed provision. So when God reveals Himself as the Healer, He’s not doing it so we have a full gospel; He’s doing it so we can be healed. When Moses says, «Let me know your ways; show me what you’re like, because I want to know you,» he’s acknowledging that anytime God opens our understanding to what His nature is like, it always comes with the invitation for encounter—taste and see, experience so that your perception changes.
Yes, verse 14: «And He said, 'My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.' Then He said to him, 'If your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here, for how then will it be known that your people and I have found grace in your sight except You go with us? So we shall be separate, your people and I, from the people who are on the face of the earth.' And the Lord said to Moses, 'I will also do this thing that you have spoken, for you have found grace in my sight, and I know you by name.'»
Stop right there for a moment. This is the story where the word comes to Moses and says, «I’m not going.» He said, «I’m going to send an angel with you,» and then he tells them elsewhere in this storyline, «If I go with you, I’ll have to kill everyone because they are such an obstinate people.» He’s telling Moses, «I’ll send an angel with you.» Now, I want you to think about this. Moses says to Him, «If You’re not going, I don’t want to go,» which means what? The angel of the Lord would be assigned to Moses and to Israel to fulfill all the promises that God gave them. In other words, they will inherit the cities that are already built, the crops that are already planted, and the orchards that are already in place; they would come into full inheritance of all that God promised if they allow the angel to take them. Wow! Or they can choose the presence and possibly stay in the wilderness.
Wow! Seek first the kingdom; all these things will be added. Sometimes, it’s easy to become addicted to the things that are added and lose sight of what God is here for. Moses is making a profound value judgment because he’s stating, «I would rather be in the wilderness with You than in the promised land with an angel.» That is the mark of understanding purpose. It’s the fact that I would choose the longer journey, the more challenging journey with God, than to have everything paved for me without Him. Wow! It’s a conscious decision that I am here for the relationship. I’m not here just for the fulfillment of my desires, my dreams, or my ambitions. I am here for the relationship, and if it costs me a dream, so be it! I lay down the dream, but I am here for this one thing.
Back to Psalm 27: «The one thing I desire and that will I seek that I might dwell in the house of the Lord forever, to behold Your beauty.» It also says in the Psalms, «When you said to my heart, 'Seek my face, ' my heart said to you, 'Your face, O Lord, I will seek.'» There’s something woven throughout the Scripture; the reason for our existence—all of us! I believe so much—there are other times I will strongly emphasize our purpose, our impact, the creativity that’s to flow through us, the entrepreneurial grace that’s supposed to rest on every believer. Those are things I love to emphasize, but we’ve got to dial it back for a moment here and recognize there’s one thing that is superior to all others. All other issues of the Christian life bow to the one thing that I am a carrier of the presence of God. He has chosen in this time to reveal Himself as Emmanuel—God with us! God with us! That’s the mark—God with us.
Moses is making that decision in this particular journey, and for me, it is the heart and soul of the whole Promised Land journey. Let’s move on. Verse 18: «Then he said, 'Please show me Your glory.' And He said, 'I will make all my goodness pass before you. I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.' He said, 'You cannot see my face; no man can see me and live.'» He said, «Here is a place by me; you will stand on the rock, and it will be while my glory passes by. I will put you in the cleft of the rock. I will cover you with my hand while I pass by. Then I will take away my hand, and you will see my back, but my face shall not be seen.»
I like this story so much—I don’t understand it, but I actually like reading things that puzzle me. I love understanding. I cry out; I pursue wisdom, knowledge. I want to understand things. I want to perceive things accurately; it’s a joy of growing in the Lord. But revivals end when people know what they’re doing; it’s true. You just look through the history of revivals. The end of a move of God often happens when people finally settle into knowing how God does something. We are supposed to learn, but with the learning, there’s supposed to be an increase of mystery.
It’s what keeps us honest; it’s what keeps us dependent. I think, «Oh, I know this; I experienced all this these last five years. I never understood any of that, but with this came this and I’m clueless about this.» It’s the combination of understanding truth, being brought into wisdom and revelation, and then being exposed to another level for which I now must develop a new level of trust. Because, at the end of the day, it’s all about trust. Nahum chapter 1, verse 7 says, «The Lord is good; He knows those who trust in Him.» Think through this: «The Lord is good; He knows those who trust in Him.» That word «knows» means experiential knowledge. It’s the same word used in Genesis 3, I think it is, where it says, «And Adam knew Eve, and she conceived and bore a son.» It refers to an experiential knowledge; it’s not just head knowledge.
So when God says, «The Lord is good; I know experientially those who trust me,» why does that matter? Do you remember Matthew 7, where He says, and some of you on that day will say to me, «Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not do all these things?» He said, «Depart from me; I never knew you.» The measure of knowing in a relationship is the element of trust, and there’s very little occasion to trust when you understand everything.
It was a better point than your response, but it’s all right. I’m just used to it by now. This issue of trust is the issue of the day. So when the Lord gives me understanding and stuff, I love it so much, but with it always come more questions. Yes, it’s part of our growing process, and being able to trust Him with the questions; being able to pursue Him; even though, well, I had a friend call me or write me here just, I think it was this last month, could have been November, but it was recent. He was describing this visitation they have of God in their church, and it’s an extraordinary outpouring of the Spirit. He just wanted to connect and maybe get some help, advice, or whatever—how to make sure that he doesn’t grieve or quench the Holy Spirit, you know, that whole journey.
I told him, first of all, I’m thrilled as can be! He said, and we don’t know what we’re doing! I said, «That’s good news, actually!» So I wrote him back and said, «First of all, it’s amazing what God is doing. I’ll help in any way I can, but the most encouraging part of your note to me is that you don’t know what you’re doing,» because it’s when people—it doesn’t mean we can’t grow in knowledge, but our knowledge cannot replace trust. Yes, once knowledge replaces trust, it’s not experiential knowledge; it’s head knowledge.
Wow! You can tell how much God trusts you by what He entrusts to you, the measures of presence, the measures of anointing, the measures of glory— the more that increases—it’s because He has measured you; He has measured me; He has tested us and found that we can handle this without becoming independent, arrogant, or proud. He’s constantly measuring me, measuring me for the more because we’ve prayed the dangerous prayers; we’ve prayed the scary prayers, «God, this is what we’re hungry for.»
So here’s this glorious story where he says, «I want to see Your glory.» Well, Moses is a glutton! I mean, he’s already the guy who has seen more than any of us. Yet the New Testament basically tells us that this experience, this he sees the glory of God, comes down—his face is shining with the glory. Moses’s countenance was transformed by a revelation of God’s goodness. Maybe it’s time for the countenance of the church to be transformed by a revelation of God’s goodness.
But here’s the deal: That goodness is not a walk in the park. The revelation of God’s goodness is not sitting on a beach somewhere, sipping iced tea, going, «Isn’t God good?» As much as I like that—sign me up if we’re going. I love that a whole bunch. That’s not what He’s talking about. Hosea 3:5 and Jeremiah 33:9, I believe it is, says this: In the last days, people will fear God because of His goodness.
Now just think with me: What kind of revelation of goodness would cause people to fall to their knees with fear and trembling? Now I understand if God wants to reveal His holiness how all of us would fall face down before Him; if He were to openly display His power with the thunderings and the lightnings and all those kinds of things, all of us would hit the dirt as fast as we could. But how is it that He would use a revelation of His goodness to restore the fear of God to a planet?
That’s what it says! There’s something about the goodness of God that, when it is seen clearly, changes our own countenance, and our value system changes from an addiction to the inferior to a determination that I will not settle. I will not settle for anything less than a seamless connection with the Spirit of God! Yes! The Lord speaks to Moses and says, «If you see My face, you’ll die.» So, «I’ll put you in this little crack in the rock here. I’ll hide you; I’ll put my hand over your face so you can’t see me except for my backside as I walk by.»
That which is decreasing—I’ll let you see that. I don’t know; I think it’s in Corinthians, Paul uses the illustration of the shining face of Moses to basically, in so many words, put this entirely in my language now, but that was the high point in the Old Testament is the beginning place in the New. What you have access to, because the blood of Jesus qualified you to be a house for the Holy Spirit; the blood of Jesus qualified you to host the presence of the Almighty God. This glory that radiated from Moses’s face was not meant to be the high point of human experience; it was meant to be the introduction.
I think in the next number of years, the glory of the Lord is going to become more and more predominant—Target subject. I think we’re in for some surprises—things that we don’t understand; things that we scratch our heads about walking out of a gathering, going, «What is He doing?»
When my friend wrote me about what’s happening in his church, I wrote him and said, «I love to hear what God is doing, but I’m the most comforted in the fact that you don’t know what you’re doing.» Because it’s much easier to realize our need to trust; our need to trust Him when we’re in the middle of something that’s so much bigger than we are.
I pray that for you; I pray that for me—that the Lord will reintroduce us again to the more that is disturbing, challenging, inviting, and wonderful. I’m not looking for the wow factor of this sign and that sign, but I am looking for the awe factor. The awe to be more fully restored to us as a family. I feel like this whole Promised Land series—I mean, what I think about often, to be honest, is you stepping more and more fully into all that God made you to be, me stepping more fully into realizing my design and my place before the eyes of God and my place before people, and for you the same. That’s what I think of!
But this brings me back to the main thing: When you said, «Seek my face,» my heart said to you, «Your face, O Lord, I will seek!»
Psalm 25 has this verse that says, «I set my eyes on your presence, and you plucked my feet out of the net.» Anybody trapped in a net that you need to get out of? This is the formula; it’s the one-step formula: I set my eyes on the one who will pluck my feet out of the net. I remember in the early, early days of our coming here—I remember the particular night when the Lord woke me in the night with His voice, and it was within the first couple of years of us being here. He spoke this statement: «He watches over the watch of those who watch the Lord.»
He watches over the watch of those who watch the Lord. I laid there, I think, the rest of the night, pondering what in the world does that mean. I remember in the Old Testament setting, you’ve got these cities, and you’ve got these towers on the wall, and you’d have watchmen. You’d have people assigned just to look for any approaching enemy or any approaching tradesman or whatever, just to be alert for everything that comes toward their city. They would stand on these walls, and they would be watchmen.
So this word that the Lord spoke to my heart, that actually spoke out loud to me, said, «He watches over the watch.» In other words, «Bill, I know you like being responsible and you like making sure that you do everything that you’re told to do, but I’m telling you, I’ll watch your watch if you watch me.» Did that make sense? Did you get it?
He watches over the watch of those who watch the Lord. He plucks the feet out of the net of those whose eyes are set on the Lord. «Your face, O Lord, I will seek.» When your heart—when you said to my heart, «Seek my face,» my heart said, «Yes God, I will seek your face!»
The one thing I desire—everything else! I’ve reduced my life down to one main priority: One choice. If I have one thing to choose, it’s this one thing: That I dwell in the abiding presence of the Lord all the days of my life and behold Your beauty! That’s my ambition! I think it’s in light of presence, in light of glory, in light of these kinds of—can I just say—not just experiences, but things that lead us into lifestyle changes. Those are the birthplace of so many other things that we long for.
It’s all these things that will be added. So I pray this: I pray this for you; I pray this for our online family, that the Lord would increase our capacity, increase our awareness, increase our appetite; that He would help us as a people to navigate this season. I keep catching glimpses of the Lord fulfilling promises on levels we’ve never known before.
I feel like we’re in store for the surprise of God! I feel like, we’re in store for surprises—these are sometimes things that we didn’t even consciously pray for. I was just in Korea this week, as I mentioned. I need to end this—so let me find a place to land this plane.
Lance was one of the other speakers, and I love Lance so much; he’s so profound, just ridiculously smart. Some people intimidate you just because they are, you know? Lance is one of those guys—such a dear friend!
But he was describing—a time he was with all these heads of state—governmental leaders. He was sitting there in this room, and he was asking himself the question, «How did I get here?» You know? «I’m in the wrong room!» He’s doing that thing that most of us would do. We wouldn’t be saying, «I earned this.» We’d be saying, «Oh Jesus, please show up"—kind of thing!
So he’s asking himself the question, «How did I get here?» and the Lord spoke to him, saying, «This is what you ask me for all the time when you pray in tongues.»
You are kidding! You know? What that was worth the trip to Korea for me— that one phrase! You are kidding! I prayed that kind of stuff? No wonder I’m nervous all the time! Isn’t that amazing?
Oh Jesus, yeah, Lord help us in this journey we have with You! We love You so much and are so thankful for the privilege. But I ask that You help us in the area of appetite — our readiness to give place to You to do whatever You say. Increase us there, and let us be surprised by fulfillment, I pray in Jesus' name.