Bill Johnson - Pursue and Take Hold of God's Promises for Your Life
Amen, amen. All right, well, good morning! Good to see you; glad you showed up. Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! How many of you like to get your shopping done by October? I’ve met a few like you. You amaze me; you scare me a little bit, but you amaze me. How many of you are last-minute shoppers? Many more last-minute shoppers in this service than in the early service; in the early service, everybody was like «very early shopping.» I think there’s something about those people. How many of you are last-minute shoppers? Did anybody shop on Christmas Eve? I’m usually a last-minute guy, so I saw a meme I liked this week that said if you’re going shopping, treat the workers kindly because it’s not their fault that you waited until Mary’s water broke before you went shopping. Oh brother, I just think that’s funny.
I saw another one where a family had another family over for dinner, and the mother asked one of the children to pray over the meal. The child, nervous, said, «I don’t know what to say.» The mother replied, «Well, just say what you hear your mother say.» So, she bowed her head and said, «Why on Earth did I invite all these people over for dinner?» Well, oh goodness!
I want you to open your Bibles to 1 Samuel chapter 30. I want to talk to you about something that I actually talk about fairly often through the years. I haven’t done it in quite a while, but that’s the whole issue of strengthening yourself in the Lord. So just kind of a heads-up: we’re heading in that direction.
I had a really interesting night last night in which certain scriptures were going through my mind from 3:00 on, and I’m not sure if I’m going to go into those scriptures, even though they kept me active for several hours this morning. There’s a theme involved. It’s where it says Mary pondered these things in her heart, and it’s the statements made concerning what the Lord had spoken about Jesus that had so deeply moved her. Simeon and Anna, these prophetic people and intercessors, made announcements to Mary concerning what would happen to the Christ child, what he was like, and what he was there for. The Shepherds did the same thing, and this phrase appears a couple of times in Luke: «she treasured them in her heart.» First, she treasured them, and then she pondered them. She protected them and would bring them out for review, but always in a safe place. If you have valuable treasure, you don’t leave it on the front porch; you bring it out with careful examination in a safe place. That’s exactly what she did. She valued what God had said enough to protect it. The safest place for the word of the Lord is in your heart—not public examination, not public review—in your heart.
The level of anxiety that we live with reveals how often we subject ourselves to inferior things. The inferior will always raise our level of anxiety, our awareness of potential failures, problems, regrets—all those kinds of things. The enemy works hard to distract us with his word. Once God’s word has been spoken, one of the awkward things in scripture is that the word of the Lord actually attracts conflict. I know that we’ve studied this through the years, but I warned you about six or eight months ago that I’m going to do a lot of review over this period of time, so that’s what I’m doing again. The word of the Lord over your life attracts conflict, and it’s important that it does. Wow, it’s important that it does!
Mary’s own experience in Luke chapter 2 tells us that she treasured the word God spoke to her by the Shepherds about her son. She treasured them in her heart, and then Simeon came along and said the thoughts put into words by others would pierce your soul. Here’s a word that God gave her, and then the enemy comes with his stuff to pierce her soul. Why? Because there’s always competition for which word we’re going to believe. There’s always a battle over what we’re going to give our lives to, what we’re going to yield to, and give place to. Matthew 13 has my favorite example of this. It’s where we find the parable of the seed and the sower. We have the different kinds of soil represented in that parable, and the two things that I want to draw your attention to are, first of all, that the birds of the air came to steal the seed. So, number one, the enemy always wants to steal whatever word seed is spoken over our lives.
Come on now! I understand we have the scripture; we have all of the scripture, but the Holy Spirit breathes on this and highlights certain things to you. Sometimes we receive prophetic words, and if they align with scripture, pay attention to them. But the enemy always tries to come and steal the seed. Why? Because the power is in the seed. The power is not in the soil; the soil is necessary, but the power is in the seed. The power for the manifestation of who Jesus is in the earth is in the power of the seed.
I feel faint. Did I disappear, or was it you? All right, we have musical lights; it’s all right—we’ll make it. It’s Christmas! I don’t know what that has to do with it, but they are blinking lights. Yes, very slowly blinking. So, number one is that the enemy—the birds of the air—work to steal the seed, so any seed that is left in the open and untended, sometimes God speaks a word, and we ignore it, or we’ll take care of it later. Receiving the word deeply into our heart is what ensures that word will take root and have impact. Come on, that’s how it works! So, the enemy works to steal the seed. Secondly, if he can’t steal it, he’ll try to plant his seed next to God’s seed. So, we have the weeds, right? I know this is really complicated. I am not an expert in gardening. I need my wife here!
All right, but then finally, I said there are two main things. The outcome is that when the enemy plants contrary seeds or words, it’s to strangle the life out of what God said. Now, let’s be honest: God’s word has how much power? All power. The devil’s word has how much power? Zero authority, except what I give it. The moment I embrace, consider, or meditate on the enemy’s thought in that moment, I lend it my authority. So, it only has impact on me to the measure I make agreement. When you believe a lie, you empower the liar. Believing a lie empowers the liar. Why is this critical? Because the Lord is working on raising up a family—yes, sons and daughters of God—that know how to steward what he says!
The word of the Lord is all-powerful. He spoke the worlds into being. The enemy’s word is just a contrary idea that has no power except what I give it. If I listen to it, then I empower it. The Bible says that tribulation and persecution come because of the word. Every time you and I hear something that the Lord is declaring over our lives—it may be that you’re just in your daily devotion when you’re reading through whatever—you might be in Ephesians chapter 4, and he begins to speak to you about the strength of grace that you impart to people around you. You’re reading that, and it just highlights to you, and you have a sense of purpose and responsibility. He highlights that to you, and the enemy will always work to undermine that word so that it doesn’t take deep root in us.
He does that by getting us to question what God has said. Perhaps the best example of this for me is to say the Lord gives a promise to one of you, that you are going to see blind eyes open, and it is going to become the norm for you. Then you have a friend with blind eyes, and you pray, and they don’t open. So, what do you have now? You have a promise and a conflict. What are you going to give your heart to? Wow, it’s easy to say the promise, but when you’ve fasted and prayed and the blind eyes are still blind, what are you going to give your heart to? Because the more we use the excuse «They’re just not opening; I must not have heard from the Lord,» what have I just done? I’ve empowered the inferior. I’ve just empowered the inferior seed.
Why does he allow that tribulation and persecution to come? Because of the word. Because he is a father who gives rewards, and if there’s no option, there can’t be a reward. He can freely give gifts, but rewards are based on performance—based on obedience. Does that make any sense at all? All right, to five of you—that’s all I needed. It’s all right; sorry!
So here I want to take you into 1 Samuel chapter 30. David has a bunch of guys with him. They were the rejects of society. They are being mentored and discipled out of stupidity into responsibility. They eventually become what’s called the Mighty Men of David, and they were just scary. I don’t think anybody has the nerve to make a movie about the Mighty Men because it would be too gruesome by Old Testament standards, of course. But the Mighty Men of David became this incredible force on David’s behalf. This is before he’s king; he’s been anointed king, but he’s not king yet—Saul is still in place.
David goes and he’s been rejected by Saul’s household. He’s the king but has been rejected by Israel. The people of God have rejected him. He’s now living among the Philistines. He does this crazy thing; he takes all these warriors he’s discipling and takes them out at night to war with the enemies of Israel. The Philistines think he’s going out to fight their enemies but, in actuality, he’s fighting the enemies of Israel. So they come back in the morning after fighting, or whatever they do—I don’t know, killing and plundering and all that glorious stuff.
I watched a movie yesterday that was slower than Driving Miss Daisy. It almost went backwards, random, and I don’t even remember the title. God’s healed my memories! And if you love Driving Miss Daisy, bless you because it was highly regarded, and I don’t mean to speak evil against any movie.
All right, where was I before I stepped into that hole? So David and his men would go out and plunder the enemies of Israel, and then they would come back, and the Philistine leaders thought they were doing it for them. One day, they want to go out and fight against Israel. David and his guys go along, and the leaders of the Philistines say, «This isn’t good because he’ll turn on us in the middle of the war and then all the Jews will say, 'David’s our king! David’s our king! '» So, there’s this big conflict that goes on, and David gets rejected by the Philistines.
So, he’s rejected by Saul, rejected by the Israelites, and rejected by the Philistines. You’ve had a bad day when the devil rejects you! So, he heads back to his own town, Ziklag. When they come to the outskirts of town, they see that there’s a fire. So, let’s pick it up in verse one. We’ve got several verses to read, so I hope that you have your Bibles open to 1 Samuel 30.
It happened, when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the south of Ziklag, attacked Ziklag, burned it with fire, and had taken captive the women and those who were there, from small to great. They did not kill anyone but carried them away and went their way. So David and his men came to the city, and there it was, burned with fire. Their wives, their sons, and their daughters had been taken captive.
Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept until they had no more power or strength to weep. David’s two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess and Abigail the widow of Nabal the Carmelite, had been taken captive. Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him because the souls of all the people were grieved—every man for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. That’s the hinge of the chapter; everything changes from this point on.
David said to Abiathar the priest, «Ahimelech’s son, please bring the ephod here to me.» Abiathar brought the ephod to David. David inquired of the Lord, saying, «Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?» And he answered, «Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.» That last phrase, «you will recover all,» is the reason I want to talk to you this morning. I have this growing sense that we are being given an opportunity to co-labor with the Lord and see an actual recovery of everything lost.
Coming into this new year is supposed to be a year of recovery. Now, some of you have had a tremendous last couple of years; some have had real hellish experiences, and some of you just coasted along and aren’t even certain anything has happened. So, we have everything from that spectrum. Regardless, every one of us lives in a world where there’s conflict. Every one of us has expectations that have been fulfilled and expectations that have led to great disappointment.
I have this—I’m going to call it a prophetic sense—a prophetic sense that the Lord wants to invite us into a moment where we engage with him over a promise. There are times in our lives when the Lord speaks to us, saying, «Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which he will accomplish for you today.» And there are moments when we literally don’t do anything because we’re going to mess it up if we do anything, so we just be still and watch. That’s kind of what he tells us. He says, «Just stand by and watch because I’m going to do something for you on your behalf.»
Yet, there are other times when that’s not at all what happens. Here, David inquires of the Lord. When did he inquire of the Lord? It was after he strengthened himself. I know that God brings us promises when we’re at our lowest point; I get that. But sometimes, the greatest exploits come from a promise we received after we strengthened ourselves. I’m not sure exactly how to explain this.
I hope there’s a grace available to see that the Lord is a good steward, and he gives some of his grandest seed—his greatest promise—to those who have stewarded their hearts well. He imparts to them a promise, «You will recover all.» When did he give that to David? It was only after he strengthened himself. I’m glad that the Lord rescues us. There’s a good percentage of the times in our lives where we didn’t do anything. He just showed up and turned it around for us. I’m thankful for those; they teach us about his heart as a father, his compassion, his greatness, his grace, and his kindness—all those things are revealed in those moments.
But he’s also a father who wants sons and daughters to go into maturity to manifest what Jesus is like, and that isn’t seen in rescue. It’s seen in used authority and the demonstration of what God has imparted to us. We’ve got one of these moments here where it says David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. It doesn’t tell us what he did, but if you read through the Psalms, you’ll find a lot of what he did.
I remember years ago, as a young pastor—I’m still a very young pastor, but I was a lot younger then—I remember having real battles over what I was thinking. My hunger for the Lord was strong, but I was so disappointed that what I achieved for and what I saw were worlds apart. That tension really brought about seasons in my own heart in which I became very self-critical. When you become self-critical, you become dangerous because you will love your neighbor as you love yourself. Be careful around self-critical people, sir, because you may be next! That’s a good warning right there.
I remember that internal struggle. I would fight my way to the top again where I could minister life on Sunday—encourage people, love people—but I would get so discouraged and self-critical. I remember feeling forced, but in a kind way; being forced into learning tools that he had placed in my life that I knew little to nothing about. Number one, I found that abandonment in worship changed me. I don’t think there’s any other process in our life where we experience more personal transformation than when we come into his glory.
That glorious presence is so transformative that we come in one way and leave another. I don’t mean just singing songs; I believe in that. I would go into the church sanctuary in Weaverville, turn the music up, and I would worship by myself—sit at the piano and play. I would enter into real sacrifice, a real offering. It wasn’t done out of convenience; it was done out of necessity. And it wasn’t warfare in a sense; it wasn’t devil-focused. Worship should never be devil-focused. I don’t care if it destroys the powers of darkness; the focus isn’t on that. The focus is on God.
Let him destroy the powers of darkness, and you just delight in him—that’s really the engagement there. I remember coming in; I would sing, and generally, I had to rejoice before I saw breakthrough because it’s amazing how easy it is to hang your head and sing of his worth, leaving unchanged. It doesn’t take faith to sing of his worth; it takes faith to rejoice because you actually have to believe you’re accepted. I remember doing that, and that tension would break. I would come into a place of greater strength again.
Then I would find certain portions of scripture. You know, when you walk with Jesus, one of the cool things is that you have history with God in his word. I have seasons where I can take you to physical locations. I can take you to a place in Weaverville where I walked and wept, and I remember exactly where the Lord spoke to me out of his word and ministered to me there. It’s like that verse is my personal real estate. I own that lot! I’ll loan it to you; you can read it and celebrate it, but it’s mine.
Hopefully, all of us have those kinds of places where we feel at home. In times of praise and thanksgiving, something about a grateful heart changes things. It changes the focus, the priority, and giving those offerings to the Lord has been huge for me; it brings strength to me. Another thing has been getting into his word specifically. For example, I’ll go to Joshua 1 and read verses 1-9 over and over. I go to Psalm 25 because I had a real tough situation a few years ago, and the Lord ministered to me out of the 25th Psalm and it was life to me. I would just sit there with tears in my eyes, just reading over and over again as he would heal my soul.
So, I have history with God, and it may mean nothing to you, but I have my Blood, Sweat, and Tears in a sense over that portion of scripture, and so I’ll go back there. Sometimes I’ll go to other sections of scripture and, forgive me for making light of this, but it may not be as personal for you. I have time in those places where I have history with God. Another thing I do when reading scripture, and this is what I do very commonly, is I’ll just start in a Psalm, because that’s a place of healing for me.
In the Book of Psalms, there’s every emotion you can imagine, so I read until I hear my voice. I read until I can find on the page of what I’m reading something I can relate to, something I can identify with. I may read 20 Psalms in one sitting and just keep reading, but once I find my voice, something begins to activate inside of me. I believe it’s a faith thing. I don’t stop to analyze it, but something comes alive in me, and I become restored in my confidence in what God has said over my life and the lives of those around me.
There’s a restoration of hope and promise, a refined focus. Yes, this is what the Lord said! I had forgotten that I allowed all these inferior things to steal my strength. I’m not doing that now; I’m refocusing. Something happens in my soul. It’s almost like you’ve been sitting down waiting for something to happen, and then you realize, «Oh, I think I’ll get up.» That might be what he said when he said to arise and shine, «Your light has come.» It’s already happened! Get up and begin to implement what he’s already put in our arsenal!
That is this chapter for me: David strengthened himself in the Lord. But then he went to the Lord. This is probably my biggest mistake in life; I know how to strengthen myself pretty well, and I know how to radically obey and take risks. The mistake I make is I assume he wants me to recover all, and I didn’t ask him, «Do I pursue? Recover all?» I don’t know if that makes sense or not. Sometimes I assume I know the will of God because it’s biblical, but it’s not necessarily what he wants me to give myself to in that moment.
Does that make sense? You know, if I can use an example I may have worn out, where Paul responds to this Great Commission—going to all the world and preach the gospel—and so he says, «I’m going to Asia,» and God says, «No.» «Yeah, but it’s in the book!» Can you imagine arguing with God about what’s biblical and not biblical? He knows Paul is trying to go to Asia, and the Lord says no. Finally, over time, he has a dream: a man from Macedonia calls and wants him to come to Macedonia. The point being, sometimes I know too much about the potential will of God, and it drowns out my sensitivity to the particular will of God.
So, in this moment, instead of assuming he wants me to recover all, he says, «Should I pursue them?» If I pursue them, «Will I overtake?» That’s a good question! There’s one place in the Bible where the Lord said to pursue, and Israel was defeated. I’ve been wanting to teach on that because it’s so confusing. I love the bewildering stories that are true. They said, «Should we pursue the enemy?» God says, «Go after it.» They do, and they lose. They come back the next day; they said, «God, do we pursue?» and he says, «Yes, pursue!» They get defeated again. It never explains why. Sometimes we just have to be reduced to a real point of strength.
The third time they said, «Do we pursue?» and «Will we overtake?» he says, «Yes, pursue!» and «You will overtake!» Here’s that moment for David. The Lord speaks and says, «You will recover all!» I have a sense—I believe this promise is for everybody in the room. You know, for the believer, every year is the Year of Jubilee. So, we’re always in a moment where the Lord desires to recover lost things. I believe that wholeheartedly. But there are moments where he’s breathing on a theme, and when he does there seems to be an exponential increase of power in that moment.
For example, the Lord can say, «This is the day of the harvest of souls.» Well, so was yesterday! But when he says it, suddenly a message that would have gotten two people saved now gets 50 people saved! Does that make sense? It’s like when he says it, there’s this accelerated activity of God involved in that moment, and while it was true yesterday, it is even more true today. That’s my personal sense about this verse: «Pursue, and you will recover all.» My sense is that he’s looking for a church family, believers, who will stand confidently in the middle of a very unusual season and say, «Father, do we pursue? And if we do, will we recover all?»
Then he says, «Pursue, for you shall recover all.» This story unfolds, and they do recover all. It’s an extraordinary thing that none of the children or wives were killed—all the possessions were saved; they recovered everything for the glory of God. This passage I was actually sent this week, kind of just a personal promise for me and our family, comes from Zechariah 9:12, where the Lord says, «I will restore double to you what was taken, what was stolen.» We see this in Job’s life. He lost everything, and then the Lord restored twofold after he prayed for his critics.
The amazing thing about the restoration of the Lord is that he restores to better than before. He restores to a place better than before. When he restores, they tell me that when a bone breaks and it heals, that place of the break is actually stronger than the rest of the bone. He wrote it into nature that we would know that our creator, our Father, restores, but he restores to a place of even greater strength.
It’s the beauty of deep repentance because the person in this room who has made the biggest mess of their life—when God forgives, heals, and restores, that place of greatest weakness becomes the place of great strength—exemplary strength! Strength illustrated through the repentance of that one. For every believer, every year is the Year of Jubilee. For the believer, every day is the Sabbath. For the believer, every hour is happy hour! So, here’s what I sense: we’re going to pray together because I think this is not one that you will have the opportunity to sit by and watch. I think this is an invitation to co-labor.
This requires the «yes.» This requires the «Shall I pursue?» and «If I pursue, will I overtake?» And he says, «Yes, I’m going to invite you—» In fact, why don’t you just go ahead and stand? We’re going to pray. I’m going to invite you into a covenant, an agreement with the Father. How many of you can think of at least one thing you would like to see recovered from the last couple of years? Some—I’ve mentioned health; some businesses were completely obliterated, while others of you have literally multiplied, not even because you played everything right—the Lord just seemed to breathe on that. Some have experienced the blessing of the Lord on investments, and those kinds of things.
There are a number of people in this room who have been biblically waiting for certain things to take place because of promises you’ve been given, because of hope, because of things you’ve prayed for that you thought you heard the word of the Lord on. I believe he wants to bring us into that season of fulfillment. I love praying like this, but I hate creating a lottery mentality in Christians. I don’t want that because it breeds carelessness. Instead, I want to invite you to step up to the plate and say, «Shall I pursue?» He says, «Yes.» «Will I overtake?» He says, «You’ll overtake, and you’ll recover all.»
I want you to be able to hear that in your own soul, in your own spirit— that resonating word that says, «Yes, you will recover all.» Because then I’m going to enlist you in an army. I’m going to enlist you. We have people from the Bethel family all over the world joining us right now, and I’m enlisting all of you to join us in this moment, saying, «Okay, it is time to recover all.» Say that with me: «It is time to recover all.»
Grab a hand of the person next to you, or put a hand on their shoulder; in some way, connect with the people around you. I want you to sacrificially pray for them that they would recover all. There are things about everybody’s life in this room where we need recovery, stuff that maybe nobody else knows but he knows. So, I’m going to ask you right now to pray in a forceful, sacrificial way for the recovery of all for the people around you. Go ahead, lift your voices and let’s pray for recovery. God, recover all! Thank you, God. Beautiful!
All right, you did good. Go ahead and drop hands. I want to pray over you. There’s a strange part of the story that I actually don’t remember ever teaching on it when I do this lesson. When David and his men go out to war, a couple of hundred of his guys are so exhausted that they’re afraid if they go out to battle, they’ll just die. They can’t function—they are absolutely exhausted. So, David and his men who are strong enough go to war while the others stay behind. They watch whatever remains, and after they get the victory and come back to town, it says the worthless men among David—so he still had some worthless, not yet delivered disciples—those guys said, «All the spoil belongs to the guys that went to war; the guys who stayed behind get nothing.»
But David said, «The spoil goes equally to the guys who went to war and to those who guarded the baggage.» Everybody in this room has a role, and some of you may just be guarding baggage because of what you’ve gone through. I’m here to tell you that’s legal; just be facing the right direction. I’m very serious: it’s not a time to be careless, but it’s a time to recognize that, «Okay, I can’t do the 40-day fast right now, but I can skip breakfast.» I’m going to guard my heart; I’m going to guard my relationships; I’m going to protect what I entertain.
We are all in different moments, and recognizing that, «Okay, normally I could watch a car chase if I can use a TV example, but not today.» Just be aimed in the right direction. I am set on not only my recovery but everyone around me. We will recover all. That’s right! And should I gain strength, or if I can do the 40-day fast, or I can engage in the battle, I can get on the streets and minister to the lost—whatever it is—when that comes, I’m there. But until then, I’m at least leaning in the right direction. Does that make sense?
All right, so Father, I pray that for us as a family. I thank you so much for all who have said yes. I want you to say this with me: «I will pursue; I will recover all!» Father, that is our confession, and I pray that everything that happens in this next season—every measure of breakthrough—takes place for your glory, your glory! I am so thankful you are exalted in the fulfillment of your word. I pray that now, in Jesus' name, amen.
One quick question before I turn things over to Dan: there’s always a high chance every time we come together, because of the number of people in the room, that there might be somebody here who doesn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus. You simply don’t know what it is to be born again, to be forgiven, to be a true disciple, a follower of Jesus Christ. Yet, you feel that tugging in your heart where God is literally inviting you to come into the family of God. If there’s anybody here in that place and you say, «Bill, I don’t want to leave this building till I know that I’m forgiven and that I’ve found peace with God. I want to be a disciple—a follower of Jesus.» If that’s you, just put a hand up real quickly because I want to acknowledge you right where you are; I want to make that agreement so the miracle of salvation can begin in your life today. Put a hand up real fast if there’s anybody online in that place. We’ve had many people come to Christ watching services online. I invite you to just write in the box; we’ve got pastors on call there to be able to minister to you. Just say, «I want to know Jesus; I want to receive Jesus.»
All right, so Father, let us be a great blessing as a restorative people to our city today. In Jesus' name!