Bill Johnson - There Is Hope For What You Are Facing
All right, this is actually a sign in front of a church. It said, «Deacon Joe Battle’s funeral is canceled; he is alive after all.» I don’t even understand how you can schedule a funeral if the person’s not dead. Oh well, I don’t need a Valentine; I need $8 million and a fast metabolism. My favorite exercise is a cross between a lunge and a crunch; it’s called lunch. Being cremated is my last hope for a smoking hot body. That’s just gross. Teach your kids about taxes—eat 30% of their ice cream. This older couple is looking at each other; the wife says, «You told me you’d spend your whole life trying to make me happy.» He responded, «I didn’t expect to live this long.» There’s a sign in a restaurant near the restrooms: «Men to the left because women are always right.» This picture in a restaurant has a bowl of eggs, and a sign on the bowl says, «Boneless chicken.» Two more signs on the front of a store say, «Push. If that doesn’t work, pull. If that doesn’t work, we must be closed.» The last one is one I read every once in a while; it was a Mother’s Day card written by my grandson Cruz, who I believe was five at the time. To his mother, he wrote, «My mom is as pretty as a dancing princess; she is as sweet as a horse; she is as smart as God.» We’re working on his theology, but most of all, she is special, like a dragon that is nice and can shoot water out of its mouth. No woman has ever received as great a Mother’s Day card as that. Now, that’s at the top of the list.
Grab your Bibles and open to the book of Isaiah, chapter 35, if you would. We’re going to look at some chapters I like to read. I enjoy going through the Bible book by book, section by section—like the gospels, maybe the epistles, the books of law, whatever. That’s how I like to approach the scriptures. I also have portions that I turn to randomly, which I call recreational reading, and Isaiah 35 is one of those recreational chapters. It’s been very meaningful to me for quite a few years—goodness, going way back to Weaverville days. We’ve been here 22 years, and it was probably 35 years ago at least that I first stumbled upon this chapter. For what it’s worth, something I saw clearer this morning than ever before was the relationship of hope to joy. I didn’t realize—I don’t know why it didn’t cross my mind—but I didn’t realize that joy is actually connected to hope, and that where you find hopelessness, you find no joy, and where you find great hope, you find great joy. I think it may be possible—I need to think through this—but I think it may be possible in some ways to measure a person’s hope by measuring their joy.
When you understand what the word hope means, it helps that to make sense in present culture. Hope for us is like a wish: «I hope that happens.» It’s like a shot in the dark. But biblical hope is completely different; it couldn’t be more different than you can imagine. The word hope in the Bible is the joyful anticipation of good. That’s actually what the word means. So it’s joy before you get what you were praying for; it’s the anticipation of good that equals the measure of joy as to how you feel after you get the breakthrough.
In another month or so, we’ll have a World Series. I love baseball; it has always been our family’s sport. There will be a winner of the World Series, and there will be people in the locker room testifying that they are thankful to God for giving them their gift, their opportunity. I love seeing that, because if you can’t give God thanks in the good times, you’re a mess; you need help—maybe deliverance. I don’t know. I’m always thankful to see those reports, but that kind of joy is not that hard to stir up because it’s in response to something wonderful happening to you—maybe something you worked for or maybe it’s just a blessing out of nothing. I remember years ago, my wife’s parents went into a particular grocery store here locally; I think they were the 100,000th customer. As they walked through the doors, the bells rang, and they were given a brand new Toyota Camry. It’s not hard to rejoice when you’ve just won a brand-new car; you didn’t do anything—you just happened to go shopping and you won the car. You rejoice, of course!
But the biblical word of hope is actually measured in a joy that is expressed before there’s anything to rejoice for. It’s not wishful thinking; it’s not based on nothing. It’s based on the actual nature and character of God. It’s based on his prevailing word over your life and mine. We live conscious of the heart of God, the mind of God, the nature of God, and his devotion or commitment to us. Because of that, I may not know what’s always happening, but I can always live with hope because I know that nothing I’m facing caught him off guard. Many things I’m facing right now caught me off guard; they caught me by surprise. But there’s nothing I’m facing that caught him by surprise. So I can always return to that place of confidence, knowing that even though I didn’t know to expect this, my relationship with him has kept me positioned to be a person of hope.
I can actually celebrate the answer before I know what the answer is going to look like, before it ever even comes. That really is the life of a believer. Our responsibility in life is to live with hope that is actually contagious. It’s infectious. There’s a kind of, oh, it’s kind of a phony faith that just denies reality, and I don’t like that because real faith doesn’t deny the existence of a problem. Real faith denies the problem a place of influence. I don’t ignore the fact that I’ve got this doctor’s report, or I’ve got this bill that is due, or this relational conflict, or whatever. I may not have answers for these things that I’m facing, but I know that my Father does. I know that when Jesus died, he took into full consideration everything I would ever face in life. He died in my place for my sin; he went to the absolute outer reaches of what love looks like, and the implication of scripture is that if he would do that, certainly everything that is less than that is covered.
Does that make sense? I just paraphrased a great verse in my own words; it didn’t work as well, but here it is: If he went that far, certainly everything this side of that extreme act of love is covered by that same act of love. How will he not also freely give us all things? So we have in Isaiah 35 the first couple of verses that start with these verses of hope. Let me give you some prophetic language here. I did a study a long time ago—in the Weaverville days—where I looked for every place I could find water in the Old Testament. So there would be mentions of rivers, streams, springs, rain—any kind of manifestation of water. What I did was look at all these prophecies these prophets would say, like «He will bring streams in the desert» or «rivers on the mountains.» There are all these terms that are so unusual. While I believe there’s application of these kinds of promises for nature itself, ultimately what God is looking at is the barrenness of the human heart. He’s looking at the barrenness of the human condition and giving a promise of a solution.
So anyway, I lined up every verse I could find. What I found was that no matter what Israel was facing—sometimes they were facing military threats from nations set against them—sometimes they were tasting the fruit of their own choices for generations. They might be facing disease or whatever it might be. It seemed that no matter what the problem was, when God brought a promise, it was always in the form of water. He would say, «They’re surrounded by enemy nations.» It’s all right: «I’m going to bring streams in the desert.» «Rivers won’t help us, God; we actually need to defeat our enemies.» But his terminology is what you and I need to align with because if you do, you’ll understand the language of the prophets in scripture. Whenever I don’t want to say it’s 100% of the time, but it’s pretty close—whenever water is mentioned in scripture, it represents the Holy Spirit. So no matter the problem, God’s answer was, «I’m just going to release the Holy Spirit to you. I’m going to send you the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the early and latter rain. I’m going to give you streams in the desert,» and we see this terminology throughout the Old Testament. It’s basically a prophecy of God releasing his presence and power as the one cure-all. There are responsibilities we have in life, but this increase of presence is really the big cry of the human heart.
All right, Isaiah 35, you ready? Yes, Bill, we’re ready. Amen. Verse one: «The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them; the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly.» I just love the word abundance! «Blossom abundantly» and rejoice—flowers are rejoicing even with joy and singing. «The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the excellence of Carmel and Sharon; they shall see the glory of the Lord, the excellency of our God.» So what is this? This is a barren area that is visited by God until the blooms are blossoming with abundance. The ultimate is they finally see the glory of God, which in this passage is defined as the excellency of God.
Are you tracking with me? So here they are in this place, and in hope, all of a sudden they have this wellspring of joy rising up in them because they have so connected with God’s promise and purpose over their life that there is abundance. They are flourishing; there’s life where there’s always been death, and now this joy is just stirring up, and they’re seeing him. The ultimate is to see the glory of God, which is the excellency of God himself. So we’ve got this as the backdrop for the rest of the chapter.
Now, verse three: «Strengthen the weak hands, make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are fearful-hearted, 'Be strong; do not fear. Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God; he will come and save you.'» Look at those two verses again: «Strengthen the weak hands.» Now, here’s the thing: verses three and four are the two verses in the chapter where you and I are commissioned to do something. All right? We’ve got the backdrop of God changing circumstances—the backdrop where he just shows up in an extraordinary way—and then he says, «Here’s your job: strengthen the weak hands; make firm the feeble knees; say to those who are fearful-hearted, 'Be strong; do not fear; behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God; he will come and save you.'»
This is interesting because out of a life immersed in hope, we are able to step up to the person who is not in hope—the person who is faltering, the person who is at the place of personal weakness. All of us have been in that place of weakness; we’ve all been in the place of strength. This is giving us the backdrop: listen, you are being immersed in the purposes of God. You have a reason to live with hope every day of your life. In fact, to the measure you are without hope, to that measure you are under the influence of a lie. No one who truly believes what God has said is without hope. There is nothing you and I will ever face that caught him by surprise nor was not already included in his solution.
One of the strangest things in scripture to me is where it talks about Jesus being crucified from before the foundations of the earth. Picture this: before the world was made, God the Father and the Son already made a decision: «We’re going to create a world; we’re going to create people in our image; they will sin.» So there was already the commitment in the heart of Jesus: «I will die in their place.» What does that mean? Before there was a problem, there was a solution. Yeah, that’s amazing! So when you and I hit something that’s brand new to us, it’s not new to him. Before there was a problem, there was already a solution.
So here he gives us the commission: «All right, find those that are in the place of weakness; strengthen their hands. They’re not able to work as they’re supposed to; strengthen their knees.» What does that look like? I don’t know. I just remember years ago a friend of mine that was fresh out of the military talked about how they would have to run these great distances, and sometimes one of their troops would just lose all strength and collapse. So they would run over to them because they’re all graded as a group. One person would take the backpack and put it on top of their own backpack; two other soldiers would take the soldier by the arms, and they would actually carry him the rest of the race. He didn’t have the strength to finish the race on his own, so two others who had strength would carry him the rest of the race until they finished. Maybe that’s what it is. Maybe it’s the fact that we stand with one another and we help hold each other up until our knees are strengthened, until we reach a place where we can carry out the very thing that God called us to do.
But it didn’t stop there with just physical service, a touch, or an embrace; holding somebody up—it moves into a prophetic realm that I don’t think was, um, I don’t see this passage as somebody waiting to get a word from God so they can prophesy to their friend. Instead, I think this is an automatic decree that we owe to one another because we know the nature of God and the overriding promise of God for any situation in our lives. So what is it? Say to the one who is fearful: «Don’t be afraid; God is going to vindicate you. With full recompense, everything that’s been lost, he will restore to you.»
Why is that important? It’s not just empty encouragement. How many of you know what I mean when I say empty encouragement? It’s somebody who’s trying hard but doesn’t hit the mark and doesn’t fix anything. This is actually the release of the grace of God into an individual’s life that helps to bring them into the very answer that they ache for. So look at it again: «Say, here, I’m strengthening hands, strengthening knees. Now, don’t be afraid; don’t be afraid; God’s going to vindicate you. There’s nothing we are facing that he hasn’t already provided a solution for. He will fully restore everything to you.» They may not have the ability to face that thing on their own, but it’s all right because we’ve got their arms, and we’re standing there bringing that kind of encouragement.
Why is this vital to me? In fact, in my Bible, I wrote Ephesians 4:29 down next to this passage because it perfectly illustrates the truth that I saw in Ephesians 4:29. Here’s the verse: «Let no unwholesome word proceed out of your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it might give grace to those who hear.» All right? No negative words. Encouraging words only. Only edifying words according to the need of the moment. So it has specific application that it might give grace to those who hear.
That’s the fascinating part to me: that I could come to you with an encouraging word, and somehow that would bring grace. Where does grace come from? It comes from God. Grace is what? It’s God’s favor. Okay, work with me here. It’s God’s favor. I take this individual, I come to them with an encouraging word and I say, «Don’t be afraid; don’t be afraid; God’s going to vindicate you. He will fully supply whatever was stolen from you. I will stand with you; we’re going to see this through. God will fully vindicate every loss you’ve ever suffered.» We make this decree, but here’s what scripture says: when we bring that word of edification according to the need of the moment, it gives grace. Where does grace come from? God.
So let me put it in my language: he sees me choosing an individual to encourage, and he says, «All right, that is where I will add grace. I will now release divine favor where my son has shown favor.» We don’t manipulate or control God, but he’s given us permission. Every person in the room has been given the ministry of reconciliation. It’s in First Corinthians. Every one of us has certain overlapping responsibilities, and in this case, the responsibility is to stand as one who believes in The Vindicator. I can’t vindicate you; I can’t fully provide for you what was lost, but I can stand with you out of my confidence because I have hope—out of my confidence in who God is and his promise that prevails over my life and your life. I can say, «He will fully vindicate.» God sees me bringing the edification according to the need of the moment, and he says, «I will now add my power, called grace, into the equation, which will help to bring about the vindication I have promised.»
Will it happen if you don’t say it? See, the Lord doesn’t give us commissions that he’ll carry out if we don’t; he doesn’t give us an assignment: «Go into all the world, preach the gospel,» but if you guys just get too tired or whatever, it’s all right. «I’ll do it myself,» or «If you don’t go, I’ll send angels.» My goodness, I’d rather have angels sent anywhere. There are some 20-foot angels standing on a street corner; they’d probably have a bigger response than any of us. Or Jesus will just show up in the flesh. If that’s the option, let’s just have him do it. When he gives us a commission, it’s because he has imparted to us a divine enablement, grace, and a responsibility to carry out the assignment.
So my question is, I’ve got the weak faltering person next to me, that needs someone to strengthen, someone to grab an arm, stand with them, bring encouraging words to them, but then prophesy: «God will vindicate you.» Is it possible that some of the things we’ve waited for him to do have been delayed because he’s been waiting for us to do the thing he assigned us to do? We’ve seen it before. I’ve seen it a number of times in my life where I’ve waited and waited, and I found out after a while that he was waiting for me—waiting for me to act, waiting for me to obey, to take a risk, whatever it might be. All that time, I blamed the absence of something on the sovereignty of God when, in fact, it was just the lack of risk and obedience on my part.
So here we have the verses: «Strengthen the weak hands, make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are fearful-hearted: 'Be strong; do not fear; behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God; he will come and save you.'» Look at verse five: «Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened; the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped; the lame will leap like a deer; the tongue of the dumb will sing.» For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert! Do you see this? Then the eyes will be opened, the ears will be opened, the lame will leap, the tongue will speak—the everything healed, everything restored! What did it follow? It followed the decree made by the hope-filled believer.
Notice the language, the prophetic language used in this passage to illustrate a supernatural invasion into a person’s life. «Then the eyes of the blind will be opened; the ears of the deaf will be unstopped; the lame will leap like a deer; the tongue of the dumb will speak. For I will have poured out rivers; waters shall burst forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.» There’s that prophetic language. He says, «This healing takes place.» Why? Because streams of water are released—my presence comes to you like rain.
I remember standing right here in the School of Ministry, a second-year class—actually, I think it was first year—several years ago. Someone asked me a question about worship, and it started raining right here inside the building—just started raining. I thought the rain was always spiritual. Sometimes it just rains where it shouldn’t—like indoors. You must have had a leak up there; yeah, it got repaired right after it stopped raining. The angel who broke it repaired it, apparently. I don’t understand any of that, but I like anything that makes me wonder. I was in Las Vegas years ago. Randy Clark and I were doing an event there, and it started raining indoors. This time, it rained for like three hours. Brian and Jen were leading worship; they led with the song «Rain Down» by Delirious, and it rained down for like three hours. The pastor sent teams up to the roof to find where the leak was, but there was nothing up there; it wasn’t raining, there was no leak—just raining.
Sometimes the Lord does things to offend our brains, to soften our hearts because he wants to do something out of the ordinary, break into the unusual. He wants to bring rivers into dry places, and sometimes that means eyes are opened; sometimes it means deaf ears are healed; sometimes it means the lame walk; and sometimes it means it just rains.
There are people all around this city who ache in their hearts as they go to sleep at night, and it’s all because they don’t know anyone with hope. If they just knew one person that had the rock-solid hope of confidence in God, they would approach life differently.
Let’s look at the rest of the chapter, then we’ll wrap this up. Verse eight: «A highway shall be there, and a road; it shall be called the Highway of Holiness.» A Highway of Holiness! In Psalm—no, Isaiah 62—there’s a highway that’s talked about. A highway is built. If you can picture this, worshippers are like spiritual bulldozers that remove rubble and stones, and as they prepare to build this highway, it’s this unusual picture—it’s in Isaiah 62, I think it’s verse 10. So here’s these worshippers in the spiritual realm who are actually bulldozing atmosphere where a highway is being built.
I know it’s odd terminology, but it’s not mine; it’s Isaiah’s and the Holy Spirit’s. So here’s this highway that’s being built in this chapter. It’s called the Highway of Holiness. Now, I love this because I think one of the most misunderstood things about God himself is the holiness of God. When we see him and stand before him, none of us will stand and say, «Love, love,» even though he is love. None of us will stand and say, «Good, good,» or «Great, great.» Everyone who sees him says, «Holy, holy, holy!» See, holiness is the actual beauty of God. It’s called the beauty of holiness.
Holiness is one of the things the enemy fears the most in his people because holiness is the actual representation of the nature and presence of God into culture and society. The enemy has worked hard to reduce holiness to a list of rules—things you can do, things you can’t do. It’s not that; it’s a person. It’s the essence of a person, his own beauty, his own wonder. This particular passage describes the backdrop of hope—the people of God getting in there, bringing encouragement and prophetic decrees, the invasion of the supernatural into those people’s lives, and out of that comes this Highway of Holiness.
It’s amazing what people are willing to pay a price for when they discover it’s authentic and it’s real. It’s amazing what people will lay down to pick up something else when they find out this is the pearl of great price. Everything else I own is nothing compared to this, and the holiness of God actually reveals the very nature of God imparted to the people of God. His purpose is all wrapped up in this thing called holiness, and here a Highway of Holiness is built.
«The unclean shall not pass over it; it shall be for others.» Now my translation, the New King James, is a little different than I think both the New American Standard and the New International, but I want you to hear it: «Whoever walks on the road, although a fool, shall not go astray.» I love that! I love that this road is so wide that you can get somebody on their worst day, and they’re still not going to fall off the road. That encourages me! It may not encourage you, but I like that verse: «A Highway of Holiness that has been made so broad and so profound that the weak, instead of faltering, somehow become a success when in a previous season, they never would have made it.»
Verse nine: «No lion will be there, nor any ravenous beast go upon it; it shall not be found there.» The redeemed shall walk there! Here’s our last verse: «The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness.» All right, listen to what it said: «They will come with joy and obtain joy.» Anyone in the market for an upgrade in joy? Will it embarrass you? Anyone in the market for an upgrade in joy?
They saw it! «When joy—it’s amazing how many people want joy until they see it! They will come with joy and obtain joy and gladness; sorrow and sighing shall flee away.» Here’s my prayer; in fact, I’ll just pray. Lord, my cry is that an upgrade of hope would be released into this church family. How many of you are tired of being impacted by the size of a problem, and you want to impact the problem with the size of your hope? Size? Yeah, amen!
So, Lord, we do—we just pray that you would so impact every single one of us that we would never again be impressed with the size of a problem or a dilemma or a challenge, but instead, so infected and driven by the size of great hope that we would be an instrument of solution, an instrument of the release of grace, of miracles into the most broken environment.
How many of you want the upgrade in joy? We pray for that, Lord. I pray right now that you would release to us a hope that is actually measurable in joy. That never again would we fall under the influence of the size of a problem, but instead, our own joy would be that life-giving spring within us that not only impacts us and our families but impacts everybody around us. We pray this in Jesus' mighty name.
Yeah, I just pray that that would just increase. In fact, I pray that some of you would wake yourselves up laughing to where you’re embarrassed. The cool thing is you can be so intoxicated by joy that you’re no longer embarrassed. So I pray for that level to be released over every single person. Every person tonight’s going to be one of those nights. I know anytime we have this many people in a room, there’s always a good chance that we have people here who don’t have an actual personal relationship with Jesus.
The Bible throws out this cry: «Whoever wills may come.» In other words, the invitation is open to every single person to know what the forgiveness of God is like, to know what it’s like to be adopted, brought into his family as his son or daughter. This, that the Bible calls salvation or being born again, is available for every single person in the room. I’m going to ask everyone to please just hold your places because this moment is the most important moment of the day. If there’s anyone here who would just say, «Bill, I don’t want to leave the building until I know I’ve been forgiven, that I’m at peace with God; that he welcomes me into his family,» if there’s anyone in that position today, I want you to just put a hand up. By doing so, you’re saying those words, «Bill, I don’t want to leave the building until I know I’m at peace with God; I’ve been forgiven of all sin; I’ve been adopted, brought into his family.»
I’ll wait just a moment; it’s worth waiting for, but I want to make sure that everyone, anyone who’s here that is not born again has the opportunity to meet Jesus. All right, I’m going to assume you’re all in. Let’s go ahead and stand together. Please continue to hold your places. I want to have the ministry team come on down to the front quickly if you would. I want to have our teams of people down here ready to help, to serve, to pray, and then anyone who needs a miracle in your body, maybe in your finances, it could be in any area. We’ve got people here who just believe God for a miracle for you. We’ve had great reports this morning in our early prayer meeting—one of our former janitors who is now a missionary, which is a logical leap, led someone to the Lord in the country they are in, and this couple, their home has become literally a healing center. People have lined up; they fill the home. They’ve only been saved a year, but they lay hands on the sick—there are people getting healed like crazy. And that’s just what happens when you say yes to Jesus.