Bill Johnson - How to Discern God's Voice When He Speaks
Yeah. Happy Easter! It’s challenging to find a humorous story that fits with Easter, but I have one. Most of you have already heard it, but I still like it. A man, his wife, and his mother-in-law went on vacation to the Holy Land. While they were there, the mother-in-law passed away. The undertaker told them, «You can have her shipped home for $5,000, or you can bury her here in the Holy Land for $150.» The man thought about it and said he’d rather have her shipped home. The undertaker asked, «Why? Why would you spend $5,000 to ship your mother-in-law home when it would be wonderful to have her buried here and spend only $150?» The man replied, «A man died here 2,000 years ago. He was buried here. Three days later, he rose from the dead. I just can’t take that chance.» Well, happy Easter!
I like that the Bible condemns traditions, but in light of what it condemns, it’s always those traditions that replace Scripture and are opposed to Scripture, where people actually value their traditions more than what the word of God says. The condemnation towards traditions of celebrating certain themes, days, or events is never aimed at what the Bible addresses. Those traditions are actually significant, and I know that many of you were able to join us for the Good Friday service this week, which I loved so much. I love those events. I love when we get together with the body of Christ in Redding and at multiple events down at the civic. We weren’t able to this year, but hopefully next year we’ll be able to do so.
I really enjoy those moments, and I enjoy seeing parents bring their children out, even though I know it’s a hassle. I remember when our kids were young; everything that involves that nature is challenging. It’s a real challenge of faith. But sometimes we illustrate what we value by what we are willing to pay the price for, and unintentionally we train our children and our friends, even family members, on what’s important to us by what we’re willing to endure for a hassle. Honestly, we build valuable things into the lives of our children and in our own hearts. Easter is one of those significant things. I know, early on as a pastor, I rarely spoke on whatever season it was; I just talked about whatever came to mind. Lately, I’ve been warming up to the idea of paying attention to the calendar. Pay attention to the calendar. Christmas is enjoyable—enjoy it!
I remember one year at the theater in Weaverville, we were going to have this Christmas play-type event, and we had to cancel it for many reasons. So, I got up and announced that the Christmas musical was canceled. There was a little kid up in the balcony section who didn’t hear «musical.» All he heard was «Christmas,» and that I canceled it. I didn’t know I had that kind of authority, but he figured I did. He threw himself on the floor, wailing and gnashing his teeth because I canceled Christmas. I didn’t do it! It was just a musical.
Anyway, I want to talk to you today. We’re going to get into the resurrection story a little bit, but I will kind of back my way into it. We’ll go into Romans chapter 6. We’re going to look at two portions of Scripture—Romans 6 and then also in Mark 15 and 16. We’ll wrap those two together. What I want to do is talk to you about faith, but it will be a different kind of faith message. Usually, when I think of speaking about faith, I think of getting amped up to believe for the impossible—that’s always the case. But what I’m looking at is a bit different. The Lord has initiated this relational journey for us.
Here, let me bring something to mind. Hebrews 11:6 says, «It’s impossible to please Him apart from faith.» That means faith is significant because establishing favor and increasing the pleasure of the Lord is connected to our life of faith in many ways. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in recent years is that faith doesn’t grow from striving; it grows from surrender. It’s the place of yieldedness that brings me into greater and greater faith. If we can keep those things in mind, it keeps us from the hype that is a counterfeit to real faith. You can’t self-will your way into great faith. I’ve heard people say, «I’m just going to believe God,» as though they could will themselves into great faith. That’s not quite how it works.
Faith comes in one of two ways: it’s either a fruit of the Spirit or a gift of the Spirit. In Galatians 5, it is mentioned as a fruit of the Spirit. Many of your translations will use the word «faithfulness,» but it’s the exact same word for faith as you find in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, which discusses the gift of faith. Let’s talk about these two things. The fruit of the Spirit is faith; the gift of the Spirit is faith. Fruit means it’s something you can develop with use, so you can increase its size and impact through use. It’s like a muscle—you develop it through use.
I had someone years ago tell me they had zero faith, no faith whatsoever. I was trying to figure out what they did with it because God gives every person a measure of faith. So, I’m not sure if they left it somewhere or what they did. But oftentimes, we look in the wrong places for faith because faith doesn’t come out of determination; it comes out of surrender in relationship. Another important point about faith before we read the Scripture is that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. I think we studied this two or three weeks ago.
Faith comes from hearing. Faith is the evidence of a current relationship where you’re hearing from God. Faith comes from hearing; hearing comes from the word of God. So, my capacity to hear is enhanced through the reading of Scripture. It’s pouring the word of God into me that increases my capacity to hear. This is vital because the Bible also says, «A man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.» I live because He talks. I’m alive because He speaks. The very fact that God speaks—He breathes His word into my heart day after day, hour after hour—is evidence that I’m alive. He keeps me alive with His voice.
The mistake we often make is that we find ourselves in a position where we’re just not hearing His voice. Well, in fact, I asked you the question: how many of you have had times where you couldn’t hear His voice well, but you could sense His presence? Yes! The point is that’s His voice. We tend to measure His voice by what we comprehend instead of by who’s in the room. He is the living word; He is the word of God. When He comes in presence like that, He’s generally depositing things in our spirit that are too big or too significant for our mind.
So, let me back away here. Stay away from that hole; it’s a good hole, but I just may not recover. He speaks to your spirit. He deposits things. For example, you’re sitting here in His presence, worshipping—great worship! We’re enjoying Him. There’s this interaction between the Holy Spirit and your spirit. The Bible says we worship God in spirit and truth. To worship in spirit means we engage with the Holy Spirit Himself, who guides us and empowers us during this time of thanksgiving and praise.
To worship in truth means nothing is hidden. I am here with all my pain, breakthroughs, testimonies, questions—all my stuff is laid out on the table. I’m not presumptuous; I don’t pretend to be something I’m not. I’m here as a child who has problems, laying it all before You, and it’s all a part of my worship expression. There’s something about that kind of interaction where you know you’ve experienced something insurmountable, and you can’t explain it, but you walk out of that moment with peace. You don’t know what to do, but it’s almost like it doesn’t even matter. In fact, you can worry yourself into thinking you’re not being responsible because you’re not fearful. And yet, in those moments, the peace of God comes. What happened? He ministered deeper than your mind could comprehend at that moment.
If we don’t learn to recognize that, we won’t know that He is actually speaking words of life into us that keep us alive. There are times when the Lord speaks to you. In fact, Job has this great dialogue where he talks about God visiting us in the night, putting things in our heart that are too big for us to handle if He gave them to us in the day. The reason is that we become egocentric or think more highly of ourselves than would be healthy. God deposits these things deeply in us, and over time, they mature and come to the surface. The point is that God is always talking to us.
The problem with many of us is we sit in our spiritual recliners, basically saying, «God, I’m hungry for revival. If you want me to experience it, you know where I’m at. Just come and visit me.» That kind of approach to God is dangerous because it means you’re only going to get what He has sovereignly determined for you, and your hunger plays no role in the outcome of your life.
Let me put it a different way. It’s true, but it didn’t sound right. Most of what you need in life is brought to you; most of what you want, you’ll have to go get. There is a responsibility to seek and pursue. Even the spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 are repeated in 14, where it says to earnestly pursue spiritual gifts. The revelation of gifts does not bring gifts themselves; they must be pursued independently because they are already in the word.
All right, let’s jump right into Romans 6. Since you’re giving me that deer-in-the-headlights look, let’s find some Scripture so we can redeem this moment. Verse 4 of chapter 6 says, «Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life.» What Paul is doing here is teaching about the death and resurrection of Christ while also teaching about water baptism. He uses the picture of being immersed in water, which symbolizes the grave. He says you’re buried in the death of Christ. When you come up out of the water, there’s a newness of life imparted to you that you can’t get otherwise. Physical obedience brings spiritual release. Don’t question what good it does; just do what He says. Amen, Bill! That was a great point. I’ll buy into that one.
Verse 5 states, «If we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.» Knowing this, that our old man—that’s not a relative of yours, but your old nature—was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. Now, let’s jump ahead. The whole chapter is profound, but let’s go to verse 11.
«Likewise, you also reckon or consider yourself to be dead to sin.» This is one of the most stunning chapters in the Bible. Follow this logic with me. First of all, did you know that we know that the cross and the shedding of blood made forgiveness of sin possible? Yes. Blood cannot be atoned for apart from the shedding of blood. Jesus' sacrifice made that possible. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, which is a profound mystery, «Without the resurrection, you are still in your sins.» So it’s the blood, but it’s also the resurrection—it’s two sides of the same coin. The death was necessary; without a resurrection, you don’t get life.
Here are the two absolute theological cornerstones for all that we believe: number one, Jesus died in my place. He died for me. He died for you. He suffered a brutal death to atone for our sin. Secondly, on the third day, He was raised from the dead, never to die again. Everyone Jesus raised from the dead during His earthly ministry died again, but this was the firstborn from the dead, never to die again. Two absolutes, would you agree? Verse 11 says, «Even so, as real as those two realities are, think of yourself as dead to sin.»
Is there anyone else in the room here that I should be talking to? In the same way that those two realities are absolutely true, equal in absoluteness is the fact that you are dead to sin. The enemy targets the mind so much because if I believe a lie, I empower the liar. If I think inconsistently with this, it’s not mind over matter; it’s the discovery of truth. It’s discovering the greatest reality— the death and resurrection of Christ.
Absolutely true! Now let your thinking be shaped by those two realities. The conclusion is He says, «Consider, reckon.» It really means to add up; do the math. He died, rose again. It’s your life! I’m dead to sin. That’s the only possible conclusion when you actually believe those two things. I like to put it this way: Jesus never took away any of our ability to sin; He just took away our ability to enjoy it. How many have made stupid decisions, and you were miserable?
All right, let’s move over now to Mark chapter 15. We’re going to read two verses there, and then I want to move on to Mark 16. All right, there we are.
15:31 states, «Likewise, the chief priests also mocking among themselves, with the scribes, said, 'He saved others; Himself He cannot save.'» Verse 32 says, «Let the Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe.» Even those who were crucified with Him reviled Him. Here’s the phrase that really gets to me, which I just wanted to camp on for a moment: «Let the Christ, the King of Israel, descend from the cross so that we may see and believe.»
Nobody sets their own parameters for growing in faith. No one has the right to say, «God, You do this, and I will believe.» It is not the product of determination and self-will. It is the product of the Spirit’s work in a surrendered person’s life. The sooner we get that arrogant notion out of our system—the idea that I’m determined to do this or that—and instead have the ambition to surrender and illustrate the nature and character of Christ in our lives, the more we start seeing things differently.
These religious leaders had no right to even make the claim of, «We will believe if He does these certain things.» It would be a fascinating study to see all the things that were presented to Jesus as suggestions. Like when Peter said, «Don’t die; that’s a bad plan.» That wasn’t a good idea. And the devil said, «Turn the stone into bread.» There’s a whole list of them. Thankfully, He knew when to recognize what was from the Father.
Verse 1 of chapter 16 says, «When the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices that they might come and anoint Him.» Very early in the morning on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. They said among themselves, «Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?» But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, for it was very large.
Entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. He said to them, «Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen.» There are the coolest three words ever spoken: «He is risen.» He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. But go tell His disciples and Peter, which is interesting. It’s not that Peter wasn’t a disciple; he just needed a little extra attention. Sometimes every one of us has needed a little extra nudge.
Jesus was kind enough to give it to Peter. So He said, «Go tell the disciples and Peter that He is going before you into Galilee, where you will see Him as He said to you.» That’s an amazing promise, isn’t it? «Go to Galilee; you’ll see Him for yourself.» They went out quickly, fled from the tomb, trembling and amazed, and said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
When He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons. She went and told those who had been with Him as they mourned and wept, and when they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. Let’s stop there for a moment.
Let’s read the next three verses. After that, He appeared in another form to two of them as they walked in the country. They went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either. Verse 14 states, «He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table. He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen.»
I return to the story because you know how you have places you’re familiar with in Scripture and you return to them for what I call recreational reading? It’s just where you go to be refreshed by what is spoken. This portion has meant a lot to me personally because it shows me how to deal with mourning.
Every one of us has disappointment; every one of us has loss; we all experience stuff for which we have no explanation. You just get that in life, and if you don’t know how to navigate it, you end up crippled. You can call it whatever you want; you can say, «Well, that’s just not my gift; that’s not my calling.» But really, you’re just resisting stepping into who you are because you’re hurt.
The issue of pain leads you in one of two directions. Mourning is biblical if it takes you to God. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Say it again: comforted! Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Here’s the point: there’s one route to take in mourning that leads you to God. I don’t have the answers; I don’t have solutions; I don’t have some great strategy. All I know is who to come to.
I come to this place in abandonment, often in worship—in the sacrifice of thanksgiving when it doesn’t feel good. But I do it anyway. In engaging with the person of the Holy Spirit, He comes and comforts. There’s one direction where mourning leads to the comforter, and the other takes you to unbelief. We can call it various religious titles, but the bottom line is, «I’m in pain; I don’t have answers,» and I keep the routine up. I may not be as involved in that area anymore; I just suffered great loss.
I’m not going to pray for the sick like I used to, and it’s not always thought through; it’s just what we do. We react to suffering loss with cancer and think someone else has the anointing for that, so I’ll seek people with injured legs instead. We rationalize instead of confronting the areas we need to be healed in. When He brings healing to a broken heart, it doesn’t initially start with answers. Most of the time, I don’t need answers anyway; I need a person, I need presence. If I can have the peace that passes understanding, I’m good.
For me, that has meant giving up my right to understand. There’s something about engaging with the person of the Holy Spirit, where I’m engaging with Him in surrender. I’m not there to dictate to Him; I’m not there so I can become successful in life. I’m there because He’s God, and I am not. I think I mentioned it last week; I saw the sign that said, «The only difference between you and God is that He’s not trying to be you.»
Excuse me, that’s not the only difference, but you get the point!
This issue of mourning, then, leads us in one of two directions: either it takes us to healing and comfort from the Comforter or it leads us to unbelief. Now picture the eleven huddled together in a home; they’re scared to death because Jesus was just brutally murdered before their eyes, and they’re afraid they might be next. If there’s anything they don’t feel, it’s resistant to truth. You feel demoralized; you might feel weakened. There are probably tears and a lot of emotional stuff going on in that room.
But the one thing you don’t feel like is hard-heartedness, and yet when Jesus walks in the room, He rebukes them for their hardness of heart. You see, hardness of heart isn’t evident through strong self-will. Hard-heartedness is often evident in the unwillingness to deal with the pain in your life—an unwillingness to come to the Lord for healing from that which makes no sense.
What happens is it builds a resistance in us. The scary thing for me about this story is that here are the guys who are going to carry the message to shape the course of world history, and Jesus starts off His relationship with them with a rebuke. This is His first interaction with them after the resurrection, and He’s telling them, «Listen, I sent messengers to you, and you didn’t believe them. I told you ahead of time what would happen. Then I sent messengers.»
Here’s part of the problem: the first messenger was Mary Magdalene. In this male-dominated culture, women were counted as less. That’s not right, but that was the culture of the day. So these leaders didn’t value the testimony of women. Who does Jesus first reveal Himself to? Not just any woman but Mary Magdalene, the demonized, tormented one. That’s who Jesus chooses first.
Part of the problem is that you have to learn to recognize when God is speaking—not because it makes sense to you, but because you recognize the presence of God released when they speak. I know that may sound abstract, but I’ve been harping on that for years, and I feel like the Lord wants to bring it up again. It’s recognizing the presence.
Jesus taught this in John 6, this incredible chapter where He multiplies food first. The crowd is there with at least 15,000 people (it was 5,000 men, plus women and children). So we’re looking at maybe 15,000 to 20,000 people. Jesus multiplied a boy’s lunch to feed them all—the lunch of someone who wasn’t counted. He multiplied the food of one who didn’t count, but it counted to Him.
Then, in that dialogue, He tells everybody they have to eat His flesh and drink His blood, which grosses everyone out. He doesn’t bother doing the pastoral thing of giving an explanation. He could have calmed everyone down by taking them through their own Jewish history to show them where it was foretold how this would come up. But He didn’t bother.
He didn’t want a group of people that were together because they all agreed. Towards the end of this time, people started leaving, and He makes this comment: «My words to you are spirit, and they are life.» My words become presence, and that presence gives life. Every word that comes to us from the heart of God carries presence with it. But if I only analyze based on my reasoning, sometimes I’ll get it right, and sometimes I’ll get it wrong.
I’m not saying reasoning is wrong; please don’t misunderstand me because we’re supposed to analyze truth. But there are times where I was sitting in a kitchen at a ministry house here in Redding, and a guy sat across the table from me, sharing his testimony. I just met him days earlier, and inside, every alarm the Holy Spirit put in me was going off. My brain was enjoying the story, and my mind basically told my heart to be quiet. So I sat there and listened to this guy go on and on about how Jesus did this and Jesus did that, only to find out in about a week or two that he had been stealing from people, creating false bank accounts, and literally set himself up as a so-called Christian to work with Christian businessmen, plundering and stealing from them.
The alarms went off because there was no life in his words, but his words were impressive. Are you getting the picture here? His words stirred my curiosity because they were like stories I had heard of great things that God had done, but he duplicated them and tricked me into sitting there thinking, «Oh, amen, what a glorious story!»
I had to ignore everything in me saying, «This isn’t right.» Another time, I was at a big conference, thousands of people. I was in the front row as one of the speakers, and right in front of me was a woman singing the wrong words, the wrong notes, at the wrong time. Some of you have such deep powers of concentration that you would have done fine, but I was fighting through it.
I’d been to enough of these conferences. In fact, I was at one in New Zealand with Danny Silk. We were standing together, and there was this girl who would wait until it was silent and then sing things that weren’t in the song at all—with this false, loud soprano voice—and the two young ladies in front of her would start giggling. They would stay there for like 45 minutes, getting their composure back each time, going back to worship.
When the worship ended, I walked up to those two girls—I gave them $20 each and said, «You earned this.» They knew exactly what I meant. I was impressed; I would have turned around to find another place to stand, but they just stayed there. Then I had this woman doing the singing—annoying, but I knew enough not to judge her.
I just tried to distance myself from the annoying sounds because I had been wrong too many times. I’ve looked stupid too many times when I reached the wrong conclusion. So I knew that was always a remote possibility. I just stood there and tried to worship the best I could. Pretty soon, Heidi Baker came over next to me, leaned over, and said, «Isn’t that beautiful?»
I went, «Yes! Yes, it’s beautiful!» But it required greater faith than I was accustomed to operating in. «Isn’t that beautiful?» She said, «Yeah, she was a prostitute for 37 years, and now she’s free.» I thought, «Yeah, you can sing anything you want!» In fact, I’ll gladly give you the microphone for my next session.
What was happening there? There was life in what she was doing. The confusion caused me not to recognize it. Another story I recall—there was warning happening, but my intellectual pleasure in the story canceled my discernment. Are you getting the picture?
The Lord wants us to learn the source of life itself. Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from His mouth. We live because He speaks; we are alive because He talks to us. Our comprehension of His word, word by word, His voice, word by word, is not the measure for recognizing His voice; it’s the impact of His presence.
Verse 14 states, «Again, later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table. He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen.»
Nobody wants to be gullible, right? Nobody wants to look stupid, but for Chris and me, it matters a lot. No one wants to be left looking foolish because you believed something dumb. We’ve seen people sneak into the church and plunder, steal money, and other stupid things just by being gullible. But the protection against that is not being resistant to people.
The protection is: okay, worshippers, come to know the presence because He’ll never deceive you. I remember my first time at a conference in Toronto. I had seen most everything happening in a room, but there were 5,000 people there. I had never seen anything like that. It was overwhelming to my senses. I walked in and stood back to look at everything that was happening.
People were being radically touched by God, and the meeting hadn’t even started yet. I stood there, overwhelmed by what was going on. Then I thought, «I’ll just close my eyes.» And I realized it’s the same Holy Spirit, the one I’ve interacted with so many times through the years.
This whole point is that you don’t grow in faith by trying to grow in faith. You don’t keep safe by setting barriers, requiring that this person meets certain qualifications. It really is an invitation to acknowledge a relational journey where the key to my life is my ability to recognize Him. It’s recognizing Him.
In these prayer meetings out in the tent, time after time, we walk into that tent, and there’s just a glory there that shapes you. I don’t walk out of there, spouting off 45 minutes of revelation I just received. That would be a disappointment because it’s like walking into a person.
You’re engaging with the one who created everything, the one who sustains your life, the one who is the evidence of God on earth—the Holy Spirit Himself. There’s an encounter with a person. Suddenly, in these moments, I don’t have any great ideas. I have nothing I want to persuade Him of.
All I can think of is to honor Him, love Him, draw near to Him, celebrate Him, and be a faithful steward of whatever He’s put in my charge. In those moments, someone asks, «Do you want to do something?» No, I don’t want to do anything! I just want to stand here and worship, honor, and love the one who has given Himself completely.
I realize that doesn’t sound like a logical way to great faith, but I think it is. I think it is. I think that’s the whole journey. The Lord says, «Come, just come! Get to know My voice; get to recognize My presence; acknowledge that glory.»
The scripture says Jesus was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. That glory! You come to that place, and you sense His presence—the weight of that presence, which is resurrection power. That’s the testimony of this day that affects every day of our lives.
I like how we live. Every day is Easter. I get that. But I love taking a moment to just say, «He is risen.» He is risen indeed! And it changes everything! As the scripture says, «If He did not withhold His only Son, how will He not also freely give us all things?» I didn’t deserve His Son.
He said, «It’s a down payment. This is the life we’ve been invited into—a walk with Jesus, and great faith is what you’re destined for.» I don’t want to grow in faith so I can be more successful; I want to grow in faith because that’s my design. It’s my nature. I’m a new creation created to believe, and I have the privilege to illustrate His nature through my trust. Trust is the only reasonable response to someone as faithful as He is.
Why don’t you stand? We’re going to pray together. I think our lives are made up of a whole bunch of tiny moments. Yes, the big, significant things are important—someone gets healed, a relative gets saved, or you get that promotion you’ve been praying for, whatever it might be—but for me, life is really made up of those little moments.
You’re walking down the hall, and you have this overwhelming sense of gladness because of Jesus. Nothing happens; nothing is said; no fireworks go off. You just become aware. I sat on my deck yesterday, and two little quail—a male and female—came by, and I didn’t shoot them. So I realized I could feel the vibe in the room.
Honestly, they walked by, and I just gave thanks. I thanked Him for letting me enjoy that. I love it so much that He would give me the privilege of seeing these amazing creatures. I’m not as happy with the ground squirrels. I don’t consider them amazing. The gophers? They’re not amazing at all! I think they are demons in fur, you know? We’re working through that one.
But Father, I ask that You would fill our lives with those little things that trigger that awareness of who You are—the amazing covenant You’ve made with us, Your goodness that’s beyond comprehension. And that You would endear us to that place of longing to hear from You again and again and again. And the result would be great faith. We really would honor You with how we respond to stuff.
I know there’s a chance that, anytime there are this many people in a room, we have a whole bunch of folks online. We bless our Bethel family online. We have overflow rooms. If anyone has never made a personal commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ—to be a true disciple of Jesus—you know that it’s time for you to, as we would say, get right with God, to be born again, changed from the inside out. This is your moment. If there’s anyone in the room in that condition, and you’d say, «Bill, I don’t want to leave until I know I’ve found peace with God. I know what it is to be forgiven, to be brought into His family.» If that’s you, put a hand up right where you are, and we’re just going to pray for you. Do it boldly, right where you are.
If you’re in one of the overflow rooms, please do it there. Our pastoral teams will help you right down here. Yep, beautiful! Excellent, wonderful, thank you, Lord! Is there anyone else, real quickly? We just thank You, Lord. Lesie, would you mind coming over here and speaking with this person right back here? Thank you! Just minister to her. Oh my goodness, Jesus! What a wonderful day. Absolutely, what a wonderful day. Hold tight, and Tom here will help you figure out what to do next.