Bill Johnson · Bethel Church · Published August 7, 2026
0:00 And somehow in the surrender to the impossible command is the capacity to do what we can't naturally do. There is not a problem on the planet that he doesn't have an answer for. I don't know what to do next, but I am so filled with awe. I'll follow a cloud. I'll follow the cloud. I have such hope. Why? Because I've seen God work in me and through me. How many of you have been, you used to live with a lot of depression and discouragement? All right. How many of you remember when you got free from that? And it's not the same anymore. did you figure out that you could still be depressed if you wanted to i i i don't do that anymore but i know how i know how just leave me with certain people or no no no that's not that just just hold hold hold hold hold on All I have to do is entertain certain thoughts, certain ways of thinking.
1:10 And I don't mean immoral things. I mean things that are inconsistent with him. Does that make sense? It's not our biggest challenge for me. My biggest challenge is not porn and immorality and all these things. It's thinking that I'm the answer. or if I try hard, I can fix this.
1:35 It's living from a different place than the resurrection of Christ. It's that if I work hard, maybe I can turn this situation around when actually the only thing that will turn around is the resurrected Christ. It's somehow believing in human skill and talent when in fact I need the invasion of the Almighty God.
1:59 Does that make sense? These inferior ways of thinking that maybe this depends on me. And so then I step in and work really hard and get real sweaty and determined. And nothing changes. Nothing changes until there's surrender. Surrender is the invitation that brings Christ into a broken situation. I want you to look with me, if you would, to Colossians chapter 3. Actually, no, go to John chapter 3. They're not the same. It's a coincidence they're the same number. John chapter 3. I've been wanting to I've been working on something in my own personal life for about 10 years.
2:52 Exploring a thought that's introduced in Jesus' life that I personally think is often ignored. I've tried to address it briefly here and there. I'm trying to learn myself. And some people have referred to it as the ascended lifestyle. And it seems so impractical for most believers and yet it is actually the normal Christian life. And Jesus in this one verse illustrates His way of life unlike any other. and revelation in scripture is always carries with it the invitation to come to know him experientially. Let me illustrate it this way. In fact I'll give you two illustrations. One, Abraham. Abraham as many of you would know was put into the ultimate test to offer his son as an offering to the Lord. The Lord stopped him and said now I know you'll do anything I say and he still needed he had an altar built, he still needed a sacrifice to give to the Lord.
4:03 So the Lord said, revealed himself to him as Jehovah Jireh. Jehovah Jireh means the God who provides. So God reveals himself to Abraham, I am the God who provides for you. And then he had him look up in a bush and there was a ram caught in a thicket, in a brush. And so Abraham, who just discovered the name of God, he's Jehovah Jireh saw God provide for him in that bush, he went and took the ram and sacrificed it to the Lord. The point I'm trying to make is that when God revealed himself as the provider, it wasn't so that Abraham would have a better theological understanding of the nature of God. It was so that he'd be introduced to provision. He wanted him to experience the provision. It wasn't good enough that he went down the mountain having offered no sacrifice.
4:59 Are you alive? Does this make sense? So God's interest wasn't in making Abraham a theologian. He was trying to reveal his nature to his friend through provision. So when the Lord reveals himself in a specific way, it's so that we can come to know him experientially in that way. One of my favorite portions of Scripture is Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, where it says, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths. In all your ways, acknowledge Him. He'll make your path straight. He'll make you successful in your journey.
5:53 The word acknowledge there, in all your ways, acknowledge Him, it's the same word as in Genesis and Adam knew Eve and she conceived and bore a son. It's an experiential knowledge. In all your ways experientially come to know God in that way. So I have different ways in my life. I'm a dad. I'm a grandfather. I'm a pastor. I'm a writer. I'm a friend. I'm different things. I can come to know God as a pastor and not come to know Him as a father.
6:35 So my fatherhood will be short-sighted because I don't intimately know Him as Father. Maybe a business person. He's the ultimate business person. Come to know Him in that part of his nature. And in that intimate connection with God in that part of your life, that's where he helps to enable and empower you, me, to be successful in what he's assigned us to do and to become. Does that make any sense? In all your ways, acknowledge him. So you're a mom. You sit at the feet of the one who knows motherhood better than anyone. And in that experience, a grace is given to be able to be successful practically with wisdom in how you do life. An artist, a musician, doesn't matter what it is, a pilot, doesn't matter.
7:34 He flies well. He's high and lifted up. That was bad. That was bad. John chapter 3. I'm just going to take one verse out of half this chapter is Jesus teaching Nicodemus and his disciples. So you've got a picture of this. In this portion of scripture, Jesus is introducing mind-boggling ideas. Sometimes he explains things that everybody understands and they have clarity of heart and mind. Other times he introduces things that are completely outside of their experience. This chapter is one of those. He says you have to be born again. Nicodemus says do I have to go back into my mother's womb and be born? So their mind's boggled by what Jesus is introducing.
8:31 And then he caps it all off with verse 13. He says no one has ascended to heaven but he who came down from heaven that is the son of man who is in heaven. no one has ascended. Remember, this Jesus before he died and was raised from the dead introduced himself as the resurrection and the life. And now before he has died, ascended, resurrected, ascended, glorified, before he's done any of that, he is now expressing his lifestyle. And he says no one has ascended to heaven with one exception. That's the son of man who came from heaven, who is now in heaven. that's the normal Christian life we all know Jesus only said what what his father said he only did what he only did what he saw his father do how did he have that perspective how did he have that view Thank you.
9:46 Are you with me? How did he know? now I understand that this seems so abstract and and it is from the way most of us do in life but Jesus actually is giving us understanding and therefore an invitation to learn what this means if you abide in me, my words abide in you. You ask anything you want, it'll be done for you. Abide in me, live conscious of the Spirit of God, of the presence of God, of heaven itself.
10:32 Let my words abide in you. Treasure what I say to you. Hold it dear to your heart. Then you will be positioned to co-labor with me to bring about your influence in the course of history. And I will do what you ask for. It's that role of co-laboring is completely dependent upon us embracing, living conscious of Him right now, sitting where you are. You can just very simply turn your affection towards the Holy Spirit. And suddenly we become aware of Him, presence. It's eternity. It's the promise of eternity. It's that place as we learn to live from the place of the presence of God, we are much more capable and qualified to bring heavenly solutions to earthly problems. It's living in this place where there's no sweat to see a miracle. We were just in James River a week and a half ago and one of our students was there and the prayer line praying for people at the end. He said it felt like cheating. It was so easy. It was just so easy to see miracles happen. They prayed for this when they were healed, prayed for that when they were healed, prayed for that when they were healed. The point was, it was without effort, which is how the miraculous works. Effort messes up the miraculous.
11:53 If I sweat to get it, I'll take credit for it. And what the Lord is looking for is a group of people. It's not through striving. It's actually through this yielded relationship, this relationship that is impressionable, impressionable to the voice, to the voice of the Lord. As he speaks that simple word of promise, as vast as Abraham's promise was, I don't know that it came in a thundering voice. All we know is he looked up at the sky and he realized God's promise is bigger than the sky. And he beheld that, and he considered that, and it shaped his life so much so that he became known as the father of faith. And his breakthrough in beholding is to be our breakthrough in beholding. Here's what stands out to me. I've given you just a couple Old Testament stories. Hebrews 11 is this chapter where God lists great people that believed him throughout all history.
12:51 and it's a fascinating list because some of them didn't believe quickly but they eventually did and when you hear God's point of view of the story they just believed quickly because he only records the part that we did right you know which is what an encouraging story right there so here's Hebrews 11 this great chapter of faith we call it the hall of fame for faith when you read through this chapter I encourage you to do this on your own look for every time somebody saw something or they considered something or they contemplated or they rehearsed, they would meditate on something. Look at every time that sort of a word is used because it's actually describing the role that seeing has with faith. seeing is believing that's usually a weak unbelief statement because it is saying I'm not going to believe until I see with my own eyes what's happening and yet according to scripture seeing is believing if you're seeing what he's saying if you're seeing what he's saying if you're connecting to the voice of God and you hear the heartbeat of God for you then suddenly the shift in perspective I guess if there was one thing I would want to communicate today that is a repeat over and over again for us is the faith doesn't come from striving it comes from surrender it's not the result of effort or labor it's just because he speaks we listen and we refuse to allow other voices to dictate how we think, how we see I want to show you, instead of taking you through Hebrews 11 as I had planned I want you just to get right into Moses' story in verse 24 by faith Moses when he became of age refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction
14:57 with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. My goodness, that's a stunning statement right there. Verse 26, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. For he looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king. All right, go back to 26. He esteemed the reproach of Christ as greater riches than the riches of Egypt. Stunning statement. And then it says, for he looked to the reward. He looked to the reward.
15:40 Hebrews 11, 6 has this verse for us that helps to define faith. It says, he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of those who seek him. I've heard many people say through the years, well, I'm not interested in reward. I just want to serve the Lord and please him and honor him. Yeah, that's fine, but it's not how he thinks. He thinks your faith needs a boost by getting a revelation of reward. Because half of faith is connected to his nature as rewarder. So he says, those who come to God must believe that he is, number one, that's his existence. But number two, his nature. His existence and his nature. He is the rewarder of those who seek him. So faith is actually anchored in, first of all, his existence. I hear people say, well, I know God can do it.
16:34 That's awesome. So does the devil. We got to have greater faith than the devil. He knows what God's capable of doing. What faith does is it positions for what God is about to do. So here's this statement. It says he esteems the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures of heaven, for he looked to the reward. Listen to this definition of this word, looking for reward. It's very profound. The word look means to continuously look away from everything else in order to look intently at one object. he's looking to the reward. This same basic word is used in a few verses later in Hebrews 12, verse one and two, where he says, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. That word looking unto is this word, continuously say no to a thousand voices so I can give myself intently to the one voice that matters. It's not a casual floating through life. It's not a casual just adjusting to whatever circumstances come. It is this decision of the heart that says, I have a supreme value for one thing. That is the voice of the Lord. It's what he says. It's what he is doing. My heart is anchored in the continual expectation for God himself, for God to speak, for God to reveal himself, to show me what to do. My heart is anchored in this one thing.
18:12 So to look to the reward, or in Hebrews 12, 2, to look unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, looking to him is to say this. I have said no. In fact, the word means to continuously say no. To continuously look away from a thousand other options so that I might give myself intently with extreme focus and energy to the one thing I'm willing to say yes to. It's not casual. It's very deliberate. It doesn't require energy in the sense of striving and work. It requires yieldedness. That I've said no to all this. I've said no to all this. I have yielded and said yes to the one thing. I am going to assume, and I'm sure I'm accurate in this, that all of us together have this one desire, and that is to be a person of great faith.
19:15 It's one of the things that we would just say together, man, you can't please God apart from faith, and this matters to me. This matters a lot to me, that I would be pleasing to the Lord. Some would say, well, we're already pleasing. That's how he accepted us, brought us into the family. Yeah, yeah, I understand that. I'm not going to increase his love for me by having great faith. But there's something of the heart of God that delights in a person that believes him when every other voice around him says no. That one confident expression that says, I believe you. I think this has more than this has to do with more than praying for somebody to see them healed more than financial provision for somebody in need more than restoration of brokenness in family whatever it might be as much as I love seeing those miracles I believe the Lord wants to adjust our world view I believe he wants to adjust the way we value every single day we're given and what we've been assigned to become and to display because you and I will always reproduce spotted and speckled according to what we behold as we come to be refreshed in him as we come to cross pollinate and truly engage life with one another.
20:50 As Eric and Candace say to us, to know and to be known, to connect with people. There's something in that engagement that what we behold of the promise of the Lord, that literally is what we reproduce. In Ephesians 3, he says that we might know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. Interesting verse, that you might know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. The original language can read this way, that you might know by experience what is beyond comprehension. Your heart can take you where your head can't fit. Come on.
21:34 You know by experience, which you can't comprehend. But here's the glorious thing. The Lord does not want us ignorant. He just wants us surrendered. When you go heart first, you learn through your experience. there's a lot of warning about learning through experience because there have been people who have been so deceived and really pulled away from the authority and the strength of Scripture. And I understand the fear. but it's unreasonable.
22:19 I mean, I understand people's thinking, if that makes sense. You don't want to build a theology on an experience if you can't find it in Scripture. I'm all in. That's it. The real problem is... those who are without an experience are already deceived. The gospel is not a philosophy. it's not a club that we join it's a relational journey with a person the son of God who took on flesh who qualified me for eternity for heaven and so he invites us into this journey this experience where he says to know the love of christ to know through experience which you can never wrap your head around and it's in the relational experience that we begin to learn in our minds we begin to learn and gain understanding Thank you.
23:29 the Bible says in Hebrews 11, it says, by faith we understand the worlds were made out of nothing. By faith we understand. It doesn't say we understand, and then comes faith. It says, by faith, we understand. faith is more substantial real faith not presumption actual faith is more substantial than reasoning it's it's superior to intellect and real faith will actually teach you how to think it's why developing faith is so critical Hebrews 11 also says without faith it's impossible to please him that's an extreme statement without faith it's impossible to please him at the root of every expression, at the root of every connection, at the root of every part of our walk with Christ, at the root of that is the expression of faith.
24:47 and people will say, well, I have no faith. I need you to pray for it. Well, what did you do with it? Because he gave every person a measure of faith. He gave it to you. Where did you put it? So because he thinks differently than we do. surrender unto an experience helps us to change our perception of reality it helps us to adjust and change so that we see as he sees the ache in my heart has to be for jesus to be manifest and glorified and it only comes through death surrender is the key to every step of progress it's yielding the moment i start thinking i can grab these principles and make something out of my life is the moment i become most vulnerable to building a kingdom that looks like god's but isn't let me read one verse to you that sets everything up that we just said and this verse you're familiar with is chapter 3 and it's verse 20 now unto him who is able to exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us that prophetic promise of God's intention to go way beyond our imagination and way beyond our prayer life on our greatest day, that is what set us up for chapter four that says he's going to equip you and your use of that equipment is going to determine how well his plan functions.
26:54 now unto him who is able to do abundantly above all we ask or think imagination, prayer but it's connected to something according to the power that works within you the measure in which God functions past your reasoning and past your faith is determined by how much you allow him to work deep in you the power that works in you is what releases him to work outside of you Through the years, I've noticed that people who know nothing about, you know, if you weren't raised in a revival culture, you may never know that, for example, in Atlantic City, many, many years ago, 100,000 people or so were there.
28:03 such a massive revival hit the city that there were only known four people out of 100,000 that weren't converted. if you didn't know that when amy simple mcpherson would come to a town oftentimes the hospitals would be empty by the time she was through they would have in her day they would have a death ward a part of the hospital where there was no hope they would just take care of the people and they would bring those people and they would line them up i've seen pictures where they just line them up at the beginning of a crusade and one by one they'd get off their deathbed, be completely healed. Now, when you hear that these things have happened and that they become available to us, you start hungering for things you never knew you could hunger for. That's the whole point. So when I tell you that the Holy Spirit is working in you to make sure that you are equipped, you're connected and not deceived so that we function together and become the perfect man that Jesus intended us to become. It's to stir something in you that you maybe never thought of before, but it's in the owner's manual. It's in his design.
29:18 Whether you realize it or not, when you said yes to Jesus, you signed up to become a part of the perfect man. Failing to interact with power is failing to live in the fullness of hope. There is a connection between the life of power and supernatural hope. Now, there are people who have hope. It's just the power of positive thinking. They just believe things will turn out for the good. I get that. I'm not talking about that kind of hope. I'm talking about the kind of hope that is anchored in the nature of God and the commission of man. It's a hope that says, I am here for divine purpose. and because of that I must display the confrontation of the impossible. When Jesus says you feed them, he once again is famous for commanding us to do stuff that's impossible. It's no different than when he said heal the sick or raise the dead. It's the same thing is he brings us the command, the commission. I'm introducing you to what you can't do.
30:28 Now do it. And somehow in the surrender to the impossible command is the capacity to do what he said we can't, what we can't naturally do. He says, you feed them. And in this verse, we have this beautiful description that we would abound in hope. It's not just a hope of positive thinking. It's a hope that sees the beginning from the end, living with the realization there is not a problem on the planet that he doesn't have an answer for. And while I may not have it in mind, I do have it in my relationship. I may not know what it's supposed to look like, but I have inherited the mind of Christ, and I will pursue the specifics of that insight, of that application. So this is what he says, that you may abound in hope by the power of God.
31:24 Jump down to verse 18. For I will not dare speak of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me in word and deed to make the Gentiles obedient. in mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem around about to Lycraeum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. Let's condense verse 19. In mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God, I have fully preached the gospel. I owe it to my own soul to be exposed to miracles.
32:07 Because my soul is not healthy apart from the regular exposure to that which I cannot control, that which I cannot explain, that which did not originate with me. if there is anything that is prevalent outside of a fiery move of God. it's the absence of awe.
32:37 It's the absence of awe. There's something about a people that don't know what's happening, but know it's good. There's something about people that don't know where we're going, but I'm following the cloud. I'll never forget a teaching that Jack Hayford did and his church in Van Nuys, California. And the church on the way is one of my most favorite places I've ever been to. And I love him so much. But I remember he was teaching once. And he says, you know, people ask. They went from, you know, 14 people, I think, on their first service all up to, I don't know, 14,000 or something crazy. And seven services a day. It was just nuts.
33:19 And so people would ask him, how did you get from there to here? He says, if I tell you, it will look like we knew what we were doing. Because it's so strategic. If I tell you, I'll give you the impression, we actually knew what we were doing. We didn't. We just followed the cloud. And now looking back, I can give the outline of what we did. It looks like we had great wisdom and insight. Does that make sense? That's where we are. The life of power is that. I don't know what to do next, but I am so filled with awe, I'll follow a cloud. I'll follow the cloud. I have such hope. Why? Because I've seen God work in me and through me. I know this cloud is worth following. I'm going to pursue this one. Why? Because I have an assignment. I don't know how it's going to work, but I know the impact of my life as salt and light and every demonstration of the presence and power of God reveals the kingdom.
34:19 God, you are working the kingdom as leaven into the culture of this city, of this life. It's my yes that is a part of the influence of kingdom in a city. It's my yes to live on the edge where miracles become normal. Fully preach the gospel. How? It's in miracles, signs, and wonders. It's in the power of the Holy Spirit.
34:44 That's old material for you and for me. But I'll be really honest with you. I need and want a fresh baptism in this that I have said yes to a hundred times, a thousand times. A fresh baptism because I feel like the Lord has so positioned us in spite of the season, the way it looks on the outside for many. Power says, this is the time to abound in hope because god is known for addressing impossible situations and he saves the day when people run out of solutions
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