How to Renew Your Mind and Walk in Great Faith - Best of Bill Johnson Sermons | Bethel Church

0:00 taking every thought captive to what? The obedience of Christ. What is that? It's the mind of Christ. Until they are transformed in nature and they actually reflect the fact that there is nothing impossible. He has a redemptive solution for every situation. He will cause every situation that pertains to my life to work for good, which means for his glory and for my strength. The renewed mind is the mind of Christ. The renewed mind is the mind of wisdom. And uh he said in Romans, Paul said in Romans 12:2, he says, "Don't be conformed to this world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." So there's no transformation apart from the transformation of mind. Transformed life is transformed consistently with their mind being

0:46 transformed. No more, no less. A transformed mind transforms a person. Yes. Don't be conformed to this world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind that me you may prove the will of God. So what's the will of God on earth as it is in heaven. Best definition of the will of God is found in the prayer Jesus taught his disciples. Pray like this. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. What does the re renewed mind do? It proves the reality of heaven on earth. You're going to make me work all night in this heart, aren't you? I can tell. I can tell. The renewed mind is somehow able to put

1:33 on display the reality of God's heart, which is his world transforming this one. And so when one person is ministered to and they have lived with torment their whole life and it's gone, guess what? The kingdom came. The will of God came. And it was because someone had enough of a renewed mind to demonstrate or display that which God intended to do for everybody. To seek first the kingdom is to seek first his rule in any given situation where we have influence. We're not praying for a military invasion of heaven to earth. We're not praying to go to heaven. We're

2:19 not praying for a military invasion from heaven. We are praying for the will of God to be demonstrated in every broken situation where we have influence. And the renewed mind sees this the answer more than the problem. The enemy works to make us more aware of the problem we face than the solutions we carry. If he can emphasize in my thinking, in my awareness, my consciousness, if he can increase my awareness of problems that I face, and this is true for everybody in this room, if he if he can somehow highlight or increase my

3:04 awareness of the problems I face, I will live in reaction to those problems. They will influence me. I don't mean the devil controls me. I just mean I live in reaction to. And Jesus didn't live that way. He lived in response to the father. Often times people live in reaction to the devil and feel spiritual about it. You have a certain amount of sense of purpose when you react to the devil. And and and I don't want to say it's entirely wrong. I'm just saying it's inferior. My anger doesn't intimidate the devil.

3:50 My determination, my strong will does not intimidate him at all. It's the blood of Jesus that intimidates tenders today. And functioning under the influence of being a forgiven one allows me to repeat that in people's lives. In other words, the redemption that I have experienced is the redemption I get I get to minister. Colossians verse one of chapter 3. If then you were raised with Christ, how many of you were raised with Christ? His resurrection. This is important to understand. His resurrection is actually your resurrection.

4:35 That that's the whole point. The Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is the spirit of resurrection. He is the one who dwells in you. That's why surrender to him is key to every aspect of victory we could possibly have in our life because he is that power of resurrection that is able and capable of producing a resurrected life through you through me. Verse one of chapter 3. If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on earth.

5:23 Why? Because you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Now let me take it in the passion translation. Christ's resurrection is your resurrection too. This is why we are to yearn for all that is above. For that's where Christ sits enthroned at a place of all power, honor, and authority. Yes, feast on all the treasures of the heavenly realm and fill your thoughts with heavenly realities and not with the distractions of the natural realm.

6:09 Your crucifixion with Christ has severed the tie to this life. Now your true life is hidden away in God in Christ. And as Christ himself is seen for who he really is, who you really are will also be revealed. for you are now one with him in his glory. Now, I don't know the these are pretty large thoughts. They hurt my head, actually. It's hard it's hard for me to comprehend this. And I don't know what you're like, but I I know my tendency when I when I read lofty thoughts is is to read over it and move on almost

6:55 like a that's too big for me or too big for now. When some of these things just need to be prayerfully meditated on. This would be the kind of thing where you you would sit in your in your car or in your your prayer closet or wherever and and you you you pray. You sit in there and you pray. My mind is set on heavenly things. I imagine. I wonder about unseen realities. The realities of God's rule, the reality of his world. Those are the things I get to feed my soul on. Those are the things I get to feast on. I'm going to set my eyes on those things. I'm going to set my mind on those things. I want to engage with things that I don't understand because I want him to teach me what his world is like. What you do is you pray it, you

7:40 talk it, you sing it, you confess it, you find scripture of this nature. Please, please be willing to write your own cross references in your Bible. When you see another verse like the verses I just read to you from Colossians 2 and Romans 6, they they marry each other. They fit perfectly. Things on on ideas and lofty ideas. Um, anytime you find these these thoughts, these threads through scripture, write them down in your own reference because because one day you'll read that verse and you'll wonder, "Why did that stand out to me?" And you'll notice another verse and you'll be farther down the journey and as you turn to that second passage, it begins to open up. And that's it's the it's the one thing I'm not a great student, but one thing I do is I I mark

8:27 why a verse stood out to me and I mark my own references down that will take me through my own her history, my own journey in scripture. And so that means in a sense this is my diary. It's not filled with a lot of explanations. It doesn't need to be. It just has the right things marked. Naam chapter 1 verse 7. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knows those who trust in him. Look at it again. The Lord is good, a stronghold

9:14 in the day of trouble. He knows those who trust in him. I want you to make mental note once again that stronghold this time it's a stronghold of the revelation of the goodness of God. Uh another place in scripture says that the name of the Lord is a hiding place. It's a tower of strength. It's where we hide ourselves. So if you can picture it this way, a people who understand truly heartfelt understanding of the goodness of God automatically have a hiding place, a stronghold in which they dwell. And it's evidenced by what we trust in when problems come up. It's very easy to think of an individual

10:00 or a repeated problem with hopelessness and blame it on the lack of character in the individual which basically is declaring father this one is out of your reach. And what happens when I do that and I have what happens when I do that? I create a stronghold of thinking that removes me from being a part of a redemptive solution because I have categorized that individual and in that particular place I have fallen into a trap believing things that are unredeemable. Nobody would ever say that because we know that God can do

10:46 anything. But it's not it's not your theology, it's your lifestyle. It's not your theology. Every believer says God can do anything, everything, anything. Yeah. And they've got a problem and they don't believe he'll fix it. So the theology is right, the lifestyle is wrong. The lifestyle is fueled by thought life. Yeah. So the thought life is not just focused on finding the lie and removing it because he says take every every thought to the obedience of Christ. A thought pattern is not transformed

11:34 until I am seeing a situation through the eyes of Jesus thinking the redemptive solutions that he's thinking. That's right. Until then, I'm still in that place of need. I'm not in the place of bringing change. The Lord is good. He is a stronghold. He knows those who trust him. Do you ever wish you could read the Bible for the first time again? I love the simplicity of faith

12:21 of a brand new believer. Fact, I just uh I got this Bible this last week. That was the Bible Wigglesworth, Smith Wigglesworth carried with him. Yeah. his uh little pocket Bible. He wrote in the back of this Bible, he said, "Never compare this book with other books. Comparisons are dangerous. Never think or say that this book contains the word of God. It is the word of God. It is supernatural in origin, eternal in duration, inexpressable in

13:08 value, infinite in scope, regenerative in power, infallible in authority, universal in interest, personal in application, inspired in totality. Read it through. Write it down. Pray it in, work it out, and pass it on. It is the word of God. This is what he wrote in the back of his Bible. It's not complicated. If he said it, it's true. If he didn't, it probably isn't.

13:55 It's not complicated. If I have more input from social media than I do the word of God, my discouragement is self-inflicted. It's a calculated decision. I find myself thinking of this person, they will never change. At what point do I stop the lie? because I'm building a hiding place for the demonic that will actually help to fulfill the very lie I've come to believe. I would never say it, but my approach to a problem oftentimes reflects that. It's

14:41 a stronghold. And the Lord is preparing us in this season to be able to address the impossible. We've said this for 20 years, so this is nothing new. But I feel like he's heightening heightening our awareness of something today. He's he's enabling us to be aware where we have fallen for the lie where where I have entertained the enemy's ideas

15:27 in my personal castle. I have this this sense that through this strangest season of my life, the Lord has been training us for something that we're unaware of. And I'm I'm I would assume all of us are not maybe not in the same boat, but certainly similar. I've never seen so much swirling in thought, in ideas, and you know, arguments and stuff just just in the air as in recent days. And I feel like the Lord is allowing us to be exposed to the chaos. So, we have no

16:12 mistake recognizing peace. The peace of God is the complete absence of chaos. That is the definition by nature. The peace of God is the complete absence of chaos. And he has allowed us, if you will, to be exposed to some of the craziest things ever. Not so that we walk through life being victims. If you experience sorrow, maybe a friend has fallen into some deception. I I got news this week of a of a dear friend who is uh getting divorced and never would have expected it. never never never never ever would have expected it. I don't know what happened. But when you have pain like that, if you just feel sad and do

16:59 nothing with it, you're wasting your time. God gave you a an ability to feel so that it would take you to him. I don't know how to pray for this situation, but I do know the enemy has had his way. And so I pray the mercy of God to come upon this couple. the mercy of God to touch each individual heart. God, I don't know what's happened or where. This is where you pray in tongues a lot. He always gets it right. I mean, I may pray this prayer. Oh, God, give me a Ferrari with 700 horsepower. And then I pray in tonesues. The Holy Spirit says, "Man, don't give him that car. He'll kill himself." That's what

17:45 I'm praying in tonesues. I'm praying I don't even know. He just canceled out my prayer. So, I'm praying that that's how this works to me. So, I don't know how it works to you, but but he always he always refineses my refineses my prayer. He says, "No, he'll kill himself if he has that car. Don't do that. Don't do that." But if you feel grief or you feel pain or you feel troubled, if it doesn't take you to him in prayer, you're wasting your sensitivities. It's a gifting. It's like eyesight. If you, you know, if you see something coming at you that's going to hit you and you don't duck your head, then you're wasting your eyesight. We perceive because he's positioned us

18:31 to make a difference or react accordingly. Yeah. All right. Let's read this passage um one last time in 1 Corinth 2 Corinthians or Chronicles if you prefer. Chapter 10 verse4. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They are mighty in God for the purpose of pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God to the point where we learn to bring every thought into captivity to the

19:16 obedience of Christ. It's an interesting picture there, that last phrase, bringing every thought captive. I when I see uh bringing every thought captive, I think of a like a soldier who is waring against us. All right? So, let's just take that thought for a minute. Let's just say we're in an army and we have a soldier. I take him captive, but he becomes so captive that he becomes a soldier for us. is not putting him in restriction where he doesn't function. It's seeing that thought process so transformed that it now works for us. Taking every thought captive to what? The obedience of

20:01 Christ. What is that? It's the mind of Christ. taking this deceptive thought about your neighbor, take it captive until it starts reflecting the mind of Christ about your neighbor. Hostages, taking our thoughts hostage until they are transformed in nature and they actually reflect the fact that there is nothing impossible. He has a redemptive solution for every situation. He will cause every situation that pertains to my life to work for good, which means for his glory and for my strength. Says casting down.

20:46 Take that vile thing that just isolated that person into an unredemptive position in their life. Take that vile thought that just declared over your economics that there is no solution. You've actually tried everything and there is no solution. Take that vile thought, cast it at the feet of Jesus who is himself Jehovah Gyra. Take that thought that says your marriage cannot be healed or restored. Take that thought captive because it is born in the pit of hell. Come on. You take it captive and you cast it down. And you bring into subjection all these things that you're thinking, seeing, and

21:31 feeling until what you're seeing, thinking, and feeling reflects his heart and his nature. I love seeing glimpses of how he works, how he thinks, how his world works. Because every glimpse of his world, of his ways, and then his world equips me to release his influence in the earth. See, there's a lot of people that think his influence in the earth is going to be when he returns and there'll be this military invasion. Who knows what that's going to look like? All I do know is that I have the assignment now. Yes, it is.

22:16 He didn't give us authority to keep us busy till he returned. He gave us authority to make a difference in the world we live in. And most of this stuff is not dealt with face to face with an individual. I'm not saying avoid conversation all of that. I'm just saying so often the powers that be are demonic realities that are surrounding an issue and that's where we go to battle. That's where we get on our knees. That's where we make prophetic decrees. We are not fighting against people. That's right. Every one of us have had a bad idea at some time and we actually partnered with the enemy and not with God. Every single one of us and probably most of us more than once or twice. And somebody was merciful to me. So let's let's let's show the same mercy.

23:02 The enemy is not people. The enemy there are powers behind realms of thought. There are powers behind there behind even geographical areas. Yeah, I don't want to get weird and spooky on you, but I'm just telling you there are certain places they are dark in that area because there is an individual that has partnered with the demonic realm at such a level that that thing has to be broken over that person's life. You see it with the man of the gatherines. Jesus brought deliverance to this one guy. Actually, some the gospel say there was two. The point was they got free. Yes. Jesus brought deliverance to the one. The people were so freaked out. It

23:50 says it says that this demoniac, you know, he had so many demons that his demons were possessed. You know, he he was he was set free. It says he was clothed and in his right mind in the city was afraid. As long as a guy is writhing, you know, and breaking chains and running around naked, everybody's fine. But somehow when he gets freed, people get concerned. You know, it must be that cult. It must be that church down the road. And it says the people, they were afraid because there was a power that operated outside. Listen, every people around you don't mind a God who looks like them. They will they will try to reduce the

24:36 nature of God to their nature. Yeah. Instead of having a god you must give an account to. And the responsibility in this moment is Jesus brings a deliverance to this guy the city gets afraid and it says they chase Jesus and his disciples out of the area. Sometime later it says that when Jesus came back to that area every person from every village came to hear him speak. What happened? There was one credible witness. one person upon whom the kingdom had come. Something was bound, something was loosed. He was a living illustration of what that world looks like. He had sanity. He had engagement with people. He was a different person.

25:22 And when that leaven was put into the lump of dough, that entire region that had rejected Christ, when that leaven was put into that lump of dough, when Jesus came back, they all wanted to hear what he had to say because something was bound and something was loosed. David made this statement. He said, he said, "Daily I set the Lord before me." It's a strange statement. "Daily I set the Lord before me." Well, just so you understand, you can't grab a hold of God and put him where you want. He wasn't saying that.

26:08 I believe what he is saying is since you can't imagine a place where he isn't, you might as well imagine him with you. Yeah. Is he everywhere? Yes. That means he's here. That's right. What is abiding in Christ? It's acknowledging the presence of God who is with you to a point of engagement, relationship, awareness. Something happens in that heartfelt connection with the presence of God, the spirit of God who is with me and will never leave me. Something happens in that heartfelt connection where I I live more aware of what he wants. I live more conscious of his will.

26:56 The way I like to describe it is I live more aware of his mood. And I don't mean he's he's moody in in some temperamental way. I mean, I just mean I I live more conscious of his mood, of how he feels about a given subject, about a given person. We've talked before about I I remember years ago, several, it's not that long ago, maybe three years ago now, I I was looking through a magazine. It had all these different conferences in this magazine and and I don't it was horrible. When I got to the end of the magazine, I realized that I had skimmed over every conference because I just I looked at the speakers that were in the conference with almost a disregard. And I thought that kind of um complacency of heart towards another brother in the Lord is not healthy.

27:43 So I actually went back to the beginning of the magazine and I slowly turned the pages till I came to a conference. I looked at each speaker. This took me a while. I took I looked at each speaker until I could feel the pleasure of the Lord for that individual. When I could feel the pleasure of the Lord for that person, then I turn the page and go to the next one. Feel the pleasure of the Lord. When I did, something changed in my perception. I found that I was, can I say it this way? I was careless. I'm embarrassed to even say it. I was careless in my attitude towards those who were not a part of our stream. It wasn't it wasn't a conscious thing that was there. I didn't know it was there till it till it surfaced as I was

28:30 looking at these speakers. And I I felt so embarrassed and ashamed in a sense. I knew enough to not think critically, but the answer to not being critical was just to ignore. And that's not kingdom. See, the opposite of love is not hate. It's complacency. finding that that pleasure you you feel you can sense that that heart of God for any given issue. It may be a politician. It may be somebody who's completely opposed to anything you think and and and their decisions or whatever. You take just that extra moment to realize here is someone made in the image of God. Come on. I have the responsibility

29:18 to treat them as one made in the image of God. Policy issues, those are other issues. They cannot color my approach or value prayerfelt value for an individual. So good. It's a deception. The religious spirit, the political spirit are both vying to capture our emotional condition. Are both vying for influence to to influence my perception of people of groups of people to discolor. So because if if a person

30:06 if there's a person I find repulsive to me or I want nothing to do with, then we've just cut off my ability to demonstrate the love of Christ. And and he didn't say, "Bill, you're assigned to a few and you can be mad at the rest." You know, you love this person, love that person, but you can hate everyone else. It's it's just silly. It's the fact that whoever he puts me before, I have to be able to honor and to celebrate. So here we have this responsibility. Jesus said, the ecclesia, the two or three people that work down here at such and such a grocery store, they take their lunch break together. when they come together in Jesus' name in that lunchroom and they have this predetermined idea, we will partner

30:52 together for the invasion of God's blessing and presence upon this business that I don't own. A business that I am here as a representative of another world. The government of God is resting upon the two or three. But not just the government, the governor. That's right. The one who runs the government is with us as we gather. If we had just a heightened awareness of purpose and the reality of presence, we would live, think, and pray differently. Our decrees would be much more intentional. Our decrees, our pronouncements, our prophetic uh uh words that we release would be much more anchored in a faith that sees a possible outcome. Yeah. Paul

31:37 in Romans 12 talks about talks about people who would prophesy according to their faith. Faith is supposed to be the guiding the guiding uh power if if you will behind the prophetic. Faith by faith I see what isn't naturally visible. So I'm perceiving something that isn't yet but it's about to be cuz I'm about to speak it. I'm about to declare it. That's right. So, you take the ecclesia, you take the two or three, it may be a husband or wife in our homes. We're tired of letting letting the enemy have his way. That's right. We are here representing another world. God himself, the governor of that world, is here present with me. And he says, if I'll just connect my heart to

32:24 him and I'll live aware of him and I'll let his the words that he breathes infect my soul until I think what he thinks. I want what he wants. I dream what he dreams and as that abiding presence becomes that kind of an influence in my conscious and unconscious mind I can ask anything anything. [Music] But for me, this is the most incomprehendable verse in the Bible, which is saying something cuz most of them are incomprehendable. But he says in verse 19, to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge

33:11 that you may be filled with the fullness of God. that you may be filled with the fullness of God. Yeah. Wow. There are planets out there bigger than like our galaxy. Since the day the Lord spoke, let there be light, his word has been traveling through empty space and creating.

33:58 It's expanding at at least the speed of sound, if not the speed of light. That God holds all of that in the palm of of his hand. And he said his intention is to fill us with his fullness. Wow. If you don't leak, you're bound way too tight. These are not poetic phrases to inspire us. They are literal decrees

34:44 that are so far beyond the reach of our imagination that there's no way in the world we can make it happen. Nor can we understand it as it's happening. But what we can do is surrender to his intent. I can surrender to his intent. I can acknowledge it. Acknowledge it in that I see it. Well, what did Paul say? Through a glass darkly. I I see the shape of it, although I can never fully describe it. And the Christian life is that it is it is going from one mystery to another mystery to another mystery. And one of the great tragedies especially I think in the western world

35:29 is we tend to reduce the gospel to what we understand. And I I I don't want to put down uh intellect. Uh the Lord protected human reasoning with his own death. I mean literally he protected the capacity of the individual to reason. He even invites us. He says come and reason. Let's reason together. I believe very strongly that the Lord wants to reveal himself through human intellect but never contained by human intellect if that makes sense. Your heart will take you where your head can't fit. And what the Lord constantly is doing is bringing us into measures and realms and levels of surrender because it all has

36:16 to do with the heart. Why? Because his supreme value is faith. Faith is not anti-intellect. It's just superior to intellect. In Hebrewsap 11, it says, "By faith we understand the worlds were made out of nothing. By faith we understand." Faith first, understanding comes next. And the understanding was to perceive something that's beyond comprehension. By faith we understand the worlds were made out of nothing. The reason that he deals with the heart because the heart is where faith comes from. It says where the heart man believes. It doesn't say with the head.

37:01 I I've gone over this so many times so forgive me for repeat for for uh you old-timers, but the mind is important. You'll see uh Jesus acknowledging the centurion. If you remember the centurion, he acknowledged his extraordinary faith, but his faith was revealed through his understanding. His faith was revealed through his understanding of authority. He said, "I'm a man under authority, and I say to those under me, go do something and they do it." So, he was giving a picture of the kingdom. It was his understanding that captured Jesus's attention and released a miracle into his servant. extraordinary story. So faith is not

37:48 anti-intellect. It just um it's superior. And because it is superior, now realize we've all seen fake faith or attempts at faith that fell far short. And probably most of us have done it. But genuine faith is superior to human reasoning. And it is so superior that it inspires the mind into the mind of Christ. The renewed mind is like banks of a river. It creates the context for faith to flow in. So it's important. Pursuing understanding is important. But I never

38:33 want to restrict my obedience to my understanding. I don't need to understand to obey. If I restrict my obedience to my understanding, then I've created a God in my image. I have a God who's my size. So, it's vital that my obedience is is ready to go at the word of the Lord. It does not have to make sense to me. I just need to know it's him. Wow. It looks like I'm going to be real

39:18 thirsty tonight, which if this is any sign, it's going to be a long meeting, but we will need a break. [Laughter] Now, both of these are are unopened bottles. So, I mean, they're pretty full. You know what? I'm just going to do it this way here. I'll just do with one. Now, this bottle is full enough to sell as full, but it's actually not full.

40:12 It's pretty full now, but it's still not full. [Music] Now it's full. See, fullness is measured in overflow, not by what you contain. [Music] Jack Haver taught us years ago that um abundance in the kingdom is not measured by what you have, it's measured by what you've given away. The same concept exists in the fullness of the spirit. So when the scripture talks about us being filled with the spirit, fact, there's a commandment, don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit, it's actually a command. Fullness is measured

40:59 in overflow. It's not It's not what you contain. It's not your Merry Christmas. You caught it. That's good because it would have wrecked your iPad. So, fullness is measured in overflow. and you were designed. Uh Smith Wglessworth would he was a not a tall man in stature but he would say I'm a small man externally but I'm a giant inside. There's something about the cap capacity of the human heart to contain more than we uh visibly look like we could contain. I don't know if that if I'm saying that right, but I think you at least get what I'm what I'm implying. The ability of the of the

41:47 surrendered soul to house God is beyond anything we could imagine. And you and I were actually designed for this purpose. So Jesus has 12 guys, one flaked out, so he's got 11. And he spent three and a half years with them showing them what it's like to be full of the spirit. He never put it in those words, but he modeled it so profoundly that they achd for what he had.

42:36 See, we owe people an encounter with God. And the only way to ensure that that can happen on a continuous daily basis is for us to be full in the same way that I just illustrated, full of the Holy Spirit. We are vessels that leak. We're broken vessels, every one of us. Which means I have to stay continuously under the spout that keeps me full.