how many believe this is true all right all right so this is what it says it says shout for joy while you can't have kids face the thing that you have the least breakthrough the most barren area it may be the salvation of your family members it may be a health condition it may be you lose job after job after job it could be any number of things but there it is right in front of you and the instruction in scripture is to shout with extreme celebration before the answer comes right yeah yeah nice to
see you i was looking at a video clip this morning of our global response relief team uh over in trinity county helping with the homes that were burnt down they're sifting through the ash to find any valuables that might be left for the homeowners and so we don't talk a lot about it but we have great teams of people that have been helped with hurricanes and and uh relief efforts there and in the fires and just uh just how many uh of our global response team members are in the room right now let's put a
hand up to see why don't you stand up so we can see who you are yeah stand up step yeah bless them good thanks thanks for serving yeah thank you beautiful beautiful yeah it's just fun it's fun to you know a lot of folks are out there just trying to find who to blame you know and the people of faith just become part of the answer uh you just become people of hope uh vision and serve in practical ways to help people so i appreciate all of you that help with that this is signs and
headlines toilet out of order please use floor below i'm pretty sure i know what they meant but automatic washing machines please remove all your clothes when the light goes out [Laughter] in a london department store bargain basement upstairs outside a second-hand shop we exchange anything bicycles washing machines etc why not bring your wife along and get a wonderful bargain that's just bad notice on a farmer's field that says the farmer allows walkers to cross the field for free but the bull charges on a repair shop we can repair anything please knock hard on the door
the bell doesn't work headlines in newspapers something went wrong in jet crash probably so miners refuse to work after death sluggards cold wave linked to temperatures man struck by lightning faces battery charge [Applause] hospitals are sued by seven foot doctors tall tall doctors very tall doctors and the winner is typhoon rips through cemetery hundreds dead [Applause] let's open your bibles to isaiah 54 isaiah 54. last week i talked about joy i'm going to do the same this week i just figured let's just do joy again how many of you were here last week how many
of you weren't here last week how many of you don't know where you were last week last week we we took a look at a great passage of scripture in nehemiah 8 which actually gives reason to joy biblical reason to rejoice before everything is fixed in our internal world it's like it's like god's standard was here our standard is here but once we understand what he wants that's the beginning place for rejoicing that's a it's a fascinating concept and that's the chapter where we see that the joy of the lord is our strength so our
personal strength is lot in life is actually equal to our joy will not be any stronger than our joy will not be any stronger than our joy we won't be any stronger than our joy that's actually true that's our place of strength today we're going to look at a chapter that uh isaiah 54 believe it or not actually follows chapter 53 so i want to make sure everybody's awake chapter 53 is the great chapter that talks about how we are healed for example it says that he bore our our pain and our sickness our sorrows
our griefs but the hebrew words our pain and sickness so he actually bore them to the cross and redemptively purchased our right to be healed divine health but not just in the natural in the spiritual the forgiveness of sin so it's that chapter that sets up this chapter so beginning with verse 1 of isaiah 54 we're going to read several verses so please just follow along verse 1 sing o barren you who have not borne break forth into singing and cry aloud you who have not labored with child for more are the children of the
desolate than the children of the married woman enlarge the place of your tent let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings do not spare lengthen your cords strengthen your stakes and you shall expand to the right and to the left and your descendants will inherit the nations and make the desolate cities inhabited verse 4 do not fear for you will not be ashamed neither be disgraced for you will not be put to shame for you will forget the shame of your youth and will not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore for your maker
is your husband now remember we're talking about bearing children in the first verse your maker is your husband the lord of hosts is his name your redeemer is the holy one of israel he is called the god of the whole earth jump all the way down to verse 13. all your children will be taught by the lord great shall be the peace that word peace is shalom it's well-being spirit soul and body great shall be the well-being of your children in righteousness you will be established you will be far from oppression for you shall not
fear and from terror it shall not come near you look at that verse there again you shall be far from oppression for you shall not fear it doesn't say it doesn't say you will be far from oppression therefore you won't be afraid it's saying you're not afraid therefore you'll be far from oppression it's important to see that because fear is the access point what i have feared has come upon me that statement in scripture fears the entrance point to the access point for the thief who comes to kill steal and destroy he frequently enters through
the open door fear fear is an agreement with the accuser the intimidator the one who mocks he manipulates with words he he he accuses he mocks he intimidates he tries to cause fear through any of these tools and whenever i make agreement with him i empower him whenever you believe the lie you empower the liar when you when you listen to you you receive the words of the accuser then you actually come under the shame of sin as though you had actually sinned because you're making an agreement he has no authority you have the authority
so when i agree with him i have lended him my authority he has power but he has no authority so when he accuses when he brings up your past anytime you revisit the events of the past apart from the blood of jesus you subject yourself to a spirit of deception because you're visiting something that no longer exists in the condition you remember it so it's only legal to perceive our past through the blood of jesus otherwise we visit a deception and when you when you believe the lie you empower the liar so that's the whole
deal so he says you will be far from oppression for you will not fear because you don't fear oppression can't attach itself to you now if when you read through this whole chapter he goes on and he says listen if you're under attack if anyone assails you the lord says it's not me i just love that statement in other words he's not saying you'll never come under fire he's not saying you'll never have a conflict he's just saying listen it's not me that should be good news and then he says verse 17 no weapon formed
against you shall prosper every time which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn this is the heritage of the servants of the lord your inheritance is the authority to condemn the voices of darkness that accuse you that's part of your inheritance see if you can follow this train of thought it talks about those who can't have children is referring to the nation of israel to the body of christ but anytime they use a natural principle or natural condition to illustrate a spiritual truth it has to be it has to work in the natural too
anytime jesus uses a natural illustration it has to be true in the natural before it can represent a spiritual reality so sometimes we want to get to the spiritual truth before we've learned the natural impact and our hunger for spiritual things is appropriate and right we should want the breakthrough there but sometimes i remember one specific situation here years ago the lord would not allow me to spiritualize a particular truth for a season i had to walk it through in the natural and fully realize the implications on the natural before i i was allowed if
you will to take it to where god intended because i had to be fully convinced that this was authentic and genuine in the natural it's a weird is the weird one but it was the whole i want my knife back story which i shared a testimony with you a few weeks ago it's the whole if you weren't here it's just it was just this unusual sunday where we prayed into god restoring things that had been broken lost stolen whatever it's just a very strange strange day but it was the the more miracles from that one
awkward message than maybe any ten i've spoken at any time in my life it was strange and i just i shared with you a couple weeks ago but realizing we have so much rotation um just a couple weeks ago i was in new zealand and uh and a pastor friend came to me says billy says uh let me tell you a story says young lady in our church her house was broken into somebody stole her computer saw her ipod stole a bunch of stuff and uh and when it was gone she remembered your message i
want my knife back and she just occurred god i want my computer back i want my ipod you know i want my dog back i and whenever anything that was taken i want my stuff back you know and i think it was two weeks later she gets a phone call and the and the guy on the other end of the phone says hi i uh i'm the guy that stole your stuff i stole your computer your ipod and everything and i would like to set up an appointment to return it to you so so she
makes an agreement with a guy to meet at a coffee shop they sit down at the coffee shop and the guy gives her this story he said on your ipod is a sermon called i want my knife back i listened to it and realized i need to give your stuff back is that bizarre or what she then led him to christ he got saved in the coffee shop [Applause] such a bizarre story but that season he wouldn't allow me honestly to spiritualize it too quickly because sometimes you have to experience things in the natural that
convinces you of what he is like so that when you start seeing the real application the harvest of souls the transformation of cities when you start seeing that stuff that gets opposed you have confidence because you've seen his nature displayed in natural things and that's what we have right here we have shot for joy baron when notice if you can picture a woman here let's just say she's been having children every year for 10 years she has another one every year 10 years and then you got one right next to her been married just as
long has had no children and what this verse is saying a new american standard says a little better than this translation says shot for joy barren one you who have borne no child cry aloud you who have not travailed and here's the statement for the sons of the desolate woman will become more numerous than the one that's been having a child every year for 10 years and then it says you'll inhabit desolate cities and get obtained nations so obviously the lord is talking about more than natural childbirth although it has to include that for it
to work in this prophetic message that he's releasing so here's the deal we've got a woman here who chooses to celebrate before she's pregnant everybody in this room has areas of fruitfulness and every one of us have areas of barrenness every one of us have things that just they haven't worked like we've prayed like we've planned like we've anticipated we have great testimonies we have extraordinary things that god has done but we all have experiences in barrenness as well and here is he's saying shout for joy and then he says cry aloud that word cry
is actually the word scream so we're talking about deliberate extreme expressions of joy it's not a scream of pain or fear or terror it's a scream of anticipation [Applause] now how many believe this is true all right all right so this is what it says it says shout for joy while you can't have kids face the thing that you have the least breakthrough in the most barren area it may be the salvation of your family members it may be a health condition it may be you lose job after job after job it could be any
number of things but there it is right in front of you and the instruction in scripture is to shout with extreme celebration before the answer comes now some would say well that's not reasonable it isn't reasonable from human perspective it's totally logical and intellectual from god's perspective it's the intelligent response when you see the promise and the eyes of the promised giver the one who has never lied the one who has no respective persons the one who's the same yesterday today and forever when you see that then it's the perfectly intelligent thing to do because
for from the one who gave you the promise he lives in eternity and in his sight it is already completed so when he gives us a promise he goes into our future and he brings back the word that is necessary to get us where he saw us he brings us the word that actually enables us to enter the very realm that he intends for us so it's the intelligent thing to do to get happy before you need to you know it's it's [Applause] my head that's all right [Applause] [Applause] i like it i like it
so he says all right don't just give emotional expression i believe emotional expression is vital in fact in this case the emotional expression is the clearest evidence of faith in this chapter to try to do the christian life without emotion and emotional involvement if emotional expression is to void the nature of the gospel because the kingdom of god is righteousness peace and joy two of those are felt realities now it's true that throughout history there have been those who ever have embraced personal experience above scripture and have ended up denying scripture that is obviously a
danger it's equally dangerous to approach the scripture on an intellectual basis and have no personal emotional involvement or relationship when i got married to my wonderful wife i did not get married so that i could have a marriage license i believe it or not i didn't get married so that the state of california would consider me a married individual i got married because i was partnering with someone for a lifelong journey together relationally before god that was my purpose when we came to christ it was not to have fire insurance to escape hell it was
an ongoing relationship with our maker who according to this scripture becomes our husband that makes fruitfulness in our area of greatest barrenness even possible you may not like the illustration but he's trying to show you listen this is how near i am to you i become one with you so that you become fruitful in your area of greatest barrenness and because of that you have reason to joy so he says not only should there be emotional response before you see the answer he says lengthen your core strengthen your pegs what he's saying he said listen
if you want a child and you have a one bedroom home at a at a bedroom at a bedroom before you're pregnant you need to create the room for god to fill it there's a great story of uh jack coe i tried to find it this morning i couldn't but it it goes something like this he was going to pray for he's one of the great healing revivalists of back in the 50s in fact his son jaco junior's personal friend just talked to them again this week uh but his his uh there's a story about
jack cole he was going to pray for i think it was five people in a wheelchair so he had set up this appointment to meet with him and when he walked into the room he noticed that none of them brought shoes and so he said come back tomorrow and i'll pray for you but bring shoes and so the next day he prayed for them and all five got out of the wheelchair and had shoes to walk with the point was is you have to you have to anticipate what's about to happen and be re be
ready add the room on other what what would it look like see a lot of people actually don't have time for revival because we've filled our life without god what does it look like to create the room for god to do whatever he wants before he does whatever he wants so he says stretch out the curtains of your dwelling that they lived in tents so he's just describing what it is to add the room before the child comes do everything you can to anticipate what does it look like if god were to bring the increase
you've asked for some of you have received unusual promises from the lord about prosperity about increase don't wait till it comes to figure out what to do get your values intact now get your values in tech now it may seem like a strange illustration to you but judas hung himself there were 11 apostles there were supposed to be 12 so they appointed a 12th one at the end of chapter 1 of acts at the beginning of chapter 2 in in acts the outpouring of the spirit came in other words they got the wine skin ready
and then the wine came get the context prepared for what god's about to do [Applause] make deliberate choices demonstrate this genuine faith there make deliberate choices to get ready two things are mentioned as our inheritance in this chapter the first one that i'll mention is verse 17. the ability to condemn the voices of darkness that oppose us that's part of our inheritance but the other part of our inheritance is in verse 3 it says you'll expand to the right and to the left your descendants will inherit nations and and and make desolate cities inhabited have
you ever has anyone ever looked on on online to see some of the pictures uh in china they've anticipated great growth in certain areas of their nation and they've built entire cities skyscrapers everything and there's hardly anybody living in them it's a weird thing to see so i mean they're brand new houses are built the high rises are built and there's hardly anybody there the lord is saying that's what i'm going to fill but i'm going to give to the people who are joyful i'm going to give it to those who know how to express
faith through their emotion they anticipate before they see any sign of breakthrough they already are anticipating preparing their ground it's those people i'm going to give the nations to and i'm going to let them fill the desolate cities there's an interesting story back in david's day where he was so hungry for the presence of god to to rest in in jerusalem the presence of god was represented actually by the what's called the ark of the covenant the box where certain things were inside the box they couldn't touch it it's actually where the glory the presence
of the lord rested and david wanted so much for the glory of god to be in his city in jerusalem that he had set the stage for them to carry the ark in the first time they tried they they did it through human reasoning and somebody died and david is depressed and they parked the ark of the covenant in a guy's house named obanitum and everything he touched turned to gold you know so they started rethinking perhaps when in doubt open the owner's manual find out how we're supposed to do this and then they found
out that god doesn't put his presence on the creation of man he only puts his presence on what he created which is man the shoulders of priests not on the machines we make not the organizations i don't care if it's bethel church or if it's wyoming or anything else that's not where the presence in the presence is on people always always always always some people you can have good people in an inferior setting and they'll carry the presence in there it's not the context that that that makes it powerful so here david says i i
want the present so he is i think it was like a seven mile uh i forget now some of these guys don't know seven eight a whole bunch of miles between obedience house and jerusalem and what david does is he he takes off his kingly robes and he strips down to kind of like an undergarment for priests a tunic and he began to dance wildly down this street and everywhere dancing david went this the ark of the covenant followed so if you could just picture here's a king that is just besides himself with joy fearful
joy because the last guy that tried this died sober minded joy and he's giving this offering celebrating but before the lord dancing wildly before god leaping in the air doing this and he does this for miles and his wife is in the palace and she watches him out the window of the palace this is weird because the bible says all of israel was there but michael his wife was in the palace and it's strange how weird worship looks to those who are not in it and some things just don't make good tv you know what
i mean there's some things it just it just doesn't make good tv it's like you've got to be in it for it to make sense you know i i equate a revival to those geodes those rocks are so ugly on the ins outside but on the inside they're spectacular and beautiful that's revival right there on the outside it's offensive the inside it's gorgeous and so david's dancing wildly before the lord michael his wife despises him in her heart it says and he comes home after this the presence is settled in jerusalem the glory is present
he's besides himself with joy he comes home and his wife has issues david returned to bless his household and michael the daughter of saul came out to meet him and said how glorious was the king of israel today um this is sarcasm on steroids she's trying to undermine her husband big time um how glorious was the king today uncovering himself in the eyes of his maids the maids of his servants as one of the base fellows shamelessly and covers himself so david responds it was before the lord who chose me instead of your father in
all his household man i do not suggest this i do not suggest this i'm just reading the facts he says therefore i will play music before the lord and then he goes on and he says i will be even more undignified than this and i'll be humble in my own eyes and then he goes on excuse me the scripture one last verse says therefore michael the daughter of saul had no children to the day of her death shout for joy baron one and you'll be moved into a fruit-bearing cycle that will surpass those who are
years ahead of you it will actually become a supernatural fruit-bearing cycle where you surpass everyone versus michael the daughter of saul who has the capacity to belch bare children her entire life she loses it by despising joy she loses it by despising expressive worship worship is not something that should be contained in nice civil packages i i don't mean that we need to try to be offensive or something it's just a non-point the point is is it's honest the point is as we see him for who he is we realize who he is we give
offerings of joy and celebration before the circumstances around us have changed and what he's actually saying is the people that choose to live that way they become those who change the circumstances see when you and i were born again the holy spirit took up residence inside of us and began to change us from the inside out after we're saved our relationships begin to improve after we're saved our work ethic improved uh the way we loved our neighbor care for people around us the way we give ourselves in practical service how we move in generosity all
that stuff increases once the holy spirit takes up resonance in us in other words we live from the inside out and jesus put it this way the kingdom of god is is within you which means all kingdom issues are heart issues all issues of the kingdom are our internal heart issues and so for the believer it's it's monitoring our inner world and watching how it reshapes our outer world now that's why in 3rd john 2 it says may you prosper so that's money and be in good health which is your physical condition may you prosper
and be in good health even as your soul prospers so he's announcing there that your internal world will actually affect your money your income will affect your health when the bible says laughter is good medicine it actually means if you look it up in the original language it actually means laughter is good medicine [Applause] it actually means here's some medicine laugh well i i want it to be real well laughed all it is [Applause] it's not complicated it's so funny people don't want the counterfeit so much they'll embrace depression [Applause] i just want to be
real what you're in isn't real that hole you're in you dug that one that's not real so here we've got michael who loses the ability to be fruitful and put her next to the barren woman who surpasses those who have been able to have children their entire lifetime you've got bookends you've got this amazing story of what fruitfulness looks like in the kingdom yeah but joy isn't laughter you know it's close they are related i think randy clark says it best he says tears are to repentance was la what laughter is to salvation tears are
to repentance what laughter is to salvation the point isn't to have a meeting where everybody laughs the point is to have a lifestyle of joy of taking time you know just to celebrate with joy the kindness and the goodness of the lord it's that it's that rich expression of faith it just says you know steve backlund tells us all the time let's just laugh at that let's just laugh at that let's just take the biggest obstacle let's just laugh at it really it's it's that that's the concept that's presented in this in this chapter but
it's not just saying if you choose joy i'll fix this problem he's saying if you choose joy i will actually prepare you to inherit the nations you've asked for it's just a lot bigger it's a lot bigger than than the physical issue that you have that you want healed yeah it includes that but it's bigger than that it's actually about our destiny our destiny is to what do what disciple nations our destinies to do what to see cities transformed that represent what it looks like to be under the lordship of jesus living the beauty and
the bounty of his world that's our destiny how do you get there joy's pretty integral part it's actually celebrating with joy before the answer comes it's actually what makes it can i put it this way it's what i don't prove is the right word but i'll use it it's what proves to the lord we are ready to disciple nations so that he gives us you don't take nations for him he already has the nations well we're just going to take possession of the nation no you don't want to do that because they belong to him
that's why he says ask of him for the nations he already has them he's looking to entrust the influence to culture to values to atmosphere of entire cities and nations to a group of people he's just waiting for his people to be happy enough to entrust it to him yeah that is a good word all right [Applause] i heard of a guy went into his doctor and got a a a report he had some sort of a terminal disease i forget all the details now he asked the doctor what he should do and he said
you know if are you i just go home and watch every funny movie you could find you know rent every funny movie and just and just watch him and he did he did i don't remember the length of time now but it was quite a few weeks as i recall and by the time he was through he didn't have that terminal disease anymore and it's you know for some reason people can embrace laughing at a funny movie but not just choosing to laugh or to be joyful and yet the lord would not command me to
do something of that nature if it were not within the reach of my will he wouldn't say as he does in philippians rejoice always and again i say rejoice he wouldn't say rejoice unless it was actually within the reach of my will to obtain it you would never you know tell your child who has a five dollar a week allowance to buy you a new car i mean it'd be cruel you'd never expect that unless you're going to take them down and supply them with the resources to buy the car the point is is that
you would never command them to do something of themselves that they were not capable of doing so when the lord tells us to rejoice and to celebrate before the answer comes it means it's actually within the reach of our will this is something i can actually choose to do so joy is within reach always joy is the kingdom it's at hand it's always within reach it's always within reach it's always it is always a reasonable solution for what i'm facing so just take the most barren area of your life whatever comes to you first hold
it in front of you i know it's hard for some of you to actually hold something you can't see when brian was just a little guy we were driving from weaverville to reading and he wanted a drink of water we didn't have any water he said i want water i said son i said we're we're in the we're in between weaverville and redding we have to wait till we get you ready then i'll get you some water well i want water now so i i took the cigarette lighter i pushed the button in and i
held a pretend cup under the cigarette lighter and when it popped out i handed him a fake cup filled with water he took it and threw it on the floor [Applause] so if my son can throw my fake cup of water on the floor you can hold your biggest problem in front of you all right [Laughter] so father i'm asking this week that this company of people this family would find joy in the most unusual places and that together we would see the obstacles to fruitfulness cower and the face of the joy of the saints
i ask this in jesus name amen okay you can you can throw the empty cup down now he got water all over the car when he did i just did it you know it would it would uh it would be sad for me to end this meeting and not give opportunity for people to give their life to jesus jesus is the only access to the father the bible says that the name of jesus is the only name given by which a person must be saved there are not many roads jesus is the only way if
he wouldn't if he's not the only way then god was cruel and requiring him to suffer on the cross when you could get there so many other ways and always when there's a crowd this size there's the high probability that we have people in in the room that don't have a personal relationship with jesus you don't know what it is to be born again that means change from the inside out because the holy spirit has come you've been forgiven of sin brought into the family of god and you're changed from the inside out and god
is offering that gift to everybody in the room and anyone that would be here saying bill i don't want to leave i don't want to leave until i know i'm right with god if that's you then i want you just put a hand up real fast right where you are and i want us to be able to pray for you hold your hand up high because i want to see you right back over here anybody else just hold your hand up real high right over here's another one right right there anyone else just wave right
over here another one beautiful [Applause] i want everyone to stand if you would i saw three there may be a fourth one over here i want everyone to stand here here's what i want to ask the three of you that raised your hand listen carefully it's vital that you give us just a moment we have zero interest in getting anything from you all we want to do is serve you and i have people that that i know and trust to be able to talk with you and pray with you right over here to my right
why don't you wave your hands so that people can see right over here to my right are people that we know and trust that i want to talk with you and to pray with you so this is what i'm going to ask i want to ask ministry team come to the front right now and i want the three that raise your hands come quickly right down here to these folks right in front of this banner come down here real quickly if you brought them and maybe walk with them down here right over here to my
right beautiful yeah come on celebrate this is wonderful wonderful news here right over here to my life bless you yeah thank you lord is so wonderful right over here oh i love this so much it's just it's just so incredible yes right right down over here uh yeah just help him yeah helped him come to so he knows where to go thank you beautiful and if there's any others you just say you know i don't want to leave till i know i'm right with god until i know that he's my father until he's forgiven me
brought me into his family they'll pray with you and talk with you and uh and this just changes everything from this point on everything's different let me pray for you and then i'm going to turn it over to leslie leslie once you come on up here let me just pray for everyone real quickly that i want to get to the back door i want you to repeat this prayer after me father god let my joy be contagious oh yeah oh yeah amen that's my prayer amen yeah i'm so glad that you watch this video i
do pray that it's a great great strength and encouragement to you and i've got a verse that it really is my cry for all of us and it's psalms 20 it's verse 4 may he grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans that's my prayer that's my prayers that this would be the season of rich rich fulfillment thanks for joining us
