For everyone who wakes up in the morning saying "Oh, I'm so desperate. I need so much more of God's touch in my life."
And also for everyone else who feels that their religious routine (corporate prayer, cell) should stop because "they aren't feeling it". Cause you shouldn't. "You don't prove anything by stopping, yet you need a fire burning in there along with those things"
I love how last night I was praying to God to give me a bible reading cause I've been sorely lacking in those and this morning I just stumbled upon this! It really affirmed and encouraged me and now I'm glad I want to jump in the morning, so, brb :D
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Take your Bibles and open to 1 Samuel 1. We're going to look at the story of Hannah, and then we have two other portions of Scripture. 1 Samuel 1:9 says,
"So Hannah arose after they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh. Now, Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the tabernacle of the Lord. And she was in bitterness of soul and prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish. Then she made a vow and said, 'Oh Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your maidservant and remember me and not forget your maidservant, but will give your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life and no razor shall come upon his head.'"
One of the Nazarite vows was to have no razor to your head. Verse 12:
"And it happened as she continued praying before the Lord that Eli watched her mouth. Now Hannah spoke in her heart. Only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli thought she was drunk. So Eli said to her, 'How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you.' But Hannah answered and said, 'No, my lord. I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor intoxicating drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord. Do not consider your maidservant a wicked woman, for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief I have spoken until now.' Then Eli answered and said, 'Go in peace. The God if Israel grant you your petition which you have asked of Him.'"
Turn with me, if you will, to 2 Samuel 6. We're going to read all three portions before I spend any time talking to you. The setting here is that David already made one attempt to bring the presence of the Lord, the ark of the Covenant, which was God's place of covenant with Israel where they would worship twenty-four hours a day. They didn't do it according to Scripture; as a result somebody died. So now, they're going to try it again with much fear and trembling, yet choosing to be joyful. So begin with verse 12:
Now it was told King David saying, "The Lord has blessed the house of Obed Edom and all that belongs to him because of the ark of God."
The Covenant was placed in Obed Edom's house when the anger of the Lord struck Uzzah and he died. Obed Edom watched over the presence of the Lord. Everything he touched turned to gold from that point on.
So David went up and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed Edom to the city of David with gladness.
In Psalms 2 it says to "rejoice with trembling. We don't always have a clear picture of joy. There are times when things are very, very serious and somber in our lives, yet there is still a possible choice to have joy. In fact, the commandment in Psalms 2:11 is to "rejoice with trembling." So joy isn't always a giddy thing. Sometimes it's knee-slapping humor, pain-in-the-side-from-laughing-so-hard kind of deal. Other times it's extremely sober-minded, yet we choose joy because it's the right thing to do. So I want to put that in this context. Verse 13:
And so it was when those bearing the ark of the Lord had gone six paces he sacrificed oxen and fatted sheep.
I believe, if I remember correctly, it was an eleven mile journey, which was quite a few miles in those days. Some have even said that he made the sacrifices for every seven steps for that entire distance. Verse 14:
"Then David danced before the Lord with all his might, and David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and his entire house brought up the Ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet. Now as the Ark of the Covenant came into the city of David, Michel, Saul's daughter, looked through a window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart. So they brought the ark of the Lord and set it in its place in the midst of the tabernacle that David had erected for it. Then David offered burnt offerings and a peace offering before the Lord. And when David had finished offering burnt offerings and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of Hosts. Then David returned to bless his household. And Michel, the daughter of Saul came out to meet David and said, 'How glorious was the King of Israel today uncovering himself today in the eyes of the maids of his servants and as one of the base fellows shamelessly uncovers himself.'"
Here's the number one comeback in all of the Bible:
So David said to Michel,
"It was before the Lord who chose me instead of your father and all his house to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel. Therefore I will play music before the Lord, and I will even be more undignified than this and will be humble in my own sight. But as for the maidservants of whom you have spoken, by them I will be held in honor."
There's tremendous truth here that David knew, yet Michel didn't. You can't humble yourself into a place of dishonor. You never lose through humility. You only gain. And so he says, "I will be humble in my own sight. But as for the maidservants of whom you have spoken, by them I will be held in honor." People who have Kingdom values honor those who walk in humility. Verse 23:
Therefore Michel, the daughter of Saul, had no children to the day of her death.
Now, turn to one more passage. Isaiah 54:1:
"'Sing, oh barren, you who have not born. Break 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,' says the Lord. 'Enlarge the place of your tent. Let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings. Do not spare. Lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes, for you will expand to the right and to the left, and your descendants will inherit nations and make the desolate cities inhabited.'"
It wouldn't be hard to talk about this today in the natural sense of giving birth to children. If that's a need or cry of your heart, the principle is very obvious. The standard of Scripture is, first the natural, then the spiritual. It has to apply in the natural before it applies in the spiritual. So it's given in a metaphoric sense for a woman who cannot have children. The first mention is here with Hannah. Hannah is unable to have children. She cries out to God. She becomes so desperate that she actually appears drunk.
Religion is the child of the fear of man, and one of the things that the fear of man does is it prevents people from displaying lifestyles of passion. And Christianity was never intended to be dialed down to discipline. It was never meant to be reduced to discipline. You can discipline your way through the Christian life and have certain good effects or positive things that take place because principles are true and truth works. But the Gospel was never meant to be lived out of merely discipline. It was meant to be lived out of passion. We were not born to merely walk a tightrope of obedience out of discipline. We were born to burn with passion for God. What you see in these three cases are three clear descriptions of passion. The first one, of course, is with Hannah. What anybody thought about her didn't bother her very much. Desperate people know what that's like. Desperate people live outside of the fear of the opinions of others. If there were a very shy person in a mall, like a young mother, and somebody took her child, suddenly she would become desperate like this huge she-bear that is willing to pluck the eyes out of any beast in the land. Desperation pulled her out of that position of containment that she'd lived in. Christianity is really sad when it only lives in the realm of discipline. Hannah took on the appearance of drunkenness, not out of intent, but it just happened to show up that way because she was so desperate.
The second story is with David. He was scared to death of another death, but he was more afraid of not having the presence of God. So we find the unusual combination of rejoicing with trembling. They go and they find Obed Edom and the fact that he has prospered with everything he has touched. Then they take the presence of the Lord, carry it on the shoulders of the priest like it was supposed to be done the first time, and take six steps. At the seventh step they stop and they give this offering to the Lord. David takes off his kingly robes. When he takes off his kingly robes, he has on a priest's undergarment called a "linen ephod." The priests had to wear linen in the presence of the Lord. They couldn't wear wool, anything that would make them sweat because God wanted people to realize we could never make it before God by our own works. It's without sweat. If we could just get people to learn how to rest. Rest is such a huge thing. Faith is so important to God, but the emphasis (while I'm not going to disagree with the emphasis or even with much of the teaching I've heard), on faith causes them to strive to have greater faith or strive to believe more. Striving is evidence of real weakness because striving doesn't come out of rest. There's no striving in rest, and faith comes out of rest. It's the place of peace that faith grows out of. When anxiousness comes, when peace seems to dissolve, returning to the place of rest is where you're going to find your expression of faith. Out there striving, fighting devils, fighting thoughts and fighting this and that, is not where faith is found. Faith is found in the place of rest. So, you go back to wherever you lost your peace and work from there to recover true biblical expression of faith.
Faith is huge. I'm going to emphasize it more and more because this whole idea of Jesus coming to earth wondering if He's going to find faith when He arrives is bothersome. I want to make sure that there's a great company of people, every one that we can possibly influence, that are believing believers. It's such an incredible privilege to live in a culture of unbelief and to be a believer. I can't imagine being more honored than to have the privilege to believe God in a culture that just works to deny Him.
We just got a testimony this morning from one of the churches that we work through in Southern California. Someone from their youth group went to Mexico with our team. This last week or last few weeks, this person was in a class at school where the teacher told the class that they could either believe in evolution or they get an F. If they believe in evolution then they get the good grade, if they don't, then they will flunk the class. So this one student who had been with our team to Mexico stands up and he says, "I just refuse to believe it." In so many words, "I'll take the F." The teacher wanted to know why and he said, "I just went with Bethel Church's team to Mexico. We saw blind eyes open. We saw deaf ears open. We say limbs that were three inches too short. I saw them grow out myself. There's no way in the world you can get me to believe in evolution." The teacher was just stunned and silent. When the class was over the entire class gathered around this one student and he led fourteen of them to Christ. It's amazing! What a privilege to sit in the middle of an unbelieving environment and be a believer. My goodness! What a treat just to sit in the middle of chaos and say, "I trust Jesus."
You've got to capture your moments, because when you lose your moments to fear and anxiety, we never get those moments back. But God is so glorified when we work to maintain that peace, that place of rest and just express trust and faith in Him. It's the highest of honors.
Here we have David taking off his kingly garments, and Michel, Saul's daughter, King David's wife, who really liked the favor of man. She liked recognition. She'd already been the king's daughter. She knew what it was to have things happen at her wish and her command, and she was very embarrassed when David took off the garments and danced wildly. She tried to humiliate him, and David said, "Honey, you ain't seen nothing yet. If you think I was wild today, we just got Him in the house. I'm going to go wilder than this." He said, "And I will be more undignified than this," and he takes it a step farther. He says, "I'm going to be humble in my eyes, but those that are truly the servants realize that humility is not a place of dishonor, but a place of honor." So we see passion once again. Passion expressed for the presence of the Lord that was unusual. And that religious demon, that spirit that opposes the work of God, oftentimes hooks people by getting them overwhelmed with wondering what others think. So here we have Michel, Saul's daughter, paranoid because her husband was humiliated before a nation. What was she doing in the palace anyway? The rest of Israel lined the streets. It's amazing how awkward worship looks when it's others that are doing it. It's so easy to criticize the passion of people that you're not with. My heart's not joined with them. I'm not willing to express myself with the same extreme or same extravagance. And here Michel the daughter of Saul sits there with the spirit of criticism, criticizing the one in the crowd that pleased God. How many of you know, that's a real bummer? She ends up not having any children to the day of her death. Passion is the key to fruitfulness in life.
Let's just be really practical. If you're passionate about your job, there's probably a good chance you're going to succeed and prosper. Just in the natural. If you believe in what you're doing and there's a passion, you're taking it beyond discipline. You love what you do. You love working in that nursery, you love being the doctor or whatever it is that you do. You love being a housewife, caring for the children. Whatever you do, you pour yourself in with passion and zeal and you prosper. You can't help but prosper. In the things of the Lord, passion is supposed to mark our extravagance to God. King David was the one who said, "I'm not going to give anything that doesn't cost me. This isn't about money, but it's so easy to apply it to every area of life. It's about the generous heart. It's about our relationship with the Lord and how do we live? Does the well get so dry that you survive by discipline? Does that happen very often? If it happens often, take a check. There's a leak somewhere. There's a leak that ought not to be, because we were never designed to live merely out of discipline. It's a nice boundary when things are tough, but it's not supposed to be the way of life.
See, there are standards for how we relate to the Lord. David says,"I'm not going to give God anything that doesn't cost me." There are three standards that we see in scripture for giving. The first is that we give Him the first fruits. What does that mean? You give off the top whether you can afford it or not. See, a life without passion is a budgeted life for Jesus. You budget yourself for Jesus. Well how glorious is that? I've budgeted myself. I give you portions. My grandfather was passionate. He was passionate about God. I remember as a young kid we'd go to restaurants and he'd say this all the time and one day I finally had the nerve to ask him. He'd get a salt shaker that didn't give a whole bunch (and he loved salt), he'd shake the salt shaker. If it didn't give a whole bunch he'd put it down in frustration and say, "It's a tither." And I said, "Grandpa, what do you mean,it's a tither?" He said, "It only gives what it has to." You know, I really could care less if anybody looks at this house as a disciplined house. But I sure hope they know you burn. See, the three standards of Scripture for our giving, and whether it's an offering or whether it's the way we treat each other, it is coming Sunday morning ready to minister and to serve other. It is the extravagant way that we live life; it's capturing our moments. It's our approach to what God's given us to do as our assignments. It's the fact that we refuse to reduce life down to a routine.
And so the Lord looks for the first fruits. The second thing is that He looks for the best. We give Him the first and we give Him the best. In the Old Testament, it was a lot easier to measure because they'd sacrifice a lamb. They'd go into the flock and if they saw one limping they'd say, "Well, I can't sell that one anyway. I'll sacrifice it to God. What's it going to matter; we're going to burn the thing? I mean, it's kind of a waste to burn a healthy one." So Malachi the prophet gets totally ticked off and says,"You wouldn't do that for the governor if he was coming over for dinner. You wouldn't go up and whack a lame lamb and try to feed him with it. So why are you doing that to God?" So He looks for the best. It's in the way we offer ourselves to the Lord in service and the way we love each other in God.
I like fountain pens. I just like fountain pens. But when it's time to give one away, I can't give one of the cheapies away. I've got to take the best one. I've got to take my prized ones. Those are the ones I have to always give away. You just do it as unto the Lord. If you're going to do something as unto the Lord, then give the best. If you're just going to do it for credit, then give whatever you want. If you're happy with the glory of man, give whatever one you want, take the strokes, and be happy with it. But if you're going to honor the Lord, you give the best. It's just what you do. It's the way we live.
We give the first, we give the best, and then we give extravagantly. That's the nature of life in God's extravagance. Why? Because they are the excellent ones, in whom is all our delight (according to Psalm 16). Extravagance is just the privilege of the believer. So we've got Hannah's deal. She just didn't care what people thought, and she ended up getting her reward by receiving an answered prayer. We've got David dancing wildly with his wife is totally ticked off. That affected their relationship so much she didn't have kids for the rest of her life. It's amazing what offense does. It's amazing what dials up offense too when people are passionate. You know, when you're not joined with a passionate one, passion looks foreign and often attention-getting. How many of you know, if you're in the crowd and you're not extravagant with God, David looks like a fool? He looks like he's trying to get attention. See, faith looks like arrogance to those filled with unbelief. So we've got David dancing wildly before the Lord, and the one who didn't like it becomes barren.
It reminds me of the woman who brought the alabaster vial out. It took a year's worth of income to buy this ointment. Whatever you'd make in a year, that's what it would cost. And it didn't have a screw-top lid or a spray thing. You had to open it by breaking it, so once it was open, it was open. She broke the alabaster vial open and poured it over Jesus. And Jesus said, "What you've done will be as a memorial to you," which basically means, "Throughout all of eternity, you will be a reference point of passion." You look in the dictionary of God, her picture's right next to "passion." Everybody's going to know what it looks like by your example. The disciples were totally ticked off and asked, "Why this waste?" They had to think of some good "religious" reason, so they said, "We could have given it to the poor." The real problem was it didn't make sense to take ointment and pour it out and have it just dissipate. The fragrance is here now; it's going to disappear by noon. Tomorrow it won't be around any more. What's the use of that? So they saw it as waste, yet passion counts in heaven. It is currency in the Kingdom.
The third story is actually a prophetic word in Isaiah 54 where it says, "Shout for joy, barren one." It's just an amazing passage. I don't know if we've studied this since I've been here, but I make reference to the principle quite often. It's an amazing principle: shout for joy while you're barren. Anyone can shout after you're pregnant. Anyone can rejoice after they've won the Reader's Digest Sweepstakes. It doesn't take a spiritual giant. Every October at the end of the World Series, somebody will give thanks to God because they won. Show me the guy rejoicing in the loser's dugout, and I'll show you a real believer.
Listen, I don't know if you're getting this or not. Your joy changes the world around you. That's what it comes down to. Your joy takes infertility and makes it fertile. Your joy causes things around you to alter and to change. Your atmosphere shifts by what is exploding right here. When Jesus said, "The Kingdom is within you," He is saying, "Joy releases my world and alters the conditions of the circumstances around you." Joy is a choice that is made, sometimes, with trembling. But it must be expressed. It cannot be quietly contained in the heart. They brought the presence of the Lord into the city with shouting and the blasting of the trumpets. They didn't bring it in bowing low with quiet reverence. Sometimes you'll blow up if you try to do that. Sometimes there will be body parts everywhere. There are just certain things that have to take on expression. Joy was one of those things that was never meant to quietly reside in the heart. It has to be demonstrated. It can;t just be demonstrated through, "Oh. I'm happy" Somehow my body wants to display what's going on. So David dances wildly. In Isaiah 54, it's, "Sing for joy. Shout for joy, barren one." Why? "Because you're going to pass up the woman that's been having kids all this time. The sons of the desolate one will be more than the sons of the married one. You're going to be making twins and triplets while she's making one at a time." The point is: this measure of fruitfulness that is simply beyond comprehension will surpass the natural boundaries you've been restricted by. You're going to live supernaturally while others live naturally. They may have been bearing fruit all along because of the favor on their lives. But this that is shifting in you is going to give you supernatural increase to bypass the one that's been productive all along. It's the "shout for joy", it's the "extravagant worship."
You know, the goal isn't to get people to dance in the aisles. The goal is to get people to burn in their souls. I can dance without joy. I can dance just because it's the right thing to do. We know how to measure up to expectations. The burning is what is necessary. It's the burning, the passion, and the thing that wakes you in the night when you find yourself just praying and asking for more of God. It's the first fruits of the morning when you wake and your first thoughts are, "Oh, I'm so desperate. I need so much more of God's touch in my life." It's one of the simplest truths in the Bible: "Don't worry. Be happy." Somebody wrote a song about it. I don't know if you're getting this. Happy people leak Jesus into their circumstances until they change.
It's just a better way to live. Jesus, help me to never reduce you to discipline. The Lord spoke to Don Potter once and said, "I don't want to be your habit. I want to be your friend." I tell you, there's religious routine, and it doesn't mean things should stop. If you witness every day and that's your routine, don't stop that. You might tithe or pray "x" amount of times, but don't stop the routine. It's not evil. You don't prove anything by stopping, yet you need a fire burning in there along with those things. So you start making the focus, "God, I'm not content to just do things just 'because they're the right thing to do. I've got to be burning in my soul.'" See, if I obey out of discipline, I adjust my insides to what God is saying and doing, and that's fine. But when I do it out of passion, I adjust my outsides. I change everything outside of me, and everything that I come in contact with. When I live out of passion, I'm contagious. When I live out of discipline, I'm admired. So I just say, "Come get me, Jesus! Just increase, increase this burning in my soul. I am not content to reduce my walk with you to a habit or a discipline. I am not content to just do things merely because they are the right thing to do. God, I must burn with true biblical passion. I must reflect back to you the burning you have for me." The Bible says there's fire in His eyes. I pray that the fire in His eyes ignites our hearts so that we burn with a holy passion. It's not just an emotional up and down, because emotions rise and fall, but passion doesn't ever have to fall. True biblical passion will burn as long as you have something worth burning on the altar. As long as you give Him something worth burning, there will be fire. The moment we recalibrate our values to be safe and budgeted, we budge our worship. Boring. Absolutely. A worship service where everything is nice and is in control is not only boring, but also budgeted. It is not extravagant, and I don't like the absence of extravagance. I like passion for God. I like to burn in my soul. I don't have to jump and I don't have to shout; it's just going to happen. I won't ever forget the first time I danced before the Lord. I was all by myself and I turned fifteen shades of red. I was the only one in the house, the window shades were drawn, and I was sure CBS was filming the entire event. I was so aware of what I looked like as I danced before the Lord. But you know what? Something was off of me when I was through that was on me when I started. It's hard to keep the cobwebs of "religion" on your soul when you just choose to celebrate the goodness of God. I'll tell you, in some of my darkest moments, I would go out somewhere in the woods or down to the church, somewhere, and whatever measure of darkness seemed to be over me, I would celebrate to the same degree. The darker it was the more wild and extreme I would get. I would go down and turn the stereo up full blast and start shouting to God. I'd just dance and leap and twist in the air. I'll never forget the first time I danced before the Lord; I jumped and I leaped in the house by myself. I was just jumping and leaping and twisting and turning. I don't dance, so all I knew to do was to jump and twist and turn. My dad taught on worship just a few weeks later and said, "This word 'exult' means to leap in the air with twisting and turning," and I went, "I did that! I did that!" I'll tell you what, depressed demons don't like hanging around happy Christians. You repel them! So, this is the prescription. Rejoice, with trembling if need be, but rejoice. Extravagance is the way we live and the way we give. We give the first and we give the best. I don't want to give Him the leftovers of my life. Amen.
And also for everyone else who feels that their religious routine (corporate prayer, cell) should stop because "they aren't feeling it". Cause you shouldn't. "You don't prove anything by stopping, yet you need a fire burning in there along with those things"
I love how last night I was praying to God to give me a bible reading cause I've been sorely lacking in those and this morning I just stumbled upon this! It really affirmed and encouraged me and now I'm glad I want to jump in the morning, so, brb :D
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Take your Bibles and open to 1 Samuel 1. We're going to look at the story of Hannah, and then we have two other portions of Scripture. 1 Samuel 1:9 says,
"So Hannah arose after they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh. Now, Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the tabernacle of the Lord. And she was in bitterness of soul and prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish. Then she made a vow and said, 'Oh Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your maidservant and remember me and not forget your maidservant, but will give your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life and no razor shall come upon his head.'"
One of the Nazarite vows was to have no razor to your head. Verse 12:
"And it happened as she continued praying before the Lord that Eli watched her mouth. Now Hannah spoke in her heart. Only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli thought she was drunk. So Eli said to her, 'How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you.' But Hannah answered and said, 'No, my lord. I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor intoxicating drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord. Do not consider your maidservant a wicked woman, for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief I have spoken until now.' Then Eli answered and said, 'Go in peace. The God if Israel grant you your petition which you have asked of Him.'"
Turn with me, if you will, to 2 Samuel 6. We're going to read all three portions before I spend any time talking to you. The setting here is that David already made one attempt to bring the presence of the Lord, the ark of the Covenant, which was God's place of covenant with Israel where they would worship twenty-four hours a day. They didn't do it according to Scripture; as a result somebody died. So now, they're going to try it again with much fear and trembling, yet choosing to be joyful. So begin with verse 12:
Now it was told King David saying, "The Lord has blessed the house of Obed Edom and all that belongs to him because of the ark of God."
The Covenant was placed in Obed Edom's house when the anger of the Lord struck Uzzah and he died. Obed Edom watched over the presence of the Lord. Everything he touched turned to gold from that point on.
So David went up and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed Edom to the city of David with gladness.
In Psalms 2 it says to "rejoice with trembling. We don't always have a clear picture of joy. There are times when things are very, very serious and somber in our lives, yet there is still a possible choice to have joy. In fact, the commandment in Psalms 2:11 is to "rejoice with trembling." So joy isn't always a giddy thing. Sometimes it's knee-slapping humor, pain-in-the-side-from-laug
And so it was when those bearing the ark of the Lord had gone six paces he sacrificed oxen and fatted sheep.
I believe, if I remember correctly, it was an eleven mile journey, which was quite a few miles in those days. Some have even said that he made the sacrifices for every seven steps for that entire distance. Verse 14:
"Then David danced before the Lord with all his might, and David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and his entire house brought up the Ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet. Now as the Ark of the Covenant came into the city of David, Michel, Saul's daughter, looked through a window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart. So they brought the ark of the Lord and set it in its place in the midst of the tabernacle that David had erected for it. Then David offered burnt offerings and a peace offering before the Lord. And when David had finished offering burnt offerings and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of Hosts. Then David returned to bless his household. And Michel, the daughter of Saul came out to meet David and said, 'How glorious was the King of Israel today uncovering himself today in the eyes of the maids of his servants and as one of the base fellows shamelessly uncovers himself.'"
Here's the number one comeback in all of the Bible:
So David said to Michel,
"It was before the Lord who chose me instead of your father and all his house to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel. Therefore I will play music before the Lord, and I will even be more undignified than this and will be humble in my own sight. But as for the maidservants of whom you have spoken, by them I will be held in honor."
There's tremendous truth here that David knew, yet Michel didn't. You can't humble yourself into a place of dishonor. You never lose through humility. You only gain. And so he says, "I will be humble in my own sight. But as for the maidservants of whom you have spoken, by them I will be held in honor." People who have Kingdom values honor those who walk in humility. Verse 23:
Therefore Michel, the daughter of Saul, had no children to the day of her death.
Now, turn to one more passage. Isaiah 54:1:
"'Sing, oh barren, you who have not born. Break 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,' says the Lord. 'Enlarge the place of your tent. Let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings. Do not spare. Lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes, for you will expand to the right and to the left, and your descendants will inherit nations and make the desolate cities inhabited.'"
It wouldn't be hard to talk about this today in the natural sense of giving birth to children. If that's a need or cry of your heart, the principle is very obvious. The standard of Scripture is, first the natural, then the spiritual. It has to apply in the natural before it applies in the spiritual. So it's given in a metaphoric sense for a woman who cannot have children. The first mention is here with Hannah. Hannah is unable to have children. She cries out to God. She becomes so desperate that she actually appears drunk.
Religion is the child of the fear of man, and one of the things that the fear of man does is it prevents people from displaying lifestyles of passion. And Christianity was never intended to be dialed down to discipline. It was never meant to be reduced to discipline. You can discipline your way through the Christian life and have certain good effects or positive things that take place because principles are true and truth works. But the Gospel was never meant to be lived out of merely discipline. It was meant to be lived out of passion. We were not born to merely walk a tightrope of obedience out of discipline. We were born to burn with passion for God. What you see in these three cases are three clear descriptions of passion. The first one, of course, is with Hannah. What anybody thought about her didn't bother her very much. Desperate people know what that's like. Desperate people live outside of the fear of the opinions of others. If there were a very shy person in a mall, like a young mother, and somebody took her child, suddenly she would become desperate like this huge she-bear that is willing to pluck the eyes out of any beast in the land. Desperation pulled her out of that position of containment that she'd lived in. Christianity is really sad when it only lives in the realm of discipline. Hannah took on the appearance of drunkenness, not out of intent, but it just happened to show up that way because she was so desperate.
The second story is with David. He was scared to death of another death, but he was more afraid of not having the presence of God. So we find the unusual combination of rejoicing with trembling. They go and they find Obed Edom and the fact that he has prospered with everything he has touched. Then they take the presence of the Lord, carry it on the shoulders of the priest like it was supposed to be done the first time, and take six steps. At the seventh step they stop and they give this offering to the Lord. David takes off his kingly robes. When he takes off his kingly robes, he has on a priest's undergarment called a "linen ephod." The priests had to wear linen in the presence of the Lord. They couldn't wear wool, anything that would make them sweat because God wanted people to realize we could never make it before God by our own works. It's without sweat. If we could just get people to learn how to rest. Rest is such a huge thing. Faith is so important to God, but the emphasis (while I'm not going to disagree with the emphasis or even with much of the teaching I've heard), on faith causes them to strive to have greater faith or strive to believe more. Striving is evidence of real weakness because striving doesn't come out of rest. There's no striving in rest, and faith comes out of rest. It's the place of peace that faith grows out of. When anxiousness comes, when peace seems to dissolve, returning to the place of rest is where you're going to find your expression of faith. Out there striving, fighting devils, fighting thoughts and fighting this and that, is not where faith is found. Faith is found in the place of rest. So, you go back to wherever you lost your peace and work from there to recover true biblical expression of faith.
Faith is huge. I'm going to emphasize it more and more because this whole idea of Jesus coming to earth wondering if He's going to find faith when He arrives is bothersome. I want to make sure that there's a great company of people, every one that we can possibly influence, that are believing believers. It's such an incredible privilege to live in a culture of unbelief and to be a believer. I can't imagine being more honored than to have the privilege to believe God in a culture that just works to deny Him.
We just got a testimony this morning from one of the churches that we work through in Southern California. Someone from their youth group went to Mexico with our team. This last week or last few weeks, this person was in a class at school where the teacher told the class that they could either believe in evolution or they get an F. If they believe in evolution then they get the good grade, if they don't, then they will flunk the class. So this one student who had been with our team to Mexico stands up and he says, "I just refuse to believe it." In so many words, "I'll take the F." The teacher wanted to know why and he said, "I just went with Bethel Church's team to Mexico. We saw blind eyes open. We saw deaf ears open. We say limbs that were three inches too short. I saw them grow out myself. There's no way in the world you can get me to believe in evolution." The teacher was just stunned and silent. When the class was over the entire class gathered around this one student and he led fourteen of them to Christ. It's amazing! What a privilege to sit in the middle of an unbelieving environment and be a believer. My goodness! What a treat just to sit in the middle of chaos and say, "I trust Jesus."
You've got to capture your moments, because when you lose your moments to fear and anxiety, we never get those moments back. But God is so glorified when we work to maintain that peace, that place of rest and just express trust and faith in Him. It's the highest of honors.
Here we have David taking off his kingly garments, and Michel, Saul's daughter, King David's wife, who really liked the favor of man. She liked recognition. She'd already been the king's daughter. She knew what it was to have things happen at her wish and her command, and she was very embarrassed when David took off the garments and danced wildly. She tried to humiliate him, and David said, "Honey, you ain't seen nothing yet. If you think I was wild today, we just got Him in the house. I'm going to go wilder than this." He said, "And I will be more undignified than this," and he takes it a step farther. He says, "I'm going to be humble in my eyes, but those that are truly the servants realize that humility is not a place of dishonor, but a place of honor." So we see passion once again. Passion expressed for the presence of the Lord that was unusual. And that religious demon, that spirit that opposes the work of God, oftentimes hooks people by getting them overwhelmed with wondering what others think. So here we have Michel, Saul's daughter, paranoid because her husband was humiliated before a nation. What was she doing in the palace anyway? The rest of Israel lined the streets. It's amazing how awkward worship looks when it's others that are doing it. It's so easy to criticize the passion of people that you're not with. My heart's not joined with them. I'm not willing to express myself with the same extreme or same extravagance. And here Michel the daughter of Saul sits there with the spirit of criticism, criticizing the one in the crowd that pleased God. How many of you know, that's a real bummer? She ends up not having any children to the day of her death. Passion is the key to fruitfulness in life.
Let's just be really practical. If you're passionate about your job, there's probably a good chance you're going to succeed and prosper. Just in the natural. If you believe in what you're doing and there's a passion, you're taking it beyond discipline. You love what you do. You love working in that nursery, you love being the doctor or whatever it is that you do. You love being a housewife, caring for the children. Whatever you do, you pour yourself in with passion and zeal and you prosper. You can't help but prosper. In the things of the Lord, passion is supposed to mark our extravagance to God. King David was the one who said, "I'm not going to give anything that doesn't cost me. This isn't about money, but it's so easy to apply it to every area of life. It's about the generous heart. It's about our relationship with the Lord and how do we live? Does the well get so dry that you survive by discipline? Does that happen very often? If it happens often, take a check. There's a leak somewhere. There's a leak that ought not to be, because we were never designed to live merely out of discipline. It's a nice boundary when things are tough, but it's not supposed to be the way of life.
See, there are standards for how we relate to the Lord. David says,"I'm not going to give God anything that doesn't cost me." There are three standards that we see in scripture for giving. The first is that we give Him the first fruits. What does that mean? You give off the top whether you can afford it or not. See, a life without passion is a budgeted life for Jesus. You budget yourself for Jesus. Well how glorious is that? I've budgeted myself. I give you portions. My grandfather was passionate. He was passionate about God. I remember as a young kid we'd go to restaurants and he'd say this all the time and one day I finally had the nerve to ask him. He'd get a salt shaker that didn't give a whole bunch (and he loved salt), he'd shake the salt shaker. If it didn't give a whole bunch he'd put it down in frustration and say, "It's a tither." And I said, "Grandpa, what do you mean,it's a tither?" He said, "It only gives what it has to." You know, I really could care less if anybody looks at this house as a disciplined house. But I sure hope they know you burn. See, the three standards of Scripture for our giving, and whether it's an offering or whether it's the way we treat each other, it is coming Sunday morning ready to minister and to serve other. It is the extravagant way that we live life; it's capturing our moments. It's our approach to what God's given us to do as our assignments. It's the fact that we refuse to reduce life down to a routine.
And so the Lord looks for the first fruits. The second thing is that He looks for the best. We give Him the first and we give Him the best. In the Old Testament, it was a lot easier to measure because they'd sacrifice a lamb. They'd go into the flock and if they saw one limping they'd say, "Well, I can't sell that one anyway. I'll sacrifice it to God. What's it going to matter; we're going to burn the thing? I mean, it's kind of a waste to burn a healthy one." So Malachi the prophet gets totally ticked off and says,"You wouldn't do that for the governor if he was coming over for dinner. You wouldn't go up and whack a lame lamb and try to feed him with it. So why are you doing that to God?" So He looks for the best. It's in the way we offer ourselves to the Lord in service and the way we love each other in God.
I like fountain pens. I just like fountain pens. But when it's time to give one away, I can't give one of the cheapies away. I've got to take the best one. I've got to take my prized ones. Those are the ones I have to always give away. You just do it as unto the Lord. If you're going to do something as unto the Lord, then give the best. If you're just going to do it for credit, then give whatever you want. If you're happy with the glory of man, give whatever one you want, take the strokes, and be happy with it. But if you're going to honor the Lord, you give the best. It's just what you do. It's the way we live.
We give the first, we give the best, and then we give extravagantly. That's the nature of life in God's extravagance. Why? Because they are the excellent ones, in whom is all our delight (according to Psalm 16). Extravagance is just the privilege of the believer. So we've got Hannah's deal. She just didn't care what people thought, and she ended up getting her reward by receiving an answered prayer. We've got David dancing wildly with his wife is totally ticked off. That affected their relationship so much she didn't have kids for the rest of her life. It's amazing what offense does. It's amazing what dials up offense too when people are passionate. You know, when you're not joined with a passionate one, passion looks foreign and often attention-getting. How many of you know, if you're in the crowd and you're not extravagant with God, David looks like a fool? He looks like he's trying to get attention. See, faith looks like arrogance to those filled with unbelief. So we've got David dancing wildly before the Lord, and the one who didn't like it becomes barren.
It reminds me of the woman who brought the alabaster vial out. It took a year's worth of income to buy this ointment. Whatever you'd make in a year, that's what it would cost. And it didn't have a screw-top lid or a spray thing. You had to open it by breaking it, so once it was open, it was open. She broke the alabaster vial open and poured it over Jesus. And Jesus said, "What you've done will be as a memorial to you," which basically means, "Throughout all of eternity, you will be a reference point of passion." You look in the dictionary of God, her picture's right next to "passion." Everybody's going to know what it looks like by your example. The disciples were totally ticked off and asked, "Why this waste?" They had to think of some good "religious" reason, so they said, "We could have given it to the poor." The real problem was it didn't make sense to take ointment and pour it out and have it just dissipate. The fragrance is here now; it's going to disappear by noon. Tomorrow it won't be around any more. What's the use of that? So they saw it as waste, yet passion counts in heaven. It is currency in the Kingdom.
The third story is actually a prophetic word in Isaiah 54 where it says, "Shout for joy, barren one." It's just an amazing passage. I don't know if we've studied this since I've been here, but I make reference to the principle quite often. It's an amazing principle: shout for joy while you're barren. Anyone can shout after you're pregnant. Anyone can rejoice after they've won the Reader's Digest Sweepstakes. It doesn't take a spiritual giant. Every October at the end of the World Series, somebody will give thanks to God because they won. Show me the guy rejoicing in the loser's dugout, and I'll show you a real believer.
Listen, I don't know if you're getting this or not. Your joy changes the world around you. That's what it comes down to. Your joy takes infertility and makes it fertile. Your joy causes things around you to alter and to change. Your atmosphere shifts by what is exploding right here. When Jesus said, "The Kingdom is within you," He is saying, "Joy releases my world and alters the conditions of the circumstances around you." Joy is a choice that is made, sometimes, with trembling. But it must be expressed. It cannot be quietly contained in the heart. They brought the presence of the Lord into the city with shouting and the blasting of the trumpets. They didn't bring it in bowing low with quiet reverence. Sometimes you'll blow up if you try to do that. Sometimes there will be body parts everywhere. There are just certain things that have to take on expression. Joy was one of those things that was never meant to quietly reside in the heart. It has to be demonstrated. It can;t just be demonstrated through, "Oh. I'm happy" Somehow my body wants to display what's going on. So David dances wildly. In Isaiah 54, it's, "Sing for joy. Shout for joy, barren one." Why? "Because you're going to pass up the woman that's been having kids all this time. The sons of the desolate one will be more than the sons of the married one. You're going to be making twins and triplets while she's making one at a time." The point is: this measure of fruitfulness that is simply beyond comprehension will surpass the natural boundaries you've been restricted by. You're going to live supernaturally while others live naturally. They may have been bearing fruit all along because of the favor on their lives. But this that is shifting in you is going to give you supernatural increase to bypass the one that's been productive all along. It's the "shout for joy", it's the "extravagant worship."
You know, the goal isn't to get people to dance in the aisles. The goal is to get people to burn in their souls. I can dance without joy. I can dance just because it's the right thing to do. We know how to measure up to expectations. The burning is what is necessary. It's the burning, the passion, and the thing that wakes you in the night when you find yourself just praying and asking for more of God. It's the first fruits of the morning when you wake and your first thoughts are, "Oh, I'm so desperate. I need so much more of God's touch in my life." It's one of the simplest truths in the Bible: "Don't worry. Be happy." Somebody wrote a song about it. I don't know if you're getting this. Happy people leak Jesus into their circumstances until they change.
It's just a better way to live. Jesus, help me to never reduce you to discipline. The Lord spoke to Don Potter once and said, "I don't want to be your habit. I want to be your friend." I tell you, there's religious routine, and it doesn't mean things should stop. If you witness every day and that's your routine, don't stop that. You might tithe or pray "x" amount of times, but don't stop the routine. It's not evil. You don't prove anything by stopping, yet you need a fire burning in there along with those things. So you start making the focus, "God, I'm not content to just do things just 'because they're the right thing to do. I've got to be burning in my soul.'" See, if I obey out of discipline, I adjust my insides to what God is saying and doing, and that's fine. But when I do it out of passion, I adjust my outsides. I change everything outside of me, and everything that I come in contact with. When I live out of passion, I'm contagious. When I live out of discipline, I'm admired. So I just say, "Come get me, Jesus! Just increase, increase this burning in my soul. I am not content to reduce my walk with you to a habit or a discipline. I am not content to just do things merely because they are the right thing to do. God, I must burn with true biblical passion. I must reflect back to you the burning you have for me." The Bible says there's fire in His eyes. I pray that the fire in His eyes ignites our hearts so that we burn with a holy passion. It's not just an emotional up and down, because emotions rise and fall, but passion doesn't ever have to fall. True biblical passion will burn as long as you have something worth burning on the altar. As long as you give Him something worth burning, there will be fire. The moment we recalibrate our values to be safe and budgeted, we budge our worship. Boring. Absolutely. A worship service where everything is nice and is in control is not only boring, but also budgeted. It is not extravagant, and I don't like the absence of extravagance. I like passion for God. I like to burn in my soul. I don't have to jump and I don't have to shout; it's just going to happen. I won't ever forget the first time I danced before the Lord. I was all by myself and I turned fifteen shades of red. I was the only one in the house, the window shades were drawn, and I was sure CBS was filming the entire event. I was so aware of what I looked like as I danced before the Lord. But you know what? Something was off of me when I was through that was on me when I started. It's hard to keep the cobwebs of "religion" on your soul when you just choose to celebrate the goodness of God. I'll tell you, in some of my darkest moments, I would go out somewhere in the woods or down to the church, somewhere, and whatever measure of darkness seemed to be over me, I would celebrate to the same degree. The darker it was the more wild and extreme I would get. I would go down and turn the stereo up full blast and start shouting to God. I'd just dance and leap and twist in the air. I'll never forget the first time I danced before the Lord; I jumped and I leaped in the house by myself. I was just jumping and leaping and twisting and turning. I don't dance, so all I knew to do was to jump and twist and turn. My dad taught on worship just a few weeks later and said, "This word 'exult' means to leap in the air with twisting and turning," and I went, "I did that! I did that!" I'll tell you what, depressed demons don't like hanging around happy Christians. You repel them! So, this is the prescription. Rejoice, with trembling if need be, but rejoice. Extravagance is the way we live and the way we give. We give the first and we give the best. I don't want to give Him the leftovers of my life. Amen.
♥
Sherry Wong
Gah,
August 28, 2009 at 2:48pm ·
Amanda Joy
whoa Keann. you can be our next youth pastor. okay, let me read this now......................................
August 28, 2009 at 3:40pm ·
Keann Chong
HOLD ON. I DIDN'T WRITE IT. IT WAS FROM BETHEL D:
August 28, 2009 at 5:28pm ·
Amanda Joy
oohhhhhhhhhhhhh
August 30, 2009 at 2:44pm ·
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