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- Beholding The Gladness Of Jesus, Part 1
Beholding the Gladness of Jesus, Part 1
Mike Bickle

Mike Bickle (1955 - ). American evangelical pastor, author, and founder of the International House of Prayer (IHOPKC), born in Kansas City, Missouri. Converted at 15 after hearing Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach at a 1970 Fellowship of Christian Athletes conference, he pastored several St. Louis churches before founding Kansas City Fellowship in 1982, later Metro Christian Fellowship. In 1999, he launched IHOPKC, pioneering 24/7 prayer and worship, growing to 2,500 staff and including a Bible college until its closure in 2024. Bickle authored books like Passion for Jesus (1994), emphasizing intimacy with God, eschatology, and Israel’s spiritual role. Associated with the Kansas City Prophets in the 1980s, he briefly aligned with John Wimber’s Vineyard movement until 1996. Married to Diane since 1973, they have two sons. His teachings, broadcast globally, focused on prayer and prophecy but faced criticism for controversial prophetic claims. In 2023, Bickle was dismissed from IHOPKC following allegations of misconduct, leading to his withdrawal from public ministry. His influence persists through archived sermons despite ongoing debates about his legacy
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Sermon Summary
Mike Bickle emphasizes the gladness of Jesus and the significance of praying in tongues as a means of personal edification and divine communication. He encourages believers to engage deeply with the Holy Spirit, highlighting that speaking in tongues allows individuals to receive mysteries and insights about their own hearts and the Word of God. Bickle shares his personal journey from skepticism to embracing the gift of tongues, urging the congregation to dedicate time to pray in the Spirit for spiritual growth and revelation. He stresses the importance of consistency in prayer and the transformative power it can have over time.
Sermon Transcription
And we thank you in Jesus' name, amen. Tonight I want to talk for a few minutes, I won't go real long tonight, on a subject that's very dear to the heart of God. It's dear to my heart and I know it's dear to the heart of a number of you in this room. It's the issue of the gladness of Jesus. Let's stand up for a moment. I'm not sure I'm going to do this. Let's just wait on the Lord. The Lord might want to do something different. I just feel a check in my spirit about going forward with this. Let's just, every one of us, just close our eyes and just ask the Lord, the Holy Spirit, to come and just move on us. We don't have to do anything special, let's just avail ourselves to Him. Lord, I ask you, even now, Lord, as it's raining outside, I ask that it would rain on the inside. I ask for the activity of the Holy Spirit. I'm just going to wait for a few minutes. Let's just see what the Lord does. Lord, here we are. Lord, we come to be in your presence. Lord, I ask you for the activity of the Holy Spirit to come and touch us. Okay, I'm going to have you all sit down and open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 14. We'll do something a little different. I'm going to have the worship team come on back up here. These are good notes, by the way. I just feel a check, just as I started. I know that hesitation really clear. I just feel like that's not the direction. There's the worship team coming up. 1 Corinthians 14, I ask you all to turn to there. I'm going to ask the Lord to release people in the gift of tongues tonight. I'm going to pray for people to be... I just sensed that as I was waiting before the Lord here. There's a number of people that have never received your prayer language, you've never received the gift of tongues, or you've received it, but you've kind of lost the sense of the grace of God for it. I'm going to talk for a few minutes from 1 Corinthians 14. I'm going to invite you to come up. We're going to lay hands on you. We're going to just sing in the Spirit over you. We're going to ask the Lord to release the Holy Spirit's presence on your heart to either release grace for you to begin again in this subject, I mean not this subject, this reality of your life, or to receive it for the first time. 1 Corinthians 14, let's look. What is the gift of tongues about? It says in verse 2, For he that speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but he speaks to God. For no one understands, however in his spirit he speaks mysteries. The idea of speaking in tongues is not so that people can understand you. The Lord says, I didn't give you the gift so you could speak to people. Now there is the gift of tongues where a person speaks and somebody interprets, but Paul's not talking about that right now. He's not talking about the gift of tongues to the body, where somebody stands up and speaks and somebody interprets, and then there's a clear message. There's two different types of the gift of tongues in the word of God. One is a gift to the body, but in 1 Corinthians 14, it's for our private edification. This is the private gift of tongues that every individual can operate in. And he says in verse 2, That when you speak in tongues, you speak mysteries. You speak mysteries. And what does that mean? That when you pray in the spirit, that simple little prayer language, God is communicating to your spirit information. He's releasing divine information in your spirit. Now it's not like the minute you pray in tongues, you get divine information. But when you pray in the spirit, your spirit becomes sensitized to receive information that you're speaking it back to God. You're speaking it in your prayer language, but it's actually mysteries, which is divine information is what that word is talking about. I try to pray in the spirit an hour a day or two hours a day. I've done that for, I don't know, 25 years. I don't always do it, but most days, many days I do it. I don't really know the amount, but it's certainly the rule of my life. And the reason I want to do it, because I want the Lord to give me divine information. I want those mysteries. Because as I'm speaking in the spirit, speaking in tongues to Him, I don't know when it happens, but a spirit of revelation is released to me. Here's what I get mysteries on. Here's the area I get information. I get information about my own heart and my own life. The Lord talks to me about how my heart is, how He wants it to be released, or how I'm stopping the grace of God, or how my heart is wounded, or how my heart is made. He wants to speak to me, and He gives me information about my own heart and life. When I pray in tongues, He gives me information about other people, about what's blocking the blessing of God in another person's life. When I pray in tongues, He gives me information on the Word of God. One of the things I love most to do is to pray in the spirit for an hour or two, especially on a fast day, as we're going to this three days of fasting, to pray in the spirit and then open my Bible. I try to always have a notepad there because I love journaling. I pray in the spirit maybe for a half hour or an hour. Then I'll just begin to read a passage I'm really familiar with. I pray in the spirit and read the passage. I pray, I just go back and forth. Every couple of minutes, I go back and forth. Tremendous insight comes. I just begin to journal. That's not all 100% inspired, but there's these nuggets of truth that God's giving me that are unusually inspired compared to the normal thoughts that you would get. They have a high level of inspiration. A phrase here, a thought there, and He unlocks the Word of God. So when you pray in the spirit, you're speaking mysteries about your own heart, about God's heart, about other people, about the Word of God. It's a very, very important part of the grace of God in prayer to pray in the spirit. It says in verse 4, He said, He that speaks in tongues, he edifies himself. And the word edifies is the word he builds up or charges like a battery. Now this is how you know 1 Corinthians 14 is the personal gift of tongues because it edifies yourself. Whereas in chapter 12, verse 7, it says the gift of the spirit is for the good of others. In 1 Corinthians 12, the gift of tongues is for the other people. It's somebody speaking in tongues and somebody interpreting. It's a gift to the body. But chapter 14, it's a very different thing. He's talking about edifying yourself, which is a very different subject. For years, like it's five years, not that many years, but when I was about 17, 18 years old, about 22, 23, right in those years, many years ago, I was really against the gift of tongues. And I would go around, I was involved in the college ministry and the University of Missouri right down the road. And then I was involved, I would go to other college campuses and high schools and I'd speak and give Bible studies and they would come visit us. And whenever I went somewhere, they always, like I would go to the University of Kansas or K-State or Mizzou or different college campuses and little Bible studies of 50 or 100 people and I'd go and talk to them. And I always went and spoke to them against the gift of tongues. I had this unusual energy against tongues. I thought it was a deception. And what I used to always tell people is, I said, 1 Corinthians 12, verse 7, I mean, 1 Corinthians 12, not everybody has the gift of tongues. Everybody doesn't have the gift of miracles. See, you're not supposed to tell everybody that they have it. And it's true, everybody doesn't have the gift of tongues for the whole body. That's true. But everybody does have the gift of tongues for their personal devotional life. Chapter 14, verse 4, the gift of tongues for the building up, the charging of their own spiritual battery. Many believers do not charge their spiritual battery. They have the gift of tongues but they don't use it. So in verse 4, their own edification of their spirit, of their faith, the building up of their spirit, they don't do it. Because they don't understand the value of this gift. And verse 2, they don't speak in tongues to God and so therefore they don't receive the amount of mysteries or divine information that God wants to give them. Oh incidentally, I forgot to mention, it says when you speak in tongues, you speak in tongues to God. You don't speak into the air mindlessly. You actually, when I pray in the spirit, I focus my mind on Revelation 4, the throne of God. Revelation 4 describes the throne of God. God the Father is on His throne and His Son is at the right hand. And there's this beautiful description of the throne of God. I lock my mind into that scene of the throne of God and I speak in tongues, gazing into this throne filled with the glory of God with light and color and the angels are there and I'm just gazing into this throne of light, the being of God and I speak in tongues right into that light. Or other times, I'll go a different direction. Because the Holy Spirit lives in our human spirit and I think of the Holy Spirit as light in life and I think of the Holy Spirit dwelling in my human spirit and I focus my attention upon my spirit because the Holy Spirit is there and I talk to Him directly. Sometimes I focus my attention inwardly and just as a word picture, I think of the Holy Spirit as the Shekinah of glory living right in my being, right in my belly. I speak right to the Shekinah of glory, the Holy Spirit. Or sometimes I speak in tongues to God the Father on the throne. I go in two different directions. And regardless which direction I go in, it has a very, not every time, but it has a powerful impact in building up my spirit. I love to sit there and just gaze right into that Shekinah glory dwelling in my being called the indwelling spirit and just silent, I mean gently, just pray in the spirit and I'm just gazing and I'm saying, Holy Spirit and I'm just praying in tongues saying, Holy Spirit, speak to me. Holy Spirit, I am yours and I'm telling you there is a dynamic release of God if you do that. I don't mean every time. Sometimes it's nothing happens and it's real boring. I know what it means to pray in the spirit. I know what it means to pray in English and it's boring and unanointed. I know what it means not to get any sense of breakthrough. But I also know what it means for it to be like real sluggish at 10 o'clock and then at 2 o'clock it's alive and then at 8 o'clock that night it's sluggish again. You know, it's just like I wish there was some perfect equation that I could count on every time. Someone says, well, I always feel this when I pray. I go, I don't think that's true. You don't always feel anything when you pray. There's so much diverse range of emotions when you do this. And I try to get it all figured out because I'm really feeling the presence of God one afternoon but that evening I don't. I think, how could I go backwards? Then I wake up the next morning and I do. I go, well, I didn't like pray or read the Word last night. I woke up with a sense of clarity in my spirit. The 6 a.m. prayer meeting, it feels alive. Then at 10 a.m. I'm dead again. I go, how does this work? And so I'm trying to just let you know there is an ebb and flow in this. So it's not always dynamic and always powerful. But when I pray to God the Father on the throne or I pray, again, I'll just use the phrase. It's not the perfect way to say it. But the Shekinah glory, I'm talking about the Holy Spirit, but I picture this bright light in my spirit, God Himself dwelling in me. And I talk to Him and I say, Holy Spirit, release Your power. Touch my heart. Strengthen my spirit with might. And I pray in the spirit and I build up my spirit by doing that. Look at 1 Corinthians 14, verse 18. Paul said this. This was the verse that really got me. He said, I thank God I pray in tongues more than all of you. When I was against tongues for those number of years, five years, I mean really against it, I had every verse figured out, or so I thought. Meaning every argument, I read all these books against it and I read the books for it so I could come up with arguments against it. But the only verse I couldn't ever figure out was 1 Corinthians 15. Well, I was obviously wrong on the other ones, but at least I had the sense, the confidence I was right. But in verse 18, this used to bother me. I said, how come Paul the apostle prayed in tongues more than anybody? He was probably the busiest man in ministry in the whole world. I mean, we're talking Paul the apostle. He's writing the Bible, preaching with signs and wonders, discipling people, and then he worked a job on the side as tent-making to pay for his needs, to supply his needs, his financial needs. There's nothing wrong with working. He worked part-time on the side so that he could finance his apostle habit. He had this apostle habit that he loved, this addiction to bringing the power of God. And he made tents on the side a few hours a week to supply himself with the finances to give himself for the other 80 hours a week to being an apostle. I mean, he was a fanatic. And I thought, how could this guy pray in tongues more than everybody? And I thought, what did Paul know about tongues that I do not know about tongues? And I used to look at that. I remember when I was 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. That bothered me. I said, Lord, if I could just cut that one verse out of my Bible with a razor blade, then I would be happy. Because I couldn't, all the other verses I had a good argument for, but not that one. How could a man that anointed, how could a man that busy give that much time to praying in tongues? I said, this is insane. Surely, surely somebody should have talked to him and straightened him out. But that never really satisfied my heart. It bugged me. So what I used to do is, I used to, I had this sense of a prayer language. I didn't believe it. I thought it was false. But I would, I was pastoring a church. I started pastoring a church in my early 20s, when I was 20 actually. So I'm about 21, 22 years old at this time. And what I did is, I had all these disciples. I had about eight guys living with me. I was single at the time. And I picked up different guys hitchhiking. And I had eight of them. I picked every one of them up. Well, all but one of them. And they all lived with me. So if I led them to the Lord on the road, I brought them home. And they were one of my disciples. And I had eight or maybe seven. I can't remember. And the first thing I taught them was to love Jesus and to be against tongues. That was the second thing. And I taught them all against tongues. And we were all, I had this club. I called it the Bachelor to the Rapture Club. And we were all going to be bachelors to the rapture. And we're all married now, so it totally failed. But we all committed ourselves to be bachelors to the rapture. Obviously, that didn't work. But they were all really against tongues. They didn't know anything about the Bible. They were brand new. I mean, picked straight, you know, back in the, because this is like 1976. When you picked up, everybody hitchhiked in 1976. You picked up everybody. I used to get on, right here in Kansas City, I would get on one side of the city and hitchhike to the other side of the city just to witness to people in their cars. They'd pick me up. They'd go, where are you going? I'd go over to the north side. They'd go, oh, okay, where? And I just, you know, I had the place I was going. And I would just, 20 or 30 minutes, I'd talk to them about Jesus. They'd go on the other side and then hitchhike back and talk to them about Jesus. I figured they were trapped. See, they thought they were doing me a favor. They were trapped. I was in their car. I can't remember if it was effective. I probably led a few people to the Lord, but I can't even remember because it was so many years ago. But I used to do that all the time. And so, my point being, the reason I said that, I had a pastoral download that says, don't pick up everybody hitchhiking. It's not 1976. It was safe in 1976. It's weird right now. So I would not recommend that. So I'm just throwing that little, I don't do it now. When I see somebody hitchhiking, there's so much, unless the Lord really speaks to me, I don't pick them up. So I'm just saying that because some of you could think, ah, 2006, 1976, very different 29, 30 years later in that. Everybody was hitchhiking in the 70s. And so, follow maybe the idea of soul winning, that example, but don't do the hitchhiking version. But anyway, I picked all these guys up hitchhiking, and they're all my little disciples, and taught them all against tongues. And so, they're all fiery. I gave them the main 10 verses, and they knew about how to lead someone to Jesus. Within a week of them being saved, they knew how to lead someone to Jesus, and they knew how to argue against tongues. Those are the first two things they learned. Somebody asked them how to live holy. I don't know how to live holy, but I know tongues is wrong, and I know how to lead someone to Jesus. And so, they were all, I lived in this, I was pastoring a church, and so I lived in the church house, the parsonage, that's what they called it. And so, they could, you know, we're all there together. And so, I put towels on the air vents, so they couldn't hear me, because I was going to practice, I was going to experiment talking in tongues, just in case I was wrong. But if they caught me, I would be totally in trouble, because that was the ultimate betrayal. That was even worse than getting a girlfriend. I mean, it really was. Getting a girlfriend was a little bit of betrayal, but that was the second one. Now, we all talk in tongues, and we all got married, so again, none of it worked. So, I'd put towels on the vent, and I had this little semblance of a prayer language. I didn't believe it was real. But it was this verse, 18, I said, I am so frustrated. Paul the apostle, my ultimate hero, besides Jesus, he prayed in tongues more than anybody. Lord, why did you put this verse in the Bible? Are you sure this is inspired, this one verse? I know the rest of it is. You know, whenever you get one verse that you think shouldn't be in the Bible, don't go there. Just go ahead and take the whole thing. And it was in the process of that where the Spirit touched me, actually. Because the Lord saw my sincerity. And it was in the process of that, the Holy Spirit touched me and released the gift of tongues in me, and the grace of it, in a marvelous way. Look at verse 15. It says, what is, oh, verse 13. Verse 14, I mean. But if I pray in a tongue, my spirit is praying. My understanding is unfruitful. He says, I don't know what I'm praying, but my spirit is active in the grace of God. Your spirit is praying, even though you might even say five or six little words, your spirit is active in the Holy Spirit. And you're receiving mysteries, and you're being tenderized, and God is edifying and building up your spirit. He says in verse 15, what's the conclusion? I will pray with the Spirit, and I will pray with the understanding. In our context, that means praying in English. He goes, I'll do both. Sometimes I'll pray in English, and sometimes I'll pray in my prayer language. Paul said, I will sing with the Spirit, and sometimes I will sing, in our context, in English. Verse 16, he goes, otherwise, if you bless with the Spirit, how will he who occupies the place of the uninformed say amen? It's your giving of thanks, for he does not understand what you're doing. Verse 17, for indeed, you're giving thanks well enough. When you pray in the Spirit, whether you know it or not, you're giving thanks to God. You're thanking God. That's what it says in verse 17. Your spirit is praying. That's verse 14. Verse 4, you're being edified. Your spiritual battery is being charged up. And verse 2, you're receiving mysteries. You're receiving information about your own heart. You're receiving information about people. You're praying for. You're receiving information about God's heart. You're receiving revelation on the Word of God. You're getting information on how to pray. When I pray in the Spirit, I get information on the burden of the Lord, on what to pray for in a person's life. Not every time. So I'll end this with verse 5. I wish that you all spoke with tongues. But even more, I wish you all prophesied. But Paul said, I want everybody to speak in tongues. Now, when you pray in the Spirit, you're praying to God on His throne. You're focusing your mind. You're not just mindlessly saying syllables or phrases with your mind just wandering. That's better than nothing. I mean, I don't think that's a total waste, but that's not the optimum thing to do. But I like to lock in to focusing on God or lock in to focusing on God, the Holy Spirit, who lives in me. I like to pray in the Spirit. I like to go long, long times. I want to encourage you. This may sound extreme, but it's really not extreme. Millions of people have done this. Millions. The idea of praying in the Spirit an hour a day. That is not extreme. When I first heard that, someone told me that years ago, I thought, that's insane. An hour a day, that's humanly impossible. It's not at all. And maybe you break it down to two 30-minute slots. But I find out that if you pray in the Spirit for a full hour at a time, something builds. Something builds. That's why I really urge our worship teams to lead in singing the Spirit. When we sing in the Spirit as a congregation, more happens. The Spirit moves more if we do that together. Not every time. It's not like a 100% rule. But over the months and years, more happens if we do that. And typically when we pray in the Spirit and there's a thousand people in the room, probably only 500 are doing it. The other 500 are checked out. But beloved, 500 is a lot. I'm not concerned about the 500 who are checked out. But at any given time, 50% of them aren't doing it. I'm sad as a shepherd because I know that I know if they would engage themselves, more would happen in their life. And it's a free gift. Everybody can have it. And they're going to be there anyway for the 15 or 20 minutes that the whole worship team sing in the Spirit. I think, why not build your spirit up and receive mysteries, divine information from God? Why not bless the Lord and give thanks to God in your spirit? Why not activate your spirit, as it says in verse 14, your spirit is praying. Your spirit's active in the Holy Spirit. Your spirit's moving. It's alive. Things are happening. So I want to encourage you. For those of you that pray in the Spirit, I mean, that's something you feel grace when you do it. I really want to urge you to lock in to an hour a day. Half hour two times, an hour one time. And I did this when I was a pastor at a growing church and meetings and congregation, this and that. I mean, it was a full-time job plus some. And I determined years ago, I was too busy not to do this. I refused to live without doing this. And the fruit of it is, is I've gained so much understanding of the Word through this avenue of praying in tongues and read the Word, praying in tongues, journaling, praying in tongues and throwing in a little bit of fasting into the mix to make it even more intense. When we go to this three days, I want to urge you, don't waste the three days and just go to IHOP and just kind of tap your foot and listen to the music and just kind of doodle, you know. Just, oh man, it's kind of cool being at IHOP. Why not actually engage your spirit, open your Bible, read the book of John every day. You get a couple hours of free time. Everybody has a couple hours of free time. Read the whole gospel of John every day on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Read the book of Revelation every day. Pick a book of the Bible, read the whole thing through, use all of your free time and try to pray in the spirit an hour in the morning and the hour in the evening and do that every time we have a global bridegroom fast. If you're working, you're not at the IHOP staff, take that hour, just go out somewhere and just pray in tongues for an hour and fast. Get up an hour early, don't turn on the TV set at night, read the Word two or three hours that night, come to IHOP. Those are the things that make your spirit shift and change. People have this idea, and then we're going to pray for people. Just a moment here. People have this idea that if they love God and suddenly they'll wake up one day, they'll change. It doesn't work that way. Well, I love God. I go to church. I hang out with good people. That's not how you change. You change by spiritual violence. Jesus said, the violent take it by force. You change by getting a goal, by getting focused. You're going to fast, you're going to fill yourself with the Word, you're going to pray in the Spirit, you're going to set some focus goals in your life, and you're going to stick with it for 10 years. Don't even look back and measure for 10 years if you've gone anywhere. People, they do this, and a month later they go, I don't feel any different. I go, a month later? It's like taking vitamins. You know, you could take vitamins, a month later you don't know anything. They say, having never done it that successfully, but they say it takes a long time before the health of the vitamins begin to really impact you. People say, I read the Word for an hour a day and prayed to God for an hour a day for a month, it didn't work, I quit. I go, don't even measure it for 10 years. Lock in and don't look back, and I'm telling you, I've never seen anybody, I've never seen anybody disappointed who's done that for 5 or 10 years. All of a sudden, the Word of God begins to move, it becomes alive, your spirit becomes tender, you feel the presence of God, this is how you do it. You don't do it by being a good Christian that loves God, that hangs out with good people and drops in at IHOP occasionally, or maybe on the IHOP staff. That's not how it works. You do it by being focused, determined, you get a hold of your schedule, you lock in, and you fill your time in the Word of God and in this way. And I'm telling you, you will be a different human being in a couple of years if you lock in and do that. Okay, let's all stand.
Beholding the Gladness of Jesus, Part 1
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Mike Bickle (1955 - ). American evangelical pastor, author, and founder of the International House of Prayer (IHOPKC), born in Kansas City, Missouri. Converted at 15 after hearing Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach at a 1970 Fellowship of Christian Athletes conference, he pastored several St. Louis churches before founding Kansas City Fellowship in 1982, later Metro Christian Fellowship. In 1999, he launched IHOPKC, pioneering 24/7 prayer and worship, growing to 2,500 staff and including a Bible college until its closure in 2024. Bickle authored books like Passion for Jesus (1994), emphasizing intimacy with God, eschatology, and Israel’s spiritual role. Associated with the Kansas City Prophets in the 1980s, he briefly aligned with John Wimber’s Vineyard movement until 1996. Married to Diane since 1973, they have two sons. His teachings, broadcast globally, focused on prayer and prophecy but faced criticism for controversial prophetic claims. In 2023, Bickle was dismissed from IHOPKC following allegations of misconduct, leading to his withdrawal from public ministry. His influence persists through archived sermons despite ongoing debates about his legacy