John Bevere - When Grace Gets in Your Boat
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Pursue holiness. What does «pursue» mean? It means to chase after with the intent to apprehend. He cannot be speaking about positional holiness here; he must be talking about behavioral holiness. Because look at what he goes on to say: «Without which no one will see the Lord.» Now I’m going to address that in just a moment, but before I can do so, I need to explain how to live holy.
Okay, now look at the next statement: «Looking carefully.» Everybody say «looking carefully.» Say it with conviction. Looking carefully means examining yourself closely, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God. Whoa! How could you ever fall short of the grace of God? The message being preached in America today would indicate it’s impossible, so perhaps we don’t understand the full meaning of grace. No, we don’t. Let me share that with you.
In 2009, a nationwide survey was conducted across America. Over 5,000 Christians were polled, and this is the question that was asked: «Give three or more definitions or descriptions of the grace of God.» The overwhelming majority provided these four answers: salvation, a free unmerited gift, forgiveness of sins, and the love of God. I’m so glad American Christians understand that we’re saved by grace and only by grace. You cannot earn that grace because it’s God’s gift, and by the grace of God, our sins have been forgiven because it’s His love. I’m glad Americans understood that, but here’s where the tragedy occurred in this survey. Are you ready? Only 2 percent—did you hear what I just said? —two percent said that grace was God’s empowerment.
This is exactly how God defines His grace. The Apostle Paul states in 2nd Corinthians 12:9, «My grace is sufficient for you, for my power…» Now these words are read in your Bible, meaning they are straight from the mouth of God. God refers to His grace as what? Come on, everybody say it: «Is what?» For my power, which is my grace, is made perfect in your human inability. Look at what Peter says about grace. Peter says, «Grace be multiplied to you as His divine…» Come on, everybody say it with conviction: «As His divine power.» Sorry, Peter refers to grace as His divine power, which has given us everything we need for living a godly life.
If you look at the root word for grace, it’s the Greek word «charis.» Strong’s defines it as a gift, favor, benefit, graciousness, and liberality. If you take this initial definition and couple it with selected scriptures from the books of Ephesians, Romans, and Galatians, you get the grace of God that most American Christians are familiar with. However, Strong’s doesn’t stop there. He goes on to define the Greek word for grace as «the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in the life.» You can see there’s an outward reflection of what’s done in the heart—that’s the empowerment of grace.
When Barnabas went to the churches in Antioch in Acts 11, he saw the grace of God on the people. He didn’t just hear about it; he saw the empowerment that was reflected in their lives. I want you to look at me—every one of you—don’t look at the board; look at me or at me and the board. I was bound to pornography. I got married in 1982 to Lisa Bevere. I thought I would be alleviated from this struggle, but I was still bound to pornography. I went into the ministry, and I was still bound to pornography. You want to know why? Because I was trying to get free in my own strength. But then I discovered the grace of God—that it’s not just forgiveness of sins, not just a free gift; it’s His empowerment that gives me the ability where I couldn’t do it on my own. I got free on May 6, 1985, and I have been free ever since.
Now if you look at Hebrews again, it makes sense. Look at this: «Pursue holiness, without which no man will see the Lord, looking carefully lest anyone falls short of the grace of God.» Now you understand what it means to fall short. If I give you a vehicle and say, «Here, it’s yours. You can do whatever you want,» and all you do is play the stereo and use the air conditioning without ever driving it, you’ve fallen short of my gift that I’ve given to you.
Looking carefully, lest anyone falls short of the grace of God. Now look, I’m going to skip a few verses later: «Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace…» I might shout «grace,» by which we may serve God acceptably—that’s behavior. What is the acceptable way to serve God? Come on, guys, pursue holiness. Now here’s the tragedy: I want you to look up at me. I want you to listen. Do you understand that 98% of Christians in America are trying to live godly lives in their own ability? How do I know that? Because you can’t receive anything from God unless you believe, and you can’t believe what you don’t know.
So if 98% of Christians in America don’t even know grace is God’s empowerment, that means most Christians in America are trying to live godly in their own ability. If you try to live godly in your own ability, one of two things happens: either you become a hypocritical legalist, or you become a loosey-goosey who makes up all kinds of strange doctrines like «grace covers all sin.» I love standing—I’m very nice—but when you understand that grace is God’s empowerment, you become a happy person. This is not your ability anymore. Do you see what we’ve done? By underselling grace, we thought we were protecting people from bondage because we were all scorched by legalism, when in reality, what we did is keep people from walking in freedom because they’re trying to do it in their own strength.