John Bevere - Why God Gives You A Specific Calling?
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Okay, we're on Lesson Four. Are you having fun? Yes, I am too! I'm getting so pumped! You know, last session we said that the reason it's important that we walk in our calling is that we'll be eternally rewarded for it. So, what I want to do in this one is look at the big picture. All right, let's view it from God's perspective this time. Why did God give us specific callings? Why didn't He just say, "Do whatever you see is best"?
Now, let's think about this. Can you imagine a football team where everyone is a Tom Brady, a quarterback? You have no linemen, no wide receivers, no safeties, no cornerbacks—everyone's a quarterback. Would that football team accomplish anything in the NFL? Absolutely not. Can you imagine a business that only has accountants? I mean, we have no salespeople, no marketing people, no shipping people, no engineers, no designers—just accountants! Would that company be able to do anything in terms of marketing or creating something? There's no way!
Can you imagine building a house and only hiring plumbers for the project? You don't hire any sheetrock guys, no framers, no roofers, no electricians. It's ridiculous when you think about it!
That's just how absurd it is to think that God would build His house with all of us just being preachers, or all of us just being businessmen and women, or all of us just being schoolteachers. God understands; He's the greatest builder of all time, isn't that true?
I want to remind you of what I showed you in the last lesson—Paul talking about Judgment Day when everything will be revealed by fire. Let me show you what Paul says just before that; it's truly amazing. In 1 Corinthians 3:9, Paul said, "We are God's fellow workers." Now, stop and think about that—fellow workers! That means co-workers. That, to me, is mind-blowing! And then he says, "You are God's building." Do you see that? God refers to us as co-workers and calls us His building.
Okay, I have an announcement to make. Are you ready for this, guys? God is building Himself a custom home, and He's excited about it! He's been working on this home for thousands of years. Let me share some passion here.
Lisa and I, at one point in our life, had a chance to build a custom home back when we lived in Orlando, Florida. I had written "The Bait of Satan," and it was getting out there. One day, we were dreaming while walking through a great parade of homes. It was one of the best builders in all of Orlando, Florida, and I hear this real gruff voice saying, "Praise God!" I turn around, and I'm like, "Who is this guy?" He goes, "I'm the builder!" He comes up to me and says, "I can't believe you're here. I want to build you and Lisa a custom house!"
I was like, "There's no way!" He said, "I'm going to give you a God price, a God price!" This guy ended up building us a custom home without making one penny off of it; he donated the entire house! All he charged for were the materials and the subs—that was it.
I'll never forget when he came over to our little track house. I don't even think you were born yet; you were just a baby! He puts a blank piece of paper on the table and says, "Draw your dream house." I was shocked! I was so used to going into these places, and they were like, "You can have this floor plan or that floor plan; don't even change a thing."
I asked, "What?" My wife was already drawing, and I thought, "I gotta do the garage and my study; I think that's it." But anyway, I watched him take this drawing, bring it to the architects, and the blueprints came back. I remember when they started building that house—Lisa and I went to that job site every day. We were so excited about our dream house coming to life right before our very eyes.
Now, God did something that Lisa and I didn't do—He put a name on His house! You know, famous houses have names. You've got the White House in Washington, D.C., and then the lady in England lives in Buckingham Palace. Other actors, like Nicholas Cage, have houses named Friar Park or something like that. God put a name on His house. You know what He calls His house? He calls it Zion. That's the name He put on His house.
Okay, before I show you that, I want to show you in Scripture how we are part of the house. Are you ready for this? Watch this: Ephesians 2:19-21 says, "You are members of God's family. Together we are His house." Now, remember, His house is called Zion! I'll show you this in a minute. Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, the cornerstone is Christ Jesus Himself. We are carefully joined together—in other words, you don't join the window with the tile on the floor, right? You have to put it together carefully.
We are carefully joined together in Him, becoming a holy temple, a custom home for the Lord. Now remember, I told you He put a name on His house. What's the name? Come on, guys! Zion! Look at this: "For the Lord has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His dwelling place." Now look what He says: "This is my resting place forever. Here I will dwell, for I have desired it." Do you see His passion for His house?
I remember when Lisa and I would visit the job site; sometimes we went there twice a day because we were so excited to watch that house go up. Now, we waited a couple of months; He's been waiting for a few thousand years, right? And He's so excited!
Remember, Paul said we are the house, right? We're part of the house. Well, who would be the foundation of this house? It would have to be Jesus, right?
Look what He says in Isaiah 28: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation." So, Jesus is the foundational cornerstone of God's custom house. What does the Bible say about us? Because remember, we're part of the house, right?
Look at this: Peter writes about it. He says, "You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God's house." You, meaning all of us around this table, are living stones. Everyone watching this—you are living stones that God is building into His spiritual house. Isn't that amazing?
Now, remember, Paul also said we are co-laborers. Remember he said that? "Fellow workers" is the exact way he put it in 1 Corinthians 3:9. Can I give you a more relevant term? We're the subcontractors.
Now, who are the subs? That's your plumber, your tile guy, your sheetrock guy, your framer, your roofer, and your foundation layer. To be really honest with you, Bob Stone, the man who built our custom home in Florida, didn't lay one brick or nail one nail. All the subs built our house! So if the subs build the house, what are the builder's jobs?
The Builder has three responsibilities: number one, He designs the house, which God did from the foundations of the world. It's called Zion. Number two, He orders the materials for the house. You know, He chose this in Christ before the foundation of the world; He ordered us up, the living stones, before the foundation of the world. Number three, the scheduling of the subs is crucial.
You don't want to bring in the sheetrock guy before the electrician and the plumber, otherwise, the electrician and plumber have to blow holes in all the sheetrock! So, the scheduling of the subs is really crucial, isn't that true?
So who's the chief sub? Come on, guys! Who is He? Jesus! He's the chief sub! Look at this—Galatians 4:4 says, "But when the right time came, God scheduled His son as the chief sub and sent His son, Jesus." What did Jesus say regarding the work that God had given Him to build His custom home? "I have finished the work which You have given Me to do." Isn't that amazing?
Remember when Paul said, "I finished my race"? You know what Paul was basically saying? "I finished the work You've given me to do as a subcontractor." Paul was a foundation layer in God's custom house—remember, he said, "Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets"? He's a foundation guy, okay?
Now, let's keep looking at this. What happens if a sub doesn't do his job? What happens if a sub does a bad job? This is really important for understanding. I remember one day I went to the job site, and there was something very specific that Lisa had designed, and it was totally wrong. I got on my phone and called up the builder, Bob. I said, "Bob, this doesn't look right." He came out, and when he took one look, he was furious. He started pulling everything down! He said, "Give me that hammer!" He pulled this stuff out and said, "He's fired!" He fired the sub right there and hired a new one, who did the job right.
Now, what if a sub didn't show up? Let's say the plumber was scheduled, and he doesn't show up. He'd fire that guy and get another sub, right? Bob's going to get the house finished, but he's not going to tolerate wrong work, incorrect work, sloppy work, or no work!
Can you look at what Paul says in Corinthians? This is amazing! I'm going to show you the message translation. You ready for this? "Eventually, there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you will be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous; you won't get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine. If it doesn't, your part of the building will be torn out and started over, but you won't be torn out—you'll survive, just barely."
You see, God is going to finish this house! I remember when I was getting ready to preach to 9,000 people. This was back in April of 1996 at Oral Roberts University's Mabee Center during a conference. I was sitting on the conference platform, and I was going to preach on "The Bait of Satan." An older Bishop, who must have been in his early 80s and highly respected, passed a note over to me right before I was introduced to speak. I opened up the note, and he said, "John, there are men and women that God has called to do certain things, and they have not done it. God is going to give you their work, as well as the work He originally created you to do."
I almost threw that away! I said, "This is ridiculous!" I am so glad I didn't. I realized this man saw something I later learned in the Bible. I watched when Bob ripped that sub's work out, and then I read this scripture, and I thought, "Oh my, God's going to have His house. It's going to be full!" The question is: Are we going to do our part?
I remember when I used to go to the job site, I got this reputation—they called me "the preacher." Okay, guys, we're going back now—this is prehistoric stuff I'm talking about! They had boom boxes! I know we don't even know what a boom box is today, but I remember whenever I pulled up, one of the subs would run over and turn off the boom box because they were playing hard rock, saying, "The preacher is here!"
I started talking to all these guys, and we really got to like each other. They were just as rough as could be, but I remember one day I was just asking about their lives, and they were talking about how they worked on this home in the parade of homes, how they worked on that home, and I thought, "Wow, listen to these guys talk about the work they had done on these magnificent homes in Orlando!"
Then I started thinking, "Wait a minute! Is this what's going to happen with God's custom house?" I thought about what Micah writes in Micah chapter four. I'm going to read this to you: "In the last days, the mountain of the Lord's House"—Micah puts it together for us! Remember, Zion is called the mountain. "You have not come to Mount Sinai but have come to Zion, the city of the Living God."
Micah puts it all together for us: "In the last days, the mountain of the Lord's House will be the highest of all, the most important place on the Earth." It will be raised above all other hills, and people from all over the world will stream there to worship. People from many nations will come and say, "Come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord, the House of the God of Jacob." There He will teach us His ways; He will teach us! See, Jesus will physically be there, right?
This is so cool! We will walk in His paths, for the Lord's teaching will go out from Zion; His word will go out from Jerusalem. The Lord will mediate between peoples and settle disputes between strong nations far away. They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations will no longer fight against nations nor train for war anymore. Everyone will live in peace and prosperity, enjoying their own grapevines and fig trees, for there will be nothing to fear. The Lord of Heaven's armies has made this promise. Nations are going to come in, and we will be the glorified saints—the ones who have been the co-workers, the fellow workers, the subcontractors building this.
Can you imagine nations coming in, and here come these people? You, Jonathan—you, you're looking at them, Casey, and saying, "Let me show you my work in the house here," and you walk them into one section of the New Jerusalem, saying, "That's my work!" Arden, you're walking someone in, "See that building right there? I built that building when I was on the earth, and I did what God told me to do. I fulfilled my calling!" I don't know about you, but that really excites me!
Just think about this. Let's say you're a kid a few hundred years ago, and your dad was actually the plumber for the West Wing of the White House. One day, your kid comes home and says, "Hey, we got invited to go on a school trip to the White House!" You, as the dad, decide to go and watch as your kid tells all his friends, "My dad did the plumbing in the president's house!" Can you imagine how great that would feel as a father?
Now, imagine if you had everything ripped out! You know there's no sorrow, no tears; those will all be wiped away! But there are going to be some tears when you realize you're going to have nothing in this city to show because it all got ripped out since you didn't take the call of God on your life seriously.
Now, here's the thing. Jesus makes a statement in Matthew 22:14. He said, "Many are called, but few are chosen." What is He saying there? We're going to discover this as we come into our next several lessons, but what He's saying is that every single one of us has a calling, but few pay the price to fulfill that calling.
I really believe we're living in a Joshua generation. Why do I say that? If you look at Moses, he had three million people in his church, but only two guys fulfilled what they were called to do. Can you imagine being a great pastor like Moses, and only Joshua and Caleb make it? But then that next generation of Joshua—everybody, with the exception of Aiken, fulfilled their calling. I believe we're coming into a Joshua generation!
I believe you, who are going through this course right now, are part of that generation! I keep hearing people say, "But it's too late! I'm too old!" Well, let me tell you—one of the greatest apostles of the 20th century was a man named Smith Wigglesworth. He started his ministry in his 50s and became one of the greatest men of God in that century! He was a plumber until he was 50, but then he got on with the call of God in his life.
If you look at Moses, he was 80 when he started the call of God in his life! It wasn't too late for him! Think about another man. Back in 2008, we had three IT guys working for Messenger International. One of them was named Bill, and every time I walked by Bill's desk, he'd talk too much about Africa and have pictures of Africa on his desk. So one day, I called Bill in and said, "Bill, I'll buy you and your wife a one-way ticket to Kenya."
Now, Bill was 55 years old, and his wife was 62 at the time. He said, "Can I talk to my wife?" I said, "Sure, the offer stands." The next morning, he and Patricia both came in and said, "We're going!" So, we bought them a one-way ticket to Nairobi, Kenya. In the last eight years, you know what they've done? They've set up 16 Bible schools using Messenger International resources in West Africa, using generators in some of their locations, and they're teaching pastors in the bush the word of God.
He was sitting in my office three months ago, looking at me and saying, "John, I've had malaria 17 times." He was laughing about it, and I was like, "Oh my gosh! Malaria?" My international director said he's had malaria twice in his life, and he said, "I hope I never get it again; it is the worst thing going!" Yet Bill says, "I've had it 17 times," and he's laughing! He said, "You know what I told my kids on this trip?" I asked him, "What did you tell your kids?" He said, "If you want to see your mom and me buried, you're going to have to fly to Africa because we're not coming back!"
He said, "I am so happy!" Do you know he's 62 years old and she's 69, yet they're having the time of their lives? Why? Because they're in their calling of what God created them to do! They're building God's house; they're building His custom home!
So, the big question now is—after four lessons, we're finally able to get to the fifth: How do I find out what I'm called to do? We're going to answer that, really, starting in the next lesson. We'll see you then!