John Bevere - Your Calling Starts Here
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All right, guys, we're on lesson number five, and guess what? We're now getting into the meat and potatoes of this whole thing. The next six lessons are the meat and potatoes. Now we can finally turn to the question: How do I discover what my calling is? How do I discover it? Okay, let's give the overall picture here: the global church is called to build God's house. We've learned that, right? When we put all of our different specific gifts and callings together, what we get is a great team that is building God's house, all engineered, designed, and led by the Holy Spirit Himself.
Three things you need to know about your specific calling:
Number one: Your calling is bigger than you. Okay? All right? Your calling isn't about you; it's about all the people you're going to impact. That's great; that's our greatest reward. You know, I can't bring my favorite jeans to heaven. I can't bring my house. I can't bring anything physical. The only thing I can bring to heaven is the influence I've had on people's lives. That's what your calling is about. That's why we want to move from thinking about ourselves eighty percent of the time and others fifteen percent of the time to where we really live and think about others eighty-five percent of the time and ourselves fifteen. What a life! Because have you ever noticed that when you're serving others, you feel the most fulfilled? Have you ever noticed how miserable you feel when you're serving yourself? Why people don't get that, I don't understand. So, your calling is bigger than you.
Your calling isn't singular. I am called to preach; I am called to write. I don't put one above the other. They're both very important. But you know, when I was in my twenties, I was called to serve in my local churches, and I served with all my heart, just like I serve with all my heart right now. So, your calling is not just singular; it's progressive.
Your calling is now. Point number three: Now, not later. Okay? You're in your calling right now, and what you're doing today is a building block for what you're going to be doing tomorrow. You know, this was the temptation when I was serving in my church, driving the van, picking up my pastor's groceries, and taking care of my pastor's wife's kids. I was giving their kids swimming lessons at the YMCA pool. I was preparing for what I'm doing right now. I was building for what I was doing. But you know what I was doing? While my pastor was touching millions of people—and he was—I was touching millions of people because I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. That's great! So when we're plugged into what we're called to do, the effects of our calling go so far beyond us and what we can even see. It will be revealed at the Judgment Seat.
All right, so what is my calling? How do I discover my calling? Here's the question we're going to be asking now, right? Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6. I'm going to put it up on the board, but this does not say that God rewards those who casually seek Him in wonder and doubt. I want you to notice that He says, "But without faith, it is impossible to please God." So what I want to know is: Why are people not talking more about faith? Chris? Why? Casey? Why? Arden? Why? I want to please God, but the Bible says it is impossible to please God without faith. So let me tell you this:
Number one, in order to discover your calling, you better go to God in faith. I remember one time I said, "Lord, how come you're not speaking to me? I'm asking you things." The Holy Spirit, in His mercy, said, "Because you don't ask in faith." He said, "When you approach Me, you hope I will speak to you." I went, "Oh my gosh." He said, "Son, you will hear My voice when you know I will speak to you." I remember I used to give altar calls, and hardly anybody would get saved, and one day a pastor looked at me, and a few dozen people got saved. We went to play golf the next day, and we were coming back. I said, "Hey, you haven't said anything about the few dozen people that got saved." He said, "Well, that was a really bad Sunday for us. Usually, we have anywhere from 150 to 250 people saved every Sunday." I went, "I'm all ears. What am I doing wrong?"
He said, "The first thing you've got to do when you take an altar call is it has to be done in faith." He said, "Everything we do in Christian life has to be done in faith." Okay? And do you know that the next year, the altar calls in the same churches I was going to tripled because of one word: faith. Okay? So don't even think you're going to discover your calling unless you have faith, and that's why you're listening to me right now. That's why you're doing this course right now, because it's building faith. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God, and that's what we're doing every time we sit down and talk in these lessons.
All right, so without faith, it's impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder. Now look at this: of those who diligently seek Him, not those who casually seek Him. So God does not reward people who casually seek Him in wonder and doubt.
So, number one, in order to discover your calling, you've got to do it diligently. You've got to seek God diligently. Now that doesn't mean that you spend 24 hours in a room and don't come out. That means you eat, sleep, live, and breathe God. I know you're going to show me. Okay? I have watched people who have spent four hours in a prayer room not pray as effectively as somebody who has prayed 15 minutes in faith and passion. Okay?
So please do not assume that to diligently seek God means I do it for hours and hours and hours. Now, you may do it that way because you're so passionate and you just love spending time with God. That's all right. But to diligently seek God means I'm intent about it. People look at me a lot and say, "How come you're so intense?" Well, because I live purposefully. All right? I live a life of faith. I love that I see that in our sons; I see that in our team members here. I love that passion; I love that diligence.
All right, so let me just give you a little history. All right, let's take it back. I'm going to use myself as an example. I'm a young boy; I'm in the Catholic Church. As a young boy who's still a little tender to God, at the age of five, I feel like I'm supposed to be a priest. No, I didn't realize God had called me to the ministry, but the only thing I knew about ministry was priesthood, right? So then I start sinning real good, you know, living in my nature and all that. So now I'm like, okay, what am I going to do? Am I going to be a professional tennis player? I don't think I can quite do it. My dad looks at me and says, "You need to be an engineer." So, okay, I'm an engineer. I get an engineering degree, and I'm miserable. I can't stand it.
But I get saved in my fraternity in college. One of my fraternity brothers, who is a phenomenal athlete, presented to me the Campus Crusade for Spiritual Laws. I gave my life to Jesus, and then once the Holy Spirit was in my life, I started getting a little more sensitive, and I started thinking, "Uh-oh, I'm feeling this tug towards ministry." Now, I wanted nothing to do with ministry. Why? Because I grew up in a little town, and there was only one pastor in that town I knew of, and he was a little weird. His house smelled, and his kids were really strange. I went into their house one time, and it was so disorganized and smelly that I had to hold my breath until I could get out. So I was like, "I want nothing to do with ministry." My idea of serving God was I was going to get my MBA from Harvard since I was on the Dean's List at Purdue as an engineer. I was going to marry a pretty girl, work for a large corporation, move way up into management, make a lot of money, pay tithes to my local church, and take three vacations a year with my pretty wife. That would be my idea of serving God.
Well, one of the things I was doing is I was co-oping. Now, do you know what co-oping is? It's a program that some universities have where you go to school for a semester, and then you go work in your profession at some company as a junior for a semester. So my company that I worked for was IBM. Here I am as a young co-op engineer working in Raleigh, North Carolina, for IBM. One day, I was in my junior year, so I'd already been doing it for a while, and I noticed I was miserable. I wasn't having any fun, but I'm like, "Hey, it's a career, right? It's going to get me to being a manager one day in a big corporation."
Well, I remember one day we were celebrating one of the engineers in our department's 38th anniversary. So we're all sitting in the room; there are about 14 engineers in the room, and they're all drinking their coffee. I don't drink coffee; my wife has tried for years, but it's not working. So they're all drinking their coffee, and we're just doing the small talk, right? We're celebrating this guy's 38th year, and all of a sudden, the guy says this: "Yep, I've hated every single day I've walked into this company for 38 years." Everybody laughed in the room except me, and I'm waiting for somebody older and wiser to say something, right? And nobody's saying anything; they're just laughing with him.
Finally, I said, "Wait a minute! Why have you done this? You've hated every single day you've walked in here for 38 years." He goes, "Yeah." I said, "Why have you done this?" And he said, "John, it's a job." He said it very condescendingly, like, "You dumb, stupid young engineering student!" Right? And I remember right there, I was totally quiet, and I thought, "Okay, I'm getting out of this, and I'm going to figure out what God's put me on this Earth to do."
I remember I came into my senior year and called my Roman Catholic mother. I said, "Mom, I'm not coming home from college on Thanksgiving break." My mom was like, "What?" I said, "I'm not coming home this year for Thanksgiving break." She says, "What are you going to do?" I said, "I'm going to stay here in the fraternity house, and I'm going to pray."
So I fasted those four days: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. As a result of that fast, God gave me glimpses of some of the things I'm doing today. Wow! He literally said, "You'll be a nourishing tree, and nations shall draw from the wisdom that I give you." We've given away over 10 million resources to pastors and leaders in 83 nations all over the world. I literally now have seen what God gave me a glimpse of in that fraternity house come to pass now, over 35 years later.
So I sought God diligently. I said, "Lord, I'm setting this time aside. I've got to know why you put me here on this Earth." I didn't get that answer in that fast; it came about a month or two later. Here's the thing: Whenever people go into fasting, they think, "Okay, I'm going to get my answer in the fast." So it almost becomes a hunger strike with God. It's not a hunger strike. It's, "I'm going to quiet myself down so God can impart into my spirit, and I can fellowship with Him so that I can know what I'm called to do."
Now, God gave me a glimpse of what I was called to do. Remember I said that, just like He gave Joseph a glimpse, He gave David a glimpse, right? Why doesn't He show us the whole picture? God didn't show Joseph the prison, the dungeon, and all that stuff. He doesn't show David living in the wilderness and all that. Why does He just give us a glimpse? Because of this: We walk by faith and not by sight. If God gives us the whole plan and how everything's going to be mapped out, it becomes, Casey, a walk of sight, right? He doesn't want that. He wants us to keep looking to Him and seeking Him. Are you getting this?
Now, this is why Proverbs tells us, "Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He'll direct your paths." I'll tell you how God directed my path. Right after that fast, He shows me, "I've called you now to preach. I showed you I'm going to impact nations," and you know what the thing He spoke to me was? "I want you to interview to become an engineer."
Oh, you talk about upset and angry! I'm going to talk about that in a couple of lessons in the future. But you see, God doesn't give you the whole picture. Yeah, He told me to interview as an engineer. Oh, is that a good one?
So these are the three things I did in that fraternity:
Number one: I fasted. Okay? So think about this: Acts chapter 13: I'm going to read this now. "In the church that was in Antioch, there were certain prophets and teachers. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted—that's what you want to do when you're on a fast—you minister to the Lord. You know God likes to be told, 'I love you.' You know He loves it, Brandy, when you, His little girl, say, 'Dad, I love you.' That's ministering to the Lord. So many times, we as children go into the prayer closet, 'God, give me, give me, give me.' We're like the kid at college, 'Dad, send money,' and that's the only time He hears from us, right? My boys aren't like that. I want you to know that. Okay?
But you know, God loves it when we say, 'You're just awesome, Dad. You're awesome.' I love using that word 'awesome' because I never get to use it except I have this personal conviction: I don't say 'awesome' unless I'm talking about God, because 'awesome' means full of awe. All right? So I know it's okay for you guys in Australia; you say it all the time. It's okay. I'm just talking about for me. I like to reserve that word for Him.
But I love in my prayer closet saying, 'Dad, you're awesome. You're just awesome.' That's ministering to the Lord. So that's what these guys were doing; they were ministering to the Lord in fasting. The Holy Spirit said, 'Now, separate to Me Barnabas and Saul.' Remember, separate means chosen and elected. 'Separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.' Then, having fasted and prayed and laid hands on them, they sent them away. So being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went."
So there we go; they fasted and ministered to the Lord. The second thing I did in that fraternity is I prayed. Okay? First John 5:14 and 15 says, "Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will…" Guys, wow, it is God's will for you to know what He's called you to do. You know what the Lord said to me one time? He said, "Who created this calling that's on your life?" I said, "You did." He said, "Don't you think I'm more concerned about the calling I created than you are?" I went, "Whoa, man, that's good!"
So you have confidence that God wants you to know more than you want to know what He's called you to do. Write that down: He's more passionate about you knowing your calling than you are. Okay? So this is the confidence we have in Him that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, here's faith: Whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions we have asked of Him.
The third thing I did in that fraternity is I read the scripture: "Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." I remember one of the major callings on my life is to resource pastors and leaders overseas. Our team—this is a calling on our team, on my life, Lisa's life, and on our team. And like I said, we've given over 10 million resources to pastors and leaders in 83 nations. Do you know when that calling came? I was in my basement reading the book of Daniel on May 31st, 2010. I had no idea, but God speaks to me so clearly. He said, "I want you now to get your resources in the hands of pastors all over the world and leaders all over the world." That calling came while reading the scripture.
Once I arrived in Dallas, because I went to Dallas, I interviewed, and I got 13 job offers as an engineer. Do you know the lowest paying one was Rockwell International? And that's the one God told me to go work for. But let me tell you, it was in that very place that God began to raise me up into what I'm doing right now. So we're going to talk more about this in these upcoming lessons because we've got to ask some more questions. What else do we need to do besides seek God earnestly to discover our calling? What are some of the things that can kill, hinder, or hamper the calling? What are some of the things that can hinder us from being in our calling? We're going to answer these questions in upcoming sessions.