John Bevere - Discover Your True Calling
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All right, welcome to session five. Let me preface this session with when God first really spoke to me to write this book. I’ll never forget; I was actually walking on the golf course at about five in the morning, and the Lord just said, «I want you to write a book on the Judgment seats.» I was like, «This is honestly what I said. I said, 'God, I have only preached 20 minutes total, probably in all my life, on the Judgment seats. How can I even write a chapter, let alone a book? '» And, you know how the Lord just doesn’t respond to that kind of stuff, so I was like, «Okay, I guess I gotta write this.»
So this is what I did: I got every scripture that I could find in the Bible on eternity, rewards, judgment, and punishment from eight different translations, and I put them in a notebook. It was about that thick. I couldn’t believe it! So I just sat there and meditated for one solid month on those scriptures. This is what I came to find out: At the believer’s Judgment, we believers are going to be judged in two major areas. Okay, here are the two major areas: number one, our involvement in building the Kingdom of God. The second area we will be judged in is how we built individual lives. Now, that certainly includes our own life. What do I mean by our own life? How we responded to the Word of God in our own individual lives. Now, I’m going to touch on that in the next session. What I really want to focus on in this session is our involvement in building the Kingdom of God.
Now, do you notice in both of those statements you see the word «building» and «built»? Why is that? Because, as I said in session four, we are referred to as builders in the Scriptures. Do you remember 1 Corinthians 3? «Let each one take heed how he builds.» If you look at the Psalms, it says, «Unless the Lord builds the house, they who build it labor in vain.»
So that shows you right there it takes the Spirit of God to help us do anything of eternal value. That is a good place to say Amen! You know, one guy working 80 years in his own strength cannot do more than somebody working five minutes by the Spirit of God. That’s why it’s not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit. Listen, every time I read my Bible, I’m like, «Holy Spirit, I’ve got to have you.» When I did these sessions, I was like, «God, I’ve got to have you!» I’ve been preaching for 30 years, but I’m like, «God, I’ve got to have Your help, Holy Spirit.» So it’s so important that you remember that. But here’s another: «The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.» So you can see that God likens us to builders.
Now, I want to go to 1 Corinthians 3:9. Look at this. This is amazing: «For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field; you are God’s building.» Now, there are three distinct statements here: number one, «You are God’s fellow workers.» Put that on a shelf; I’m going to talk about that in a minute. Number two, «You are God’s field.» I’m not going to talk about that, but that is in the book. And number three, «You are God’s building.»
Now, notice that statement: Paul said, «You are God’s building.» What building is he talking about? Well, I have an announcement to make, and it’s a really fun announcement! Are you ready? God is building Himself a custom home, and He’s really excited about it! I remember when Lisa and I had the privilege of building a custom home back in the early '90s. Lisa and I were living—I think at the time, Addison was only a little one—in a little track home, and one of the premier home builders in Orlando, Florida, who had won awards and had been so impacted by the bay to Satan, saw me at a parade of homes because Lisa loves looking at homes and dreaming. He goes, «John Bevere!» and I’m like, «Okay.» He said, «Man, I want to build you a house! I want to build you a God house.» And I was like, «God house? What’s that mean?» He says, «I’m not going to make a penny off of it.» We were like, «Wow!»
So, I remember he came over to our house a couple days later in our little track home, and he puts a blank piece of paper on the table. He says, «Okay, draw your dream house!» Lisa and I just looked at each other like, «What?» Because we’re so used to track homes; you can’t change this, you can’t change that; it’s all, you know. Well, like, really? Well, Lisa got to work, and let me tell you, I think I drew the study and the garage; she did everything else. We watched how he took that little scribble on that paper, sent it to the designers and the architects, and back came the blueprints. When they started building that house, oh my gosh! Lisa and I were out there at that job site every day! We were so excited about seeing what we had dreamed put on paper come up right before our eyes. Well, that’s the way God is about His house; that’s how excited He is about it! He designed His house from the foundations of the world.
So, you know He’s on the job site every day checking it out, right? But God did something that Lisa and I didn’t do: He put a name on His house. See, people sometimes put names on us; I wish you would have thought of that. You know, like you look at the guy who lives in Washington; he calls that the White House. You look at the lady in England; she calls her place Buckingham. Now, some of you may not be familiar; if you look at Nicolas Cage, he’s got a place and he calls it Friar Park. Well, God put a name on His house. What’s the name of God’s house? Zion! Everybody say that with me: Zion! All right, look at this: «For the Lord has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His dwelling place. This is my resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it.» You see His passion for His house! I mean, He’s like, «Man, I designed this thing so long ago; I’m so excited about it being finished!»
Now, when you’re a custom home builder and you’re building your custom house, what do you start with? What’s the first thing you start with? Everybody’s saying, «Foundation!» All right, look what Isaiah says: «See, I lay a stone—everybody say a stone—in Zion,» that’s His custom home, «a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation.» Who is that? Jesus is the chief foundational cornerstone of God’s custom house. But remember, Paul said we’re the house. So, if Jesus is part of the building material of the house, that means we’re part of the building material of the house, right? What does the Bible say about that?
Look at 1 Peter: «You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple or house, and you, talking about us, are living stones that God is building into His spiritual temple or house.» Isn’t that exciting? We’re part of the building material that He’s going to dwell in forever! See, if you look at what Paul says to the Ephesians, you’ll see it again. Paul said, «Together we are His house.» Okay, are you getting this? «Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and the cornerstone is Christ Jesus Himself. We are carefully joined together in Him, becoming a holy house for the Lord.» Is that not exciting?
Now, what else did Paul say? Not only are we the building material, he said we are God’s fellow—come on, fellow workers, right? All right, can I give you a more relevant term? We’re His subcontractors! Okay, so now what are the subcontractors? They’re the electricians, the plumbers, the drywall guys, the framers, the window guys—they’re the guys that really build a house. If you really want to know the truth, when Bob built our home, he didn’t nail one nail into the whole house; he didn’t lay one brick. All the subs built the house! Are you following me? So who would be the chief sub building God’s house? Who would be the number one sub? It would be Jesus! Look what He said.
Remember Galatians 4:4? «God sent Him at the appointed time.» Jesus said, «I finished the work which You have given Me to do.» Now, how many of you know that the subs being scheduled at the right time is really important when you’re building a house? I mean, if you bring in the drywall guy before the electrician, you’re in big, big trouble, right? Well, God carefully scheduled out the subs to build His house, Jesus being the chief. That’s why it says, «At the appointed time Jesus came.» Are you seeing this? I said, «Are you seeing this?» So Jesus said, «I’ve finished the work.» Everybody say «the work.» Say it again, «the work.» I want you to remember that word, because it’s really important: «I finished the work which You have given Me to do.» You know, the Apostle Paul said the same thing. Do you remember Paul said this? He said, «I finished my race.»
Now, how can you say, «I finished my race»? The only way you can say, «I finished my race» is if you know the course. I mean, did anybody ever run cross-country track? If you ever did, all the runners get a map of the route. If you don’t know the route, do you know what’s going to happen? You’re going to start running and you will run and run and run until you eventually fall over, but you will not finish the race! You have to know the course in order to finish, right? So the only way Paul can say, «I finished my race» is if he knew his route. See, because when Jesus said, «I finished the work,» you know what a lot of people do? They say, «Oh that’s Jesus; He was born knowing what He was supposed to do.» No, He wasn’t! He stripped Himself of His divine privileges, and He came to this earth as the Son of Man. Remember Jesus said in John 5, «I seek the will of Him who sent Me.» He had to seek it just like you and I have to seek it.
Now, what about us as far as being God’s subcontractors? What does the Bible say about that? Look at Ephesians 2: «For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do—everybody say 'to do'—to do good works.» Everybody say «works,» which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Notice it didn’t say we would walk in them; it said we should walk in them. Now, notice God prepared our work as subcontractors beforehand—how far beforehand? We know that it has to be at least before we were born, because look what David writes in Psalm 139:16. David said, «You saw me before I was born.»
Now look at this: «Every day of my life was recorded in Your book.» You’ve got a book written about your life! Do you understand that? President Obama is not the only one that has a biography written about his life; you have a book written about your life, Jonathan! Isn’t that amazing? And God wrote that book, and He wrote it before you were born! Now look at what he goes on to say, because this is amazing: «Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.»
Now, would you look at that whole scripture again? «You saw me before I was born; every day of my life was recorded in the book; every moment—not just every day—every moment was laid out before a single day passed.» Do you understand that if you were to open all of our books that God wrote about our lives and you would go to one certain page, it would have all of us right here together right now. It would have you watching this right now with us, and God says, «I see them all! I’ve got it all written in there! Jonathan’s going to be in there; you know, all of Travis is going to be there; Trevor’s going to be there; right Jeff and Paul are going to be there.» He’s got it all written down before we were even born! Is that not amazing? Every single moment was laid out before a single day began!
Let me give you some scriptures that will confirm that. If you remember, God said to the prophet Jeremiah, «I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb! Before you were born, I set you apart and appointed you as my spokesman to the world.» Again, it’s reflected in Paul’s words: «But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace.»
You know, here’s the big problem that I find in all the traveling that I’ve done and all the communicating to people in churches—especially with business people, marketplace people, mothers of small children. There’s this mentality in this church that only the pastors, the teachers, the worship leaders, the church staff have full-time callings on their lives. No, that is an absolute lie! If you are born again, there—not even if you’re born again—every single human being has a call of God upon our lives. And you know what that calling is? To be a subcontractor building God’s custom home! Isn’t that amazing? So, I don’t want you to ever think again, «Well, gosh, I’m in the business field.» No, uh-uh! God has placed His hand on your life to build His custom home! Amen! Can you say Amen to that?
So now the question is: God formed this plan before we were born and wrote it in a book about our life. Okay, so there’s a book, right? Called «Alec Bevere.» And God sat there and wrote all of Alec’s life out. The question now becomes—and I’m going to remove Alec now from the equation—will we fulfill what He wrote in His book? All right, if you look at Ecclesiastes, this is amazing. This verse right here speaks of God’s sovereignty. Everybody say «sovereignty.» «I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men should fear before Him.»
What is He saying? God is saying, «I planned My custom home from the beginning, and nothing’s going to stop it from being finished. My house will be full.» That’s sovereignty! But then the next verse speaks of free will—our choice. Look what He goes on to say: «That which is, that which is right now, has already been; so that which is—remember I said all of us are sitting here together right now—if you go to all of our books, you’ll probably find us in there because that which is has already been in the mind of God. He wrote it in a book! Yes, right! And that which is to be—that’s our tomorrows—has already been. Remember I said God wrote it in the book before we had a single day begin, right? But look at this: „And God requires an account of what is past.“ In other words, did we fulfill what He had written for our lives to do, or did we go a different way, our own way?
So, you know what that tells me at the Judgment seat in regard to our callings? Okay, please hear me! In regard to our callings, we will not be judged according to what we did; rather, we will be judged according to what we were called to do. I need to say that again: as far as our callings go at the Judgment—okay, I’m talking about the believer’s Judgment seat—we will not be judged according to what we did; we’ll be judged according to what we were called to do. Let me give you an example; some of you have got kind of looks on your faces right now.
You may see Jesus do something like this at the Judgment seat: „Evangelist Anderson, step forward, please, and give an accounting of your stewardship.“ You may see this guy coming up, and he’s kind of looking around; he’s a little apprehensive, a little shocked, and he goes, „Evangelist Anderson? Don’t you mean Accountant Anderson? Jesus, I was an accountant! I had people working for my firm. We actually helped several ministries with their ministry books!“ Jesus says, „Evangelist Anderson; where are the 366,178 souls I called for you to win for me in Asia? Where are they, son?“ „I–I never went to Asia, Jesus! I–I—I was an accountant! You know we helped in ministry, and they had an Outreach to Asia….“ Everything he’s done is going to be burned up in regard to his calling.
Then you may have a situation like this: „Real estate broker Jones, step forward, please, and give an accounting of your stewardship.“ You may have this guy coming up; he’s a little shocked, really shocked, apprehensive, kind of looking around, thinking, „What? There’s got to be somebody else.“ He goes, „Real estate broker Jones, give an accounting of your stewardship.“ He goes, „Don’t you mean Pastor Jones? I pastored a church of 800 people! I did that for 30 years!“ Jesus says, „I called you to be a real estate agent and to be a bright shining light in the marketplace! Had you done this, you would have had two brokers working for you in your company. They would have impacted a couple lives that would have ended up impacting 1,178,776 people! But because you didn’t do that, you didn’t impact those people; I had to get somebody else to do it. Besides that, I wanted you to be the head usher at this 1,000-member church across town from where you started a church.
Had you done that, all 12,678 souls that church would have impacted for eternity—you would have been given full credit for it. But now everything’s burned up in regard to your calling.“ That’s why I tell our team members constantly—and I used to tell them a lot more; Daryl will remember, Vicki remembers—every soul Lisa and I touch, every soul Addison touches, every soul Matt touches, every soul you get credit for it: full credit as if you were on that field with us yourself! That’s why it’s so important to be in that place God has called you. But if you were trying to have your own church, doing your own thing, when God had called you to serve in a ministry—are you seeing what I’m saying here?
You may have this situation: „Sister Jones, step forward and give an accounting of your stewardship,“ and this lady comes up and goes, „Well, Jesus, I entered into the women’s circuit, and I wrote a book and did several women’s conferences.“ „Where are the three children that I called you to raise? You manipulated yourself into the speaking circuit to the neglect of those children! Had you raised them the way I called you to, all 5,178,776 souls they would have impacted for eternity—you would have been given credit for! But now, everything you’ve done is burned up!“ We will not be judged according to what we did; we’ll be judged in the light of what we were called to do. I have many stories I can share with you about this.
I think one of the most famous ones that really impacted me and riveted me is about one of my dear friends, a pastor of a church in North Carolina. They have about 4,000 people in their church and we were very close at one time for many years. He served on our board, and he called me one time. He said, „John, you just got to hear what happened at church the other night.“ I said, „Sure! What happened?“ He said, „Well, there’s this gentleman that’s been coming to my church for the last six months. He’s always very distinguished looking; he’s got a very nice outfit on, and he’s got kind of like white-gray hair. I noticed that during our services—because this church is amazing; I preach at it they have 100 people saved every week to 100 to 120 people every week. I’d say so—he said he’ll watch people getting saved and just watch tears run down his cheeks. And he said, 'You know, John, I sense they aren’t tears of joy. I sense they’re tears of sorrow.' He said, 'But the Holy Spirit checked me; I was going to go talk to him, and He said, Don’t talk to him.'“
He said, „Well, six months later on our midweek service night, this gentleman came up to one of my executive pastors or associate pastors and he said, back in (he named a year—I believe it was back in the 1980s), God had spoken to me in prayer to start a church here in North Carolina—in this city in North Carolina, Fayetteville. And I went to— I actually had a dream about it, and I saw the church building that I would build. It was so real to me that I went to an architect and said, could you do an artist’s rendition of this building? He said, I started the church and I ran into a lot of opposition. I said, so I finally just shut it down; it just wasn’t going anywhere. And, you know, you got to remember that when God tells you to do something—if you look at Paul, twice he tried to go to two different places and then he had the dream of the Macedonian man—well, if you remember, the first person he prayed for in Macedonia, when he obeyed God, he got arrested for it, and he’s put in prison. And that’s where he’s in prison, where he’s praising God, and the prison door opens. Just because it’s difficult when God tells you to do something doesn’t mean that it’s not God!“
So he said he ran into difficulties and said, „You know what? I shut down the church.“ And he said, „I started traveling and speaking; that lasted a few years, then fizzled out, and I went into the business world.“ He said then he started unrolling this drawing. He said, „This drawing here is a rendition of the artist that did it in the 1980s of the dream that I had.“ And he opened it up, and it was the exact building Pastor Al had built! He said, „I really believe I was God’s first choice to build this church.“ I was preaching on this in a conference, and our office manager was in the conference; it was a rather large conference—about 20,000 people had gathered in. I remember he came up and told me something. He said, „Man, I had a pastor come up to me in the foyer. I’d preached on this message and the pastor was a little bit upset and said, 'You can’t really believe what he just preached today! '“
My office manager said, „Yeah, he believes it; of course he believes it.“ The pastor said, „No, there’s just no way he can believe that.“ He said, „Absolutely!“ He said, „Well, why are you so upset?“ And the pastor looked at him and said, „When I was a young child, God really spoke in my heart and confirmed that I was called to minister in the Philippines. But I have built this church and I’ve pastored it for 30 years!“ And you know what my office manager did? It was so smart! He said, „Well, what are you going to do about it?“ One year later, we heard back that this pastor had turned the church over to his executive or her executive and was now in the Philippines ministering and having the time of her life!
I think one of the most profound stories to really illustrate that we’re all called to build the Kingdom of God in our unique ways is when last year I was asked to go to dinner with a Navy SEAL. He’s a Navy SEAL instructor who’s been with the SEALs for 17 years, and I have a lot of respect for Navy SEALs. I remember we sat down, and what I didn’t realize is that he really wanted to talk to me. I just said, „Hey, what’s your story?“ And that’s how I opened up. He started telling me his story, and I literally was riveted by this man’s story for two hours; I said hardly anything. But he shared with me how he was in Bible school for two years and then he was on a third-year internship program, and he got accused of sleeping with a girl in the church. He said, „John, I never did, but they took away my credentials and booted me out of the church. I just lost three years of my life; I was devastated.“ He said, „My relationship with God wasn’t really close, but it got close because I really started pressing in.“
He said, „While I was pressing in, the Lord spoke to me and said, 'I didn’t call you into ministry; I called you into the military.'“ He said, „So I went to the Navy.“ First of all, I went to the Army. He went to the Air Force; he went to the Marines and then he went to the Navy; it was the last one. He said, „John, there’s just nothing at the other ones!“ He said, „The Navy guy’s gone through all the different ways to list, and there’s nothing!“ He said, „Out of desperation, the recruiting officer pulls out another list and starts reading all these special things, and he gets to the word 'SEALs.'“ He says, „That’s what I’m supposed to do!“ He said, „Just the Spirit of God jumped in me; that’s what I’m supposed to do!“
He said, „No, you don’t want to do this! You know only .01% of the guys make it! Every guy in this office flunked out of the SEAL program.“ He said, „I don’t care; that’s what I’m supposed to do!“ Well, what that guy didn’t know is that he didn’t know how to swim! Okay? Now, to get matters even more complex, as a young boy he had had several operations because his ear canal was too narrow and had tubes put in his ears. Therefore, if he got any water anywhere near his ear, he went into excruciating pain. So he said, „John, I just prayed and taught myself how to swim in excruciating pain.“ Finally, after months of praying, I went down a couple feet—no pain! Five feet—no pain! All of a sudden, I realized my ears were totally healed! He went through three times almost graduating from the program, and a disaster happened three different times. I mean, unbelievable disaster! He has now been in the SEALs, and he started telling me some of the stories, like his phone calling his parents when it was off and had no pre-programmed number during a mission while they were in a Bible study and they started praying, hearing the gunfire! He started telling me stories where the hairs on my arm were standing up, and I just, at the end of the dinner, looked at him and said, „I have been in the presence of a man of God!“
Now, Brandon, he doesn’t preach like you and I; you know, he just doesn’t do it like Pastor Mark. He doesn’t preach like you and I. But you know what? He’s one of the greatest men of God I’ve ever had the privilege of spending time with! He’s in his spot as a subcontractor building God’s custom home! Can you say Amen to that? Well, over 20—in over 20 years of traveling, I have to say this—or actually, yeah, it’s been 25 years—I’ve seen senior pastors that I knew in my heart were supposed to be associate pastors. I’ve seen businessmen that I knew were supposed to be in the ministry. I’ve seen pastors that I knew were supposed to be in the marketplace. I actually looked at a pastor and said to him, „You are not called in ministry. I really believe God has called you out there in the marketplace.“ Do you know that pastor called me a year later? He said, „They’re not in the ministry anymore; they were in the marketplace and having the greatest time of their life!“
Because we put pressure on people! What it is is these people—I remember one time calling this guy, and he had a trucking company. He was giving millions into the Kingdom, but he felt like he wasn’t serving God well enough; so he sold his trucking company and went into the ministry, and I’ve never heard from him since! And that’s been over 20 years! You know, I just want to make sure that everybody knows that God has placed a unique calling on our lives! You know when that electrician goes in he doesn’t see the overall picture. But let me tell you something: he’s an intricate part of getting the electricity into that house! God has called all of us to do this! But you know what’s really using this custom house that He’s building? You know what the Bible says? The Bible says the nations are going to come into this house and see it, right? The nations will come and worship the Lord in the new heavens and the new earth! Do you know what’s going to be really amazing? When we’re able to show the part of the construction that we did!
Can you imagine, let’s say, a plumber who got to build and work on the west wing of the White House? Can you imagine the delight in him when his son comes home and says, „Dad, we’re doing a field trip to the White House!“ „Oh, can I accompany you?“ Can you imagine the delight of his son when all the kids are gone? He did the plumbing in the White House! How much greater with God’s custom house! Because let me tell you something: someday that White House is being torn down! Someday my house is being torn down; your house is being torn down, because the whole earth’s going to be purged with fire, according to the Bible! God’s going to set up a new heavens and a new earth! In that city, that building that we’ve been laboring on, this is why Jesus says, „Don’t labor for what perishes; labor for that which endures to eternal life.“ We’re going to be able to show all these nations, Travis! You’re going to be able to say, „Look, there’s my part in the building right there!“ His house is actually a city, but that’s my part of the city that I’ve built! Are you getting this? Do you like that?
All right, so everybody say this: „We are subcontractors building God’s custom home!“ See you next time!
Now, you’re probably thinking after this session, „How do I know what I’m called to do?“ Here’s what you’ve got to do: Hebrews 11:6 says that God rewards those who diligently seek Him in faith! It does not say God rewards those who casually seek Him in wonder and doubt! So here’s your action step: diligently seek God in faith! Second thing: Psalm 92 says, „Those that are planted in the house of God shall flourish.“ You know, when you plant an apple seed, you don’t get a peach tree! When you’re planted in a local church, you’ll flourish into what God has created you to be! And here’s the third: don’t be entangled by relationships, security, or money; those will choke out what God has created you to do. I encourage you, seek God diligently, make sure you’re planted and invested in that local church, and watch your life flourish into what you were designed and created to be and do!