John Bevere - Promotion Comes When You Do THIS
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Hey everybody, welcome to lesson five. The title of this lesson is «Multiply What Belongs to Someone Else.» Now we are going to get down to where the rubber meets the road; we’re going to get practical, and from this point forward, all the way through the end of the course, we are really going to dive into the practicality of what it takes to multiply.
Now let’s, first of all, before we begin, do a personal checkup. All right, I just want you to think with me right now, and I want you to do an honest assessment of yourself. Okay? Don’t be scared because many times when we can be honest with ourselves, that’s the first and biggest step to moving into what we’re called to do. Do you have a multiplying outlook or have you carried more of a maintenance attitude? Have you coasted? Now ask yourself this: have you coasted when you hit a level of success that you viewed as higher than most or better than your parents, or was it enough for you to live comfortably?
Now it’s really important that you assess yourself. Have you hit that plateau of «Hey, I’m cared for, my wife and kids are cared for, my husband is cared for, if you’re a woman, my children are cared for, and I’m satisfied»? Have you hit that maintenance, coasting mentality? If that’s you, you still have time to change; you still have time to multiply and ultimately be given more responsibility.
Listen to Luke 16:10; this is the Passion Translation: «The one who manages—I love that word, manages—who stewards the little he has been given with faithfulness, multiplication, and integrity will be promoted and trusted with greater responsibility.» So when you multiply, what God does is give you greater responsibility; that’s how you get promoted in the Kingdom.
Over the next few lessons, I want to take you on a journey that Lisa and I walked through; this is our personal story of how multiplication began in our lives and in our ministry, what God has called us to do. In this journey, we’re going to discover truths that will help you multiply. We’ll discover, number one, that in order to multiply, it takes vision.
Now, what is vision? That’s biblical hope. Abraham had no vision for children, and God showed him the stars—the stars are innumerable. He shows him the sands of the sea—see, innumerable—and He says that’s the way it’s going to be with your children. This is what happens when we spend time with God; He gives us a personal vision of how He’s called us to multiply.
The second thing you’re going to find out, and this is most important, is that it takes faith to multiply. All right, now I woke up in the middle of the night last night, and I heard the Holy Spirit. My eyes opened up, and I heard, «He was fully persuaded that God was able to do what He promised.» I’m talking about Abraham. So once God spoke the word, Abraham had to battle to the place that he was fully persuaded over his body and over his wife’s body that God was able to multiply him as He had promised. So faith is crucial.
The Bible actually says in Hebrews that without faith, it’s impossible to please God. Now, why are you taking this course? The Bible says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. What’s happening in this course? You’re not getting a bunch of mental knowledge. No, the word of God has substance. What I’m speaking right now actually has substance; it’s able to go beyond your soul into the spirit and into your heart, and it’s able to discern the thoughts and intents of your heart because the word of God is what literally builds your faith.
I love this: Paul said to the Thessalonian church, «The word of God is effectively working in you.» In other words, he said, «I preached to you, and that word is still effectively working in you to produce fruit.» So this is why I want to emphasize right up front: it’s important that you watch this course not just once; watch it again and again. Why? Because faith comes by hearing, and by hearing, and by hearing the word of God. It is repetitive that when it goes from here to here—here’s what’s dangerous in our Christian walk. Often we will go through a course, we’ll read a book, we’ll read scripture, and we’ll get something here, but we didn’t meditate on it long enough. We didn’t look over it again; we didn’t chew on it for it to get to here. That’s where multiplication happens.
Number three, you’re going to learn that it takes, on our part, diligence to multiply. Number four, you’re going to learn that it takes patience to multiply. What do I mean by patience? I’m not talking about putting up with something; no, it means I’m consistent in my behavior. I’m consistently obeying the word of God.
Number five, you’re going to find out that a blessing that is a catalyst to multiplication is discontentment. Yeah, you heard me right; discontentment is a good thing, and we’ll talk about that in a future lesson. You’re going to learn that an inspired strategic idea from Heaven is key to multiplying. Finally, the seventh one that I’ll discuss, which is crucial, and I’ll discuss it in the twelfth lesson, is the anointing.
So let’s begin with a principle that Jesus emphasized. Jesus says in Luke 16:12, «If you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own?» Now I want to restate his words, applying what we’ve learned: «If you have not multiplied what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own?»
I remember when I was a student at Purdue University. I was going to eventually go to Harvard; I was going to get my MBA. I wanted to move up in the corporate world, but God called me to preach. I remember I didn’t want anything to do with being in ministry. Every minister I had ever met—remember, I grew up in a small town—I wasn’t attracted to those ministers in the sense of being drawn to what they did. My Catholic priest didn’t get married, and I wanted to get married. I thought people in ministry ended up in Africa in a shack. I had one pastor I knew in my small town, and he had some kids; they were a bit strange, and I walked into their house one time, and it was so smelly. It had odor, and it was so bad I held my breath until I could make an excuse to get out. So my concept of ministry was horrible; I didn’t want to be a minister.
God dealt with me and dealt with me; finally, one day I said, «Lord, I don’t care if I end up in Africa in a shack. I don’t care if I have a smelly house and weird kids; I’m going to do what you’ve called me to do.» Well, then God began to lead me, and eventually, where it brought me was to Dallas, Texas, working at Rockwell International as an engineer. But I was serving in my church; I was diligent in serving. I was ushering in our church, and because I played varsity tennis at Purdue, I had heard my pastor’s wife was looking for someone to teach her kids tennis. Somebody recommended me; she asked if I’d do it, and I said I would be honored to do it. I did anything I was asked to do to help further our church’s mission.
Eventually, the pastor’s wife, who was the administrator of the church with over 400 employees, asked me to come on staff as their personal assistant. I remember I was so honored to be able to work for this great pastor and his wife, and my job was basically a gopher. I would pick up their kids from school so that she could continue working, pick up their groceries, and pick up their guest speakers for the church and take care of them. I remember one night specifically—I mean, I was working 70 hours a week sometimes, and I didn’t care; I was so happy and thankful that I was able to serve my pastor and his wife and help them be productive in what God had called them to do.
But I’ll never forget this: it was 1:00 in the morning. We didn’t have cell phones back then; I couldn’t put my phone on airplane mode; we had landlines. Okay, I remember it was 1:00 in the morning when our phone rang, and my wife and I both woke up out of a deep sleep. It was my pastor. He said, «John, I’ve had our guest at our house until now. Would you come and take him to the hotel?» I said, «Yes, sir.» I jumped up out of that bed and drove over there. I remember when I got there, the pastor and the guest were still talking, and I didn’t end up leaving the pastor’s house until after 2 AM. They were in such a rich conversation; I felt actually so privileged to get to hear these two men of God talking about what they were discussing. I took the guy back to the hotel, and I got back in my bed a little bit after 2—in the morning, about 2:30.
What my pastor didn’t know, and I didn’t want him to know, was that my alarm was set for 4:30 AM because I was picking up another guest who was arriving on a 6:00 AM flight. I didn’t care; I didn’t want my pastor going, «Oh no, no, no! You’re only going to get two hours of sleep; I’ll do it myself!» That would not happen. I was passionate about doing whatever I could to take the responsibility off my pastor and his wife so that they could produce well.
You know what happened? After four and a half years of doing this, God announced through my pastor that He was sending me to another state, another very large church, to be a youth pastor. I remember when I took that youth pastor position; it was a large church, but they had a small youth group; we had 100 or 200 people. I remember our youth group immediately started growing; people were coming out, people were getting ministered to. We had kids in gangs getting saved; we had kids that were actually in covens—yes, satanic covens—getting saved. It was amazing, but I was frustrated. I thought, «Man, there are so many lost high school students in Orlando, Florida; we’re not reaching them!» I was just so frustrated.
So I had an idea in prayer, and this is what God does—He’ll give ideas, and I’ll talk about that in a later lesson. There was a TV station that reached all of Central Florida. Now, back in the mid-1980s, we didn’t have YouTube; we didn’t have Netflix; we didn’t have Hulu; we didn’t have any of these things; we just had television, and there were only a few channels. Well, there was a major Christian channel in all of Central Florida; it reached a potential of four million people, and I’m telling you, this is where youth were back in those days—they were on television. They had a spot open at 10:00 PM, and I went to my pastor and said, «Hey, they’ve got a spot open from 10:00 to 10:30; I want to put our youth service on that time slot.»
He said, «John, it’s not in our church’s budget.» I said, «Pastor, if I share it with the youth and we raise the money, can I do it?» He said, «Well, yeah.» I remember I got in front of the youth and shared the vision: «Man, we can reach kids! They’re lost; they’re in a drunken state; their parents are divorced; they’re hurting; they’re committing suicide; we can reach them with the gospel. Hey guys, I know some of you are working jobs; would you be willing to give 10-20% of what you make a week? Can you make a pledge tonight on what you can give?»
Well, do you know we raised enough money out of our youth group to be able to go on that television program? Do you know that we started—it was a program called «Youth of Flame,» and we reached so many people. More gang members started coming into the church services on Tuesday night—our Tuesday night youth meetings—and they were getting saved. You know, 20 years later, I was in Central Florida, and I still had people coming up to me going, «Man, I used to watch you preach on 'Youth of Flame.'»
What was I doing? I was multiplying. I was faithful with our youth group, and God gave me an idea to multiply and reach more people. So what I was doing was I was faithful with what was another man’s. Those youth that were coming into our church—they weren’t part of my youth group, so to speak; they were part of that church—because I realized that God had put our pastor as the lead of the ministry. So what I was doing was operating as if it was my own ministry. God had entrusted me, and that youth group grew.
One day, the day came when I got promoted out of that, and Lisa and I began to travel. I’ll never forget; God gave my pastor a vision. He had 11 of us associate pastors on staff. He walked into the meeting and said, «I had a vision last night. I saw one of you traveling, and you go out and you come back, and you go out and you come back.» He said, «That man is you, John Bav.» I remember the spirit of God fell on me, and I started crying because God had shown me five months earlier that He had called me to travel. I said to my pastor, «God showed me this five months ago.» He said, «John, I don’t know how it’s going to happen, but I know it’s going to happen.»
I remember six months after that—or five months after that—I got seven invitations within three weeks from all over the United States and a few international. I went to my pastor and said, «What do I do with this?» He started laughing and said, «I told you five months ago you were going to do this. Let’s just set January 1st (this was August of 1989) as the day you leave our church, the day you come off payroll. You can build your traveling ministry between now and then; we’ll keep paying your salary.»
I remember we launched on January 1st, 1990. When Lisa and I were out on the road, we started taking cassette tapes of messages that I had made. Remember cassette tapes? You got to Google that one, okay? We put them—we were in a little Honda Civic, right? I thought I got to multiply my message; I got to be able to get more teaching into people’s hands when I go to these churches. So I put those in our Honda Civic—I put two boxes in front of the two car seats of my three-year-old and one-year-old, and they had my cassette messages—and I’d go preach my heart out in these little 80-member churches.
The first church I preached at was meeting in a funeral home in South Carolina, a town called Sutherland, South Carolina—meeting in a funeral home, okay? 80 people, but I’m selling those tapes. Why? Because I want to impart to them what God had revealed to me. I knew I was stewarding a message that He had called me to bring to the nations of the world, and Lisa and I would just drive up and down the I-95 corridor on the East Coast of the United States, going to little churches of 80, 90, 100, and selling those tapes and being faithful.
Then one day, something happened, which I’m going to share with you in future lessons. So remember, I’m going to bring out all these seven principles of how to multiply by sharing our own personal story, and it’s going to build in you the faith to multiply yourself. Remember, multiplication is all about impacting more people than you could in your own ability. I’m excited; I can’t wait for the next lesson.