A Healthy Fear of God: John Bevere | Episode 400

0:00Equipping you to think well about culture and create conversations that lead to wisdom. This is The Think Podcast. Welcome back to The Think Podcast. I'm think team member Alex Forsman. Leading up to the think summit this October, we're sharing some of our favorite conversations and breakout sessions from over the years. Our hope is to create a space for longer discussions that allow us to slow down, ask questions, and thoughtfully engage some of the most pressing issues shaping our world today. This week we're listening to John Bevere, who's an author, speaker, and co-founder of Messenger International. We'll learn about how their churches fallen away from the right view of God's Holiness over the years. Here's a sobering fact. In the past 24 years, 30 million Americans have walked away from the faith. John Bevere says it's all because of our view on God's Holiness. In his talk, a healthy fear of God, he asks us, what would it mean to start having off for God again?

1:00I think the answer to that question reveals a lot and has the potential to change everything. So let's listen to now. Let's believe God to talk to us and in the next few minutes. Father, in Jesus' name, we're so grateful that you would call us sons and daughters, the creator of the universe. Now Holy Spirit, I'm asking that you would invade this sanctuary as you've already been in this place, but now in the unique way of revealing Jesus in a way like we've never seen it before. As you do this, may we go from glory to glory, from strength to strength for I decree your kingdom has come, your will shall be done. In this place tonight on Earth as it is in heaven, for this we give you the glory, the honor and the praise and the thanksgiving in Jesus' name. And everybody that agrees says, amen, you can be seated. I want to say what a privilege it is to speak with these other people, men and women, these leaders that have come in and spoken. I just want to share with you as someone that has been in ministry now over four decades. And I am absolutely in love with my wife and I'm so proud of my family.

2:02In fact, some of my family is here tonight. Addison, are you here? Where are you? My oldest son. I know is here. He's hiding. Stand up. Come on. This is a great man of God, author of two books. Stand up. And then Asher and Sophie stand up. Asher and Sophie stand up. This is to my G babies. I'm way too young to be grandpa. So it's G daddy, amen. Now let me say this. I've been watching, I've been a student of the church. I've had the privilege of traveling all over the world. So I get kind of a 36,000 foot view. And something that I've noticed in the American Western Church, especially getting the chance to go to other nations, is that we have built a church in the United States off of leadership, inspiration, atmosphere, and community. Now some of those are extremely important. In fact, all of them are important. However, Barnett told us, and this is something I learned just two years ago, that in the last 24 years, over 20 million people have, excuse me, 30 million Americans have walked

3:02away from the faith. 30 million. That is one out of every 10 Americans. Okay. And not only if they walked away from the faith, but most of them now are professing agnostic's atheists and spiritualists. So when I found this out two years ago, I fell on my face and I said, God, I've got to know what's going on. This is our generation. We're responsible for this. And God began to show me some things. And I think one of the main reasons that we have lost so many people is because we have an absence in our churches of the true presence of God. Now the presence of God, and I want to say this, is a very real aspect of Christianity. Jesus made the statement at the last sub-recipes. He said, I will manifest myself to you. To manifest means to bring from the unseen realm into the scene, the unknown, into the known, the unheard, into the hurt. It is when God reveals Himself to your senses. This is a real aspect of Christianity. In fact, Moses made the statement.

4:02He said, what will separate your people and I from all the other people on the earth? It's nothing other than your presence. And I would rather have your presence here in this desert than go into a promised land without it. If you look at David, David says that in your presence is fullness of joy. What is the joy of the Lord? It is our strength. Why are so many people walking away from the faith because they don't have strength? So why are we not experiencing the presence of God in the American church? Because we are not preaching about true holiness as we should. Now when I say that word holiness, some of you are going, oh wait, wait, wait, wait, that's legalism. No, no, no, it's not legalism. Some of you are going, no, no, no, no, that's really, really, that's going to lead me into a dull life. No, it's not going to lead you into a dull life. In fact, I want to quote CS Lewis right now. He said how little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing, it is irresistible.

5:05So I want to talk to you a little bit about the irresistible. Now in the American church, we got away from holiness because so many people were stung by legalism. Do you know what I mean by legalism? We had a bunch of preachers, didn't even like people. You know, if you don't like people, you shouldn't be in ministry. You should be teaching physics or chemistry, not the Bible. And so what they did is they used this word holiness to control people's behavior and they stung us. And so a lot of people in the church, they said, hey, I've been scalded by this boiling water. There's a Chinese proverb that says the cat has been scalded by the boiling water will fear even the cool water. The proverb says if you pour boiling water on a cat, then when you put the cool water out there, it will give its life. It will run away because it got scalded by the boiling water. So you mentioned holiness and people get really nervous. And that kind of passed along because what happens is we stop preaching it. So now we got your generation coming up. We not really heard much about it. But some clever teachers came along that were my age and a little bit younger.

6:09And they said, hey, man, holiness is all over the Bible. So we got to talk about it. So these clever teachers came along and said, okay, here's the deal. Don't worry about holiness. Jesus is your holiness. Now what's really scary is what they're saying is absolutely true. But yet they're not telling you the whole picture. If you look at holiness, holiness is not all in the bucket of who we are in Christ. There's actually two different buckets of holiness in the New Testament. So give me a minute to explain this. If you look, the first holiness, the one they talk about is called positional holiness. Everybody say positional. There's so many scriptures I can give you, but I'm thinking of Ephesians 1-4, which says that he called us in Christ. Let me see. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. So before the foundation of the world, the father and the son had a meeting. And God said, we're going to create man. We know the end from the beginning.

7:09We're not going to make him do this, but he's going to mess up. So would you go and die for that? Son said, yeah, dad, I'll do it. He said, okay, if you do that, the moment they receive you, they will be holy, set apart for me. And so the moment we were saved, we were set apart for him. And if I look at our relationship with God, you know what the Bible says? The Bible says in Ephesians chapter 5, that our relationship with God is illustrated by something. What's it illustrated by? By a man leaving his father and mother and being joined together with his wife. So you can learn so much about how to have an authentic relationship with God by looking at a marriage. And so I'm going to compare this to my marriage. 42 years ago, at least at Tuscanno, walked down the covenant, Presbyterian church in Lafayette, Indiana. And on that very day, she became my wife. Can I say 42 years later, she's not more my wife today than she was the day we got married. And 40 years from now, she's not going to be more my wife.

8:10She's my wife. That's the positional holiness. But let me tell you something. Before Lisa and I got married, she had a behavior that was different than after we got married. You understand what I'm saying? Before we got married, she dated guys, flirted with guys, gave the guys their phone number, went out on dates with them. You got it? After we got married, she now had a behavior that matched her position. Okay? So she's not dating guys, she's not flirting with guys, she's not going out on dates with guys. She's got a behavior that matches her position. That's called positional holiness. And the Apostle Peter makes this statement, look what he says, he says, live as children of obedience to God. Do not conform yourselves to the evil desires that covered you in your former ignorance when you did not know the requirements of the gospel. Yes, this is in the Bible. But as the one who called you as holy, you yourselves be holy in all your conduct and behavior. Now, he's talking about behavior, a behavior that lines up with our position as called obedience.

9:15Now that we understand that there are two types of holiness in the Bible, we've got to ask a question, what does holiness have to do with the presence of God? The answer is it has everything to do with the presence of God. Because Hebrews chapter 12 says this, pursue, now look at this word, pursue, everybody say pursue. The word pursue there means to chase after with the intent to apprehend. Speaks of urgency and intensity. Okay? So pursue holiness, chase after with the intent to apprehend holiness. So let's ask a question, is he talking about positional holiness or behavioral? Let's go back to Lisa. He is a Bible study. She goes with Rebecca Lines on Wednesday mornings. Can you imagine Lisa with all the girls on Wednesday mornings saying, hey, ladies, pray. I'm chasing after being John's wife. They all laugh at her. They say he became his wife 42 years ago. But now she went to them and said, hey, pray for me. I want to have a behavior that's more fitting being John's wife. They said, we can pray for that.

10:15So we know right there he's not talking about positional holiness. He's talking about behavior holiness. He chased after with the intent to apprehend behavior holiness because without it, no man's going to see the Lord. Now what does he mean? No man's going to see the Lord because Revelation chapter 1 verse 7 says that he is coming in the clouds and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him. Everybody's going to see God at the judgment. What's he talking about? Well I've been an American citizen for 65 years now and in that 65 years I've been under 13 United States presidents. Their leadership affects my life. Their decisions affect my life. I'm under their rulership but I've never seen one of them. I've never been in the presence of the United States president. Now there are other Americans they see them every day. They're with them. They're in their presence. I've never seen one. There are Christians.

11:16They call Jesus their savior. They attend church. They're passionate about serving him. He has rulership over their life but they're not seeing him. They're not experiencing his presence. And so now he's more of a fictitious Jesus and a fictitious Jesus doesn't answer prayers. He doesn't manifest his presence. He doesn't keep his promises. Paul said to the Corinthians, you're so carnal, you'll listen to what anybody preaches to you even if they preach another Jesus. So what happens is if we're not encouraged and we're not told to pursue holiness, we're not going to encounter his presence. Because look what Jesus says. I'm going to go back to that scripture I quoted just a minute ago and give you the full scripture. He said the person who has my commands and keeps them is the one who really loves me. And I will love him and show, reveal, manifest myself to him. I will let myself be clearly seen to him and make myself real to him. So Jesus says the one I'm going to make myself real to, the one I'm going to manifest myself

12:17to is the one who has my commands. Let me give you an illustration. We're talking about marriage. I've been married at least of 42 years. I have a marriage license from the state of Indiana that says we're married. I could hold that marriage license up to her and said, hey babe, we're married. See, we're really married while I'm jumping in bed with other women. Okay. Now let me ask you a question. I might be technically still married, which I don't think it's going to last a long. But what am I going to lose? I'm going to lose intimacy with her. I'm going to lose those times that our heads are on the pillow and she shares something with me. She wouldn't share with anybody else. I throw it away. See, holiness is not an end to itself. It's the doorway into intimacy with God. There is a reason I don't commit adultery against my wife. I'm going to tell you this. There are two big reasons. I got to put them on the shelf. Reason number one, I fear God. Reason number two, she is a sharpshooter and she told me she would make it painless.

13:22Okay. Now, the real reason I don't commit adultery against Lisa is I don't want to lose those times when she whispers the secrets of her heart to me, because she wouldn't tell anybody else. I love that and I never want to lose that from this amazing woman. You want to know why I don't commit adultery against Jesus? You say commit adultery? Yeah, James says you seek a friendship or relationship with the world. You are an adulterer. I want you to imagine something. Here's a young man named Matt. Let's just do a hypothetical. Matt, Matt's been dating Sarah for a couple years and they got that big date and he's got that little ring box. He gets in that special place and he gets down on one knee and he opens up that ring box and says, Sarah, I love you so much. Would you be my wife forever? And she squeals. Yes! Matt, yes! And she grabs him and literally almost chokes the guy. She's so excited, right? And so they celebrate after about five minutes. She looks at Matt and says, well, you know, now Matt, a dated Tony in high school.

14:23So I'd like a couple nights with him a year. Because we went steady for two years and then there was another guy. There was another guy named Aaron and I dated Aaron in college for a couple years and I'd like a couple nights with him. Now, Matt, you will be my favorite. I would love you more than Aaron or Tony. And you're going to get 300 nights a year. I just want a couple nights with him. Is there any young man in this nation that would go for that? Is there anyone? And here's Jesus. He's called the groom and word the bride. What does our groom do? How does he get down on his one knee? He comes to this earth, the creator of the universe. Comes this earth, it's on a human being's body. That he's going to be spit on, strip naked, thrown this junky robe on him. They're going to blindfold him, start beating him and say, oh, tell me who just hit you. Then they're going to rip out his beard. Then they're going to put a crown of thorns and shove it into a skull.

15:28And then they're going to put him on a whipping post, stretch him out and have this scourging thing with lead tip whips and bone fragments in the tips. Come across this back. And Jesus knows this because Isaiah prophesies it. By the time they get done brutally beating him, he knows he's going through this. He's not even going to have the appearance of a human being. He will not look like a human being by the time they put him on the cross. That's him getting down on one knee, our creator. And we think he's coming back for a church that wants to sleep with the world. To meet just a knight or two with the world, if you believe that you're as deceived as believing that Matt would marry Sarah, saying, give me a couple nights a year, he's not coming back for a church that's sleeping with the world. He's coming back for a church that's given herself to him the way he gave himself for her. But you see, we don't preach that. And because we don't preach that, that means that Jesus is not manifesting his presence in people's lives. Just like my wife would not come near and have intimacy with me if I was jumping in bed

16:30with somebody else. But we think we can sit there and flirt with the world, give a phone number to the world, we can sit there and entertain ourselves with the very things that drove the nails into Jesus' hands. And then experience God and we can be so happy. Can I tell you something? God was dealing with me about this when I was your age young and I was in ministry. And I left an engineering job with Rockwell International where I was making a lot of money and one in the ministry was making $18,000 a year. And God dealt with me about me flirting with the world. And I remember I was actually in the Philippines and my head is going, is he really your Lord? And my heart was going, what are you talking about? Excuse me, my heart was going, is he really your Lord? And my head was going, what are you talking about? You left a high paying job. You made a sacrifice. You're in ministry full time. And you know what I heard? Judas left everything he had. Judas followed me for three and a half years. Judas healed the sick. Judas cast out devils.

17:31Judas healed. Preach repentance. Judas is in hell. I started trembling. And all of a sudden I realized the grace of God is not a license me to flirt with the world. It's not a license for me to flirt with pornography and sin and all the other things that drove the nails into his hands. It actually empowers me so I can live in the way that I couldn't live before I knew him. The man who keeps, the woman who keeps my commandments. See, there's 610 commandments in the Old Testament. You know what those commandments for for it? They could prove to you that you can never have a relationship with God by keeping those commands because we can't keep them. Salvation is a free gift. But there's over 500 commands in the New Testament. Jesus said, going to all the world, make disciples, volnations, teaching them to observe everything I've commanded you. He said, he who has my commandments and keeps them is the one that loves me. What are those commandments for? They're doing hands art intimacy with him.

18:33And see, we've had a church that has learned how to be satisfied without his presence. We've embraced atmosphere. We've embraced relevance. We've embraced leadership. But let me tell you something. The church that he's coming back for is not a leadership driven church. There's one description of the church that Jesus is coming back for and that is a holy church without spotter wrinkler and such thing. But you look at the predominant characteristic of God. You will see these seraphate that are beside the throne and one is crying to the other. Holy! Holy, holy, holy. John sought and revelations five and Isaiah sought and Isaiah six. They're not crying. The angels aren't crying. Faithful, faithful, faithful. Is God faithful? Yes, you better believe it. But that's not his attribute that stands out. They're not crying, love, love, love. Is God love? Yes, he doesn't have love. He is love. The attribute of God that stands up above all others is his holiness. And this is why Peter says, be ye holy as I am holy. That starts with me separating my heart to him.

19:36I don't belong to this world. I am journeying through. I have an assignment. I'm not going to get into the bed with the world, but I'm going to go bedside of the world. Do you understand the difference? It's a big difference between me being bedside, helping a physician, helping somebody get sick and jumping in bed with the world. And there are people that are not experiencing the presence of God in it breaks my heart because they flirt with sin, they give their phone number to sin, they go out and date with sin. And then they think Jesus is going to manifest himself to me. So what happens is I had hard times and my life is empty. This isn't really real. And 30 million Americans have walked away. We need people who will call people back to the heart of God, who will call people to walk in true holiness. When a girl walks down an aisle of a church and she's got that white wedding dress on, she's actually saying goodbye to about 3.9 billion guys. She's saying this is the one and only man I'm giving the rest of my life to you. Did you do that when you gave your life to Jesus? Or were you like Judas?

20:36Excited about who he is, but yet not willing to give your whole life. Jesus said the only way you're going to follow me is to deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me. I want every head bowed, every eye closed. Heavenly Father, I preach what you've commanded me to preach and I'm so grateful. So grateful for how much you loved this Jesus. You gave everything because you loved this so deeply. You are creator, literally went through the worst brutal torture that a human being could live through in those days. So I'm asking you Jesus, please draw these men and women to your heart. I want you to forget who you're here with and who's sitting next to you and I want to add up your question. Have you done with Jesus with that bride does on her wedding day? I want you to be really honest. You can fool the person sitting next to you but why in the world do you ever want to fool yourself? Have you given yourself completely to him?

21:40I want you to ask that right now and if you're if you haven't, I'm going to tell you if you could get a vision of Jesus right now. His arms are out wide open and he's got a look of hope on his face and he's hoping you're going to say yes. Just like that groom when he's on his knee with that ring box, he can't make her say yes but he's sure hoping. Jesus has already died for you. He's opened that ring box and he said, I want you to be my bride. What a powerful quote from the great C.S. Lewis. How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing, it is irresistible. Holiness is an idea that has been misunderstood and misused by the church throughout its history. But when we truly choose to pursue the holiness of Christ, we are finally able to experience intimacy with him in a way that we never would have before. I love what John said about the commandments and the old and new testaments of the Bible. Before Jesus, those commandments serve to show us that we will never be holy enough on

22:40our own. After what Jesus did, those commandments now serve as the direct doorway into deeper a union with God. If you want more content like this, we'll have over 30 keynote speakers and 50 plus breakout sessions and activities at Think Summit this year, October 1st through the 3rd. Learn more at www.ThinkSummit.com or click the link in the description. And in next week, when we revisit a keynote speech given by Alex C. Lee, author and lead pastor of the Belonging Code Church in Nashville, Tennessee, we'll learn about the rise of manifestation culture in compare it with a biblical understanding of prayer, trust, and God's sovereignty. Thanks for listening. See you next week.