Begin with the End In Mind | John and Lisa Bevere | LWCC

you could say you're a match made in heaven but every marriage needs a little pick-me-up now and then the story of marriage is designed to enhance the intimacy in your marriage the story of marriage provides a balanced approach for both men and women in any stage of life giving you more confidence about the future you're building together side effects may include discomfort and those exposed to high levels of PDA this reaction may be stronger in children some individuals may find that their spouse becomes more involved in their favorite activity couples who use the story of marriage are encouraged to make frequent use of babysitters in case of dates lasting longer than four hours it is not uncommon for children of couples using the story of marriage to experience earlier bedtimes the story of marriage start the next chapter in your relationship try it today okay I think you might have recognized that as another commercial hey it's great to be back at Living Word oh my gosh so it just made it so sweet for me for snowman to be highlighted tonight thank you so much you know he is one of my favorite saxophone players I have you you are um you are actually on my iPad from the last time I was here so I have actually showed my entire family you playing I don't know if you realize how talented these guys are okay I've been listening to jazz I've been listening to jazz all my life and I know somebody gifted in jazz when I see him so anyway it's great to be here Jim and Kristin we love you guys so much Jim I appreciate your friendship all down through the years and your steadfast leadership you and Kristin now both I'm so happy that you are on the pastoral staff Kristin because it is so much better doing life in ministry with your spouse I became a much happier man when Lisa Bevere started preaching and you didn't really want to preach in the beginning did you know I was forced by my husband to do crazy sing it was a pretty dramatic causes wars in our household for weeks at a time sometimes because one time I just stood up and maybe sit on me yeah I say hey I'm not gonna be here next week but we got a great guest in her name Lisa Bevere she's in the back going no no and then she told me all week long we are not a package deal they hired you not me and I said no no no you're gonna speak and yeah and send out look you're speaking to more people than me probably yep it's not a competition it's not it's not a competition okay thank you I want to put up a picture of our family so I was trying to figure out I asked pastor Kristen I think it's been since 2012 that I've been here so since since we were here we've had a bunch of additions in our family and so they're right down there is Lizzy we call her Lizzy the lioness this is our wild child this is the one that my mom said I hope you have a daughter just like you and then I had four boys and she came out as a granddaughter so this is Lizzy and then we have August Sophia my beautiful Texas daughter-in-law Juliana who has been married to my oldest son Addison for 10 years can you believe that then Addison my cute husband of 37 years see how cute you look with gray hair I love you with gray hair then my oldest grandchild Asher we have Arden who married a girl named Christian so he doesn't forget what he is there is me in an inappropriate dress my mother-in-law my third son now that son is still single he would love to be part of a story of marriage that son is still single I'm just saying that he promised he promised me that he would stay single for at least a year so my popularity wouldn't plummet that's what he told me he said mom when you can't auction the boys off anymore your popularity's gonna plummet and then my second son and his wife Jessica no they got they got married within two months of each other we had two wedding weddings in the household last and engaged with him they were actually engaged with him 4 day 4 days of each other and they said we want to get married right away cuz but viewers don't like long engagements and we said your mother your mother and I are scheduled the entire fall we're in Africa we're in Asia we're in Europe we're all over the globe and they said we don't care so Austin Austin and Jessica that one's in the end they got married on a Monday night in Seattle that's the first Monday night wedding I've ever gone to in my life and then Arden and Christian picked polices of my only Sunday off for the entire fall to have together but it made it fun because the whole family gathered together and we had a great time so they just put on a conference that ended today called sons and daughters all four of our sons work with us at messenger International they're amazing young men their daughter-in-laws are like daughters now so wives what did I say daughter yeah yeah yeah their wives but anyway listen I don't want to lose time tonight because we have such an opportunity to talk about I think the greatest institution that God has ever put together and that is called marriage and before we do I really would love to pray with everyone tonight but before we do that we have a great man in the state of Minnesota sitting in the front row and that is Senator Paul gazecki correct a difficult last night Paul Senator Paul please forgive me and his wife Marilee and would you stand up because they are the leaders of the Senate in the state of yeah thank him for serving them both for serving you but he is the head of the Senate in the state of Minnesota and they just got done with their six months so it's great to have you here tonight and good to see you friend I want to pray how many of you really believe that God can impact your life forever tonight I believe you can do that right and so let's believe him for that so father in the name of Jesus thank you so much for this church this church that has been such a bright light not only to Minneapolis but to the nation and I'm asking tonight Holy Spirit we've come together with a purpose marriage is what you said to be a living illustration a living sermon of the way Jesus and the church are one I'm asking tonight that you would strengthen your people's marriage I'm asking that you would do something in our lives and our families tonight that will never ever forget Holy Spirit you can do this and we're asking you to do this glorify Jesus in this service tonight in Jesus name we pray amen amen so tonight we we really want to cover more of a different aspect of marriage than maybe sometimes people talk about Lisa and I we noticed that we were listening to marriage teachers you know years ago and we were noticing how they were bringing a lot of convictions like actually one teacher made the statement conditions yeah yeah condition very much like if the wife works outside of the house the family is cursed and very strong like you have to have a marriage that looks just like our marriage or you're not gonna be blessed and we were actually really upset John and I when we were seeing that right and other statements are if one person's in ministry the other person should not be a ministry and we started realizing this is what works for them but God gives tools in the Word of God he gives us building blocks but he expects us to build the custom home that he is designed for us and every homes gonna look different but what's going to be the same is the building blocks of the truths of the Word of God and so I'll be really honest with you our marriage became much richer when Lisa began to minister and that was because God had called us to do this and I believe that God has a calling a unique calling on every marriage and family just as he has on every individual and it is important for us to discover that and pursue it because I think the way a lot of us begin marriage is almost the way the world trains us to view marriage and that is this we got this idea this happily ever after and we put a lot of effort into the first day of the marriage right so we'll spend hundreds of hours preparing for a wedding but yet we won't talk about the middle and we don't talk about the end and I look at the way God does things and he begins with the end in mind he said I am the God who declares the end from the beginning so it's interesting to me that we will spend hundreds of hours preparing for the first day but we don't talk about the middle and where are we going to end this thing where we gonna land this plane and this is really what Lisa and I want to talk to you guys about tonight and that is to get a great vision for your marriage amen amen you know and John and I have done a lot of things right by accident and quite a few things wrong on purpose so we are not like hey we've done everything perfectly we mentioned Enneagram John is a 1 I am an 8 that's not supposed to be together so we have been a catalyst for refining for one another and so we're not up here as experts but we've been married for 37 years which means we have learned a lot of things the hard way that we don't want to see you learn the hard way there's no reason why you should make the same mistakes have the same struggles and so we want to be open we want to be transparent we want to just be really honest because I think a lot of times in the church people pretend to have a good marriage and they use up all of their energy pretending to be something and they don't know how to change and in the church it seems like if you have a bad marriage you're afraid this should not be the way it is and that's why your church is saying we want you to understand where for your marriage or for vulnerability where for connection and we're for building and so when we were invited to be part of this series about marriage and relationship and family we can't imagine anything more valuable to invest in I mean think about what's gonna be attacked more than anything else by the enemy it's gonna be marriage because it's a representation it's a living sermon it's a what does Tommy Barnett do he does Illustrated sermons right so it is God's Illustrated sermon of how we're related to Jesus so if you have failed marriages in the church what does the world see how do they see the representation of the way the church in Jesus are one and so of course this is going to be attacked and let me tell you something how many of you in here have been married over three weeks let me see your hands okay so King how many of you would say that there are attacks on marriage let me see your hands again okay so we all know that we understand that the key is is that these attacks don't end something that began that was supposed to complete well and I want to say this that Lisa and I 20 years ago we would have said that we're just because we have made a covenant with God and a commitment to God we're gonna stay together but we're not very happy together and we realized this was the wrong mentality and it wasn't God's best and we decided to really attack it and challenge it and there are a lot of people that are in the church that are together but they're not happy and they're not fulfilled and that's not God's design for a marriage God wants you to have a rich fulfilled marriage in which you accomplish more together than you would have ever have accomplished by yourself amen and so the key here is I believe having a vision for the end and when you when you know where you're going I mean think about it how could they ever have built this chair had they not first built a prototype how can you build an automobile without a pro tip without a design how can you build a home without a blueprint how can you end up at your destination if you don't have Google Maps right everything everything we do in life we know where we're going with it if it's successful we don't just happily Everafter just doesn't happen the way the kind of Hollywood portrays it happen you have to plan for it you have to fight for it you have to work for it and so it's an investment you know and and I again like going back to the fact that we actually 20 years ago I remember John was traveling all the time and he'd come home and I would think oh dear Jesus I want him to go back out again I would always say to him how soon before you leave again and he would say why are you saying that I'd be like because you're driving me crazy you're interrupting our life but we were committed but we were not having fun I remember we had a fight that went on for like a year and a half like we were we're stubborn people and so we had a fight there was a board meeting and and I think that I decided to vote no when everybody else voted yes and I think I actually might have put my hands up like no and so John was like if the board meeting was today would you still vote no and I would say I'm not free to vote no I'm not free to vote yes I'm an American I mean I was constantly like why rights and then our kids would be like you guys aren't gonna do this again it was a constant undercurrent of kind of disassociation where we were living together and I remember at the time I actually took off my engagement ring I was wearing my wedding ring but I told my husband we are married but we are not engaged I don't even know what that means but I I that's I guess I need to qualify this I'm half Sicilian so like there's an Arabic yeah well that yep that goes with it so so I don't we were we were ridiculous but here's the thing we had people in our lives that spoke truth to us and gave us tools and confronted us and said this is not okay for you guys to just exist in a marriage and just you're not thriving and you're not flourishing now we're not saying it's not going to take work but what thing of value doesn't take work and time anything that it's valuable requires an investment and so mr. miyagi just makes the statement he said but don't begin until you count the cost for who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there's enough money to finish it other words you might you might complete only the foundation before running out of money and then everyone would laugh at you they would say there is the person who started building and could not afford to finish it and so the thing is in entering into marriage and if you haven't done this already you need to do it now you have to count the cost and basically I'm gonna teach on that this this weekend because this is my passion when you marry somebody you basically sign up to serve that person the rest of your life and if you don't enter the marriage counting that cost and saying this is what I am wanting to do I am willing to serve this person the rest of my life you're not going to have the kind of marriage that God has designed you to have because just as Jesus signed up and said I'm going to serve the church and he said you know the one at the table is usually the one that served he said yet I am among you as one who serves so the first thing you have to realize is this is what you're willing to do is I want to serve if you enter into a marriage relationship and you enter into daily daily activities with that in your in the core of your motivation your marriage is going to immediately start to mend it's immediately going to start to become strong because God says when two people walk together in agreement because when you're both serving each other you now are not fighting for what you want you're fighting for what you know is best for your spouse now that's where God says I command the blessing and can I tell you Lisa and I have walked in seasons where we've not walked together in agreement because we didn't have the heart to serve each other and you know because we were his God's children there was a measure of care and protection but we weren't in the overflow of his provision his presence and just things working out do you understand what I'm saying things succeeding and endeavors succeeding so John are building a house right now and this is something we've discovered building a house takes much longer than they tell you it's going to take and it costs much more than they tell you it's going to cost and I would say to you that building a marriage building a family building a life together that you actually want to live in is going to cost more and take longer but it's gonna be worth it in the end and so I just want to encourage you in that and and you know we actually did some things right by accident I'm gonna actually talk about why I think that God is actually blessed certain things in our lives John and I when we first got saved both first-generation Christians and we would sit down and we would say things like when we have children this is how we're going to raise them and this is how we're going to live our lives and this is how we're going to do things and do you know how God chooses covenant people he doesn't choose covenant people based off of who they are in that moment but he chooses them based off of how intentional they're going to live their life you know a lot of times when I ask a crowd why did God pick Abraham you know I'll ask you guys why did God pick Abraham a and B over here y'all look studious and smart what do you think shouldn't make eye contact with me why do you okay in the flower you second row yes what do you think because he'd be faithful okay all right that's a great answer that's not the one I'm looking for okay how about over here in the front row the flower the flower Hawaii yes they are yes Sarah you know you looked away in the Hawaii and almost shirt why do you think why why no you don't have a Hawaiian shirt but you don't you don't want to answer either okay all right I would not have picked Abraham okay you have the answer yes yes he'll teach his children my ways Genesis 18:19 said God knew he could trust Abraham to teach his children God's ways now I love that because he picked a guy with no kids but he said I know when I give him kids that he will teach his children my ways which shows right there that God is concerned about legacy and so everything that you need to build needs to be larger than just you it needs to be large enough for your children it needs to be large enough for the people that look to us because the Bible says they're going to know us that we're Christians by our love one for another they're not seeing that they're not seeing love one for another in the church with believers and you know what John and I were again John's Italian I'm Sicilian so we have a passionate package here there's nothing that we feel that we feel small but we watch people watch us there's some times that people notice us when we don't know we're being noticed and they watch how we treat each other and people are watching you whether you realize it or not and they actually aren't watching for you to fail they actually want you to succeed they actually want to believe that God could get involved in their broken lives and their broken marriages and their broken families and that God could breathe on something and do something beautiful so God is excited about marriage and he is excited about family well I I want you to elaborate on something though did you come from a healthy family background I came from crazy people so our family our family was doing dysfunctional long before the Kardashians figured out how to make money off of it I'm not I'm not even joking my grandmother was married for four times to three men so she believed in upgrading her husband's so she like married divorced remarried divorced him then had married another guy had an affair divorced him married another guy and he dropped dead in an argument so we have crazy people lots of money lots of adultery lots of alcoholism my grandfather was the 32nd degree Mason I don't know if you all know that's that's pretty high and he was the Dean of chemistry at Purdue and on the Manhattan Project which is the atom bomb so we were godless crazy people and then my mother in rebellion married a Sicilian so my father is the child of refugees from Sicily I actually am up for my Italian citizenship because my grandfather died before he ever got his US citizenship so we had craziness in our background and then that was what I brought to the table divorce adultery alcoholism and crazy Sicilian thing going on ma via Vendetta there we go so and then what did you bring well if you were normal he was normal yeah he was a sweet little Catholic boy yes you were leave me I brought my share of dysfunction to this household but the thing I'm trying to say here is this is God if God could put us together and cause us to be fruitful together and really be in love with each other because I have to tell you this I have a marriage goal and my marriage goal I have sub remember I said beginning with the end in mind so my end goal number one above all others is the day that Lissa leaves this earth that she will be more in love with me than the day we married my number two goal is the day I leave this earth that I'm more in love with Lissa than the day we married and then the goals go from there now what happens when you run into stuff because when you bring a package in from our two dysfunctional type families you all of a sudden are gonna have some situations some real real powerful situations because just ways of thinking are established you're trained you're brought up that way and had we not established these goals early on for how we were gonna raise our children how we were gonna end our life I really believe that we would have been the Christian ministers that you would have heard about that were divorced or dead one of them would have been shot possibly but yeah and her dad was with the syndicate so she understood how to do it so what I'm saying is when we hit this extreme time 18 years ago where it just seemed like nothing was going right neither of us saw it as a brick wall we saw it as a speed bump because the speed bump is something that you don't like you hate them but you're still gonna head to your destination and I think a lot of times we look at situations where it just looks utterly impossible and we say it's a wall and our marriage seems hopeless but listen God has called the called the God of hope and in the midst of turmoil of hardship can you believe in the hope if you look at Abraham he believed in the hope he didn't consider his circumstances but he believed God and I I really believe that in in years and I just turned 60 this month and and I've been in ministry for 35 years but I've seen a lot of people really give up before the miracle came your greatest attack against your harvest comes just before your harvest manifests I'll never forget when Lisa and I planted some tomatoes in Florida and we were so excited we attended those Tomatoes they were coming up they were looking gorgeous they're green they're probably a week away from being ripe and we went away for just like a couple days and we came back and every single one was gone they the largest grasshoppers we had ever seen they must have been this big came and ate every single one of those tomatoes and God spoke to me right there and he said son the greatest attack against harvest comes just before it manifests if you look at David David's going through 12 years in the desert because of the boss that God put him under he's living in caves he's living living in deserts he's sleeping with pillows as a rocks as pillows he's having to live with the Philistines for a couple of those years but yet right before he becomes king what happens the Amalekites kidnapped his wives and children his men's wives and children steal everything of value and now the last 600 guys that believe in you want to kill you they want to stone him think about it you haven't been able to see your family go to national functions city functions for 14 years and now the last 600 men that believe in you want to kill you I mean that's a good place to give up but he encouraged himself in the Lord and he didn't let go of the dream see Samuel said you're gonna be a king something was put before and see I submit to you that marriages don't have a vision set before them that we just kind of live together and we came together out the fact that we like each other but there's more than that there's a lot more than that but just days before he became King the enemy tried to destroy him just right before Jesus came out of the wilderness the greatest attacks occurred that the Bible records it wasn't in he was tempted by the devil for 40 days but though the ones that tried to take him out that recorded happened just at the end and the thing is you had you you had to have had some dreams in your heart for your marriage for your family and the question is have you let go of them has those attacks come just before your harvest and so what I'm saying is in in the 40 years that were 35 years that I've been ministering I've seen so many people give up where I really believe that if they would have pressed through just gone that little extra effort those harvesters that they were believing for would have manifested they actually did a study a secular secular was at University Lisa but the people that said that their marriage had absolutely no chance no hope they came back to the couples that stuck through it five years later and they said we don't even think we ever even had a problem do you remember you you were the one I don't remember that being that yeah it was like they came people that had a horrible marriage yep five years later I think it was like 70% of them said they had a great marriage at that point yeah so sometimes you go through a season and whittles actually said that the hardship they went through ended up creating a richer relationship where they were now and they said we don't even like remember what we went through yeah we seem to forget that struggle is strengthening and obstacles are given to us to learn how to overcome and a lot of times we live in a culture right now where everybody has an Instagram post and they all think if they have likes on their Instagram posts then they want a battle but that's not a battle that's just propaganda and so we actually have bought into the lie that we can be heroes without a war and that we can be heroes without battles and so if there's an attack and you go through something you grow stronger and you know John and I have found in the roughest times in our marriage now and there was never immorality it was just we you put the ministry in the wrong place and because he put the ministry in the wrong place I put the kids in the wrong place and we were just heading in two different directions and there was issues that I had residual in my life from situations with my parents on how I'd never seen a model oh thank you so much I've never seen a good marriage model but we have found that battles and hardship actually brings us closer if we choose to if we say we have to right right like you can choose to allow hardships to create a bitterness in you so whenever you go through hardship you'll never remain the same you'll either become stronger and more fulfilled in life or you'll become bitter you get to choose you get to enter into this this this time of intense hardship whether it's adversity between your spouse and you it's adversity outside that's creating adversity between you and your spouse I mean they've done studies that tragedies that happen are one of the biggest things that will cause couples to separate you have to decide going into this is this going to make me a better person a cynical person a jaded person or am I going to be a stronger person with experience to be able to help people when I come out of this so you're gonna come out of it either way you're gonna come out either bitter or stronger why not come out stronger why not believe we are people of faith and the only fight that the Bible talks about in the New Testament is the fight of faith so the question is are we going to hope against hope and every one of us face this in our relationships and marriage in life and that's the root that's the thing that makes us people of faith is that we're overcomers we want to be champions but we don't want to have battles and yet the satisfaction and the strength and the joy that comes out of enduring a battle is undescribable I would say you know I love this scripture and book of Malachi chapter 2 verse 15 I'm gonna read out the message it said God not you made marriage his spirit inhabits even the smallest details of marriage and what does he want from marriage children of God that's what Sogard the spirit of marriage within you so what is this actually saying it's saying that marriage produces children of God it doesn't mean that God wants us to have a ton of children which you can and if you were like my children I want 800 grandkids so I'd be happy with that but he's actually saying that marriage is a catalyst to refine us that makes us children of God because nobody gets closer to you than your spouse absolutely not yes and you know I remember John and I when we before we got married we went to premarital counseling but we didn't listen to a thing that they said like we were like oh yeah you know what we will never fight see God put us together so the only thing we don't agree with is salad dressing John likes Thousand Island and that's disgusting and I like bosonic I'll just win him over to that but what happened was shortly after honey I love you shortly after we got married I had a vision and it was a vision of a perfect man and I received my calling in life and my calling I felt was to change John from the man he was to the man of my vision and I felt like it would you know it would just be amazing but John had had a vision of his own a vision of a sweet supportive submissive wife and we began to fight like you cannot believe we did not have children and when you don't have Jill turn around you can do stupid things when nobody is watching you one of our one of our one of our and I I actually we don't fight anymore really yeah but like actually we are coming to a marriage conference I said we haven't had a good fight in a long time maybe we can have a fight right before the marriage conference and John was like nope I'm not doing it with you but this is a this is a theological question so pastor maybe you can help us with this so we would always start fighting after dark and I would try to go to bed and my husband would rip the sheets off of me flip the lights on and say we cannot let the Sun go down on a wrath and I would say well we started fighting when the Sun was already down so I have till sundown tomorrow to make it right okay see they've had these discussions and so then then we would lay in bed and so I would say things like we would join hands because he'd made me pray and we would do this thing where we'd say I forgive you by faith and I don't even know what that I don't even know what that was but if his foot came over on my side of the bed I would never do that now but we were ridiculous those first couple years because we had never had anybody model life for us and this is something I've learned with my kids and my grandkids they don't follow what you say they follow what you model and we would be sometimes stupid in front of our kids stupid in front of our staff you guys we work together and live together and we would always apologize and we would like take ourselves out of the room for timeout the boys would be out the dinner table was like oh my gosh that was intense and then we would come back in and we'd be like hey guys you know when I was disrespectful did it out there like yes that was wrong there like we knew that and then my husband would say like you know how I talked to your mom harsh I guess that was wrong they're like yes we also knew that but we're glad you to know that and so that they would just go on and the truth is that my boys that are married are like ten years ahead of us maybe even further because they didn't see parents that never fought and they didn't see parents that were perfect but they saw parents that when they messed up they repented and that I think is one of the keys so we're just ridiculous people who know how to say I'm sorry when we when we first got married we saw people that just lived together they existed so they weren't divorcing but they weren't enjoying life together they just kind of did their own things and we didn't want to live like roommates we I I you know another goal was I want my wife to be my very best friend well my children leave home I don't want to go depressed because now my the people that are closest to me I've left me I want Lisa to be the closest to me not we hear these things priorities god right spouse children ministry or work it all sounds great in theory but are you really living that way I mean it's your best friend really your spouse and I wasn't content with just going separate ways and staying together and so I was willing to fight uh and we watched couples they would never fight and yet it it looked like they weren't on the same page they would not look like they weren't on the same page and then several years later they get divorced and we go we know why because they didn't realize that iron does sharpen iron and the only way it happens is when there is some friction and so Lisa and I are determined not to suppress things because what that does is that shut you down and you're not living anymore I love living with this woman and I'll fight to live with this woman I don't want to just exist with her I don't want to hurt just to be a room or somebody that I agreed to spend the rest of my life with a boy oh boy it's really been a mess no I'm telling you she's my very best friend but my but but friends can fight and friends can make mistakes but friends always forgive each other and the thing is is I I've lived and I've watched in the church people with closed spirits and you know Paul wrote to the whole Corinthian church and he said you've shut up your affections to me you've closed your spirit I've been I've been like a father to you I have Rob from other churches to preach for you I have loved you but the more I loved you the less you love me and you closed your affections to me and I've watched people do it in marriage and I'm gonna tell you something it's unhealthy for children and it doesn't produce the the fruit that God desires our marriage to produce the person the reason we shut our spirits closed our spirit is because we don't realize what we've been forgiven of I don't care how good you are you deserve hell forever that's what I deserve forever but Jesus forgave me when I didn't deserve to be forgiven so how can I not forgive my spouse because I shouldn't have been forgiven I wasn't good enough to be forgiven right none of us in here were good enough to be forgiven and what God said we rightfully deserved as the burn of lake in a lake of fire and sulfur forever and ever and ever that was our just reward for how terrible we were every one of us I know it is super intense sorry that's just me I just thought yeah but when you really get it when you really understand it like I'll never forget when I was in the gym in Orlando Florida we lived in Orlando Florida there's this guy I just came it still can't even fathom this I can't even believe that this happened but this guy got a little upset with his 18 month old little girl because she was crying too much remember this he turns on the boiler pulls the rack out after it's been in there several minutes and starts bouncing the baby on that rack she had second and third-degree burns all over her body now I'm in the gym and I'm with a bunch of heathen and we all want to kill the guy I mean we really we want to kill this guy and to me I've thought of what is the worst thing I've heard of and that's it taking an 18 month baby and I'm ready and I and and and everybody in the gym agreed with me like like it was on every day and I thought as horrific is what he did to her that is nothing compared to what we did to God nothing I mean it's really bad getting second third third-degree burns but can you imagine burning in a sulfur a sulfur like a fire forever and ever and ever that's what we deserved Jesus forgave us and he forgave us before we ever said we were sorry like there are spouses that go I'll forgive them when he pologize --is what what if Jesus would have waited for us to apologize he never would have said the cross Father forgive them they don't know what they're doing never never he would he would not have said it BC got a man who realized what he's a father forgettin they don't know what they're doing he wasn't just talking to soldiers and the Sanhedrin you started the next generation the next generation the next time right out of you and me cuz our sins put in there so he forgave us before we ever said I'm sorry and there came a day in our marriage that I had to realize that I'm waiting for her to say I'm sorry before I forgive her of what she's done you're stupid I've closed up my spirit because I'm not getting and I'm sorry for my wife and I'm like that's the way Jesus forgave me and the realization occurred you stood to me and that I apologize no sorry no okay but we're just we're a mess Kate we are an example of God's grace okay you guys and to be honest with you going back over these issues just lets me see the goodness of God you know when we were first married there was something that John kept doing and I was raised very different than John his parents believed the best in him expected the best of him celebrated him and I was raised every time I did something wrong if I said I was sorry I would always hear back I'll believe you're sorry when you stop this and so I felt like I was always under the weight of a bunch of different stuffs and so then I got married and I carried that practice that I was raised with to my husband and so I remember we had this big fight and I locked him out I mean I threw the bolts I like went upstairs I was like I don't know where you're going this weekend but you are not staying here and he's like I can't believe you're doing this I'm like well believe it so he went to some friend's house and said he was gonna be praying and I got alone with God and I said God I know you're mad at my husband so I have some ideas for you maybe you could give him a bad dream or maybe like just a you know like a lightning a small out car accident but a way to get his attention and I need you to tell him that he is dealing treacherously with the wife of his youth you need to get his attention and I don't know if this happens in Minnesota the way it happens for me in Colorado or in Florida at this time no this was in Texas at the time but I can talk to God about John all day long and the only person he will talk to me about is me he will never say I'm gonna straighten John up for he will never say any of that he will always put it right back on me and I remember he said you need to forgive John and I said well I'll forgive him when he brings forth through worthy of repentance so when you have some of these scriptures in your head you could be really dangerous so and I was like okay no that's not how you're gonna do it he said I need you to forgive him so he can't change and I thought wait a minute why do I always have to forgive why do I always have to be the one I can't believe I'm having cuz I had this whole bag of things that every time we had a fight I would bring all of these things up it wasn't just this I was fighting about I thought about this and this and this and this and I remember what outfit I was wearing when we had the fight and I would bring all of this to the table really me and God said you're gonna you're gonna have let it all go and I said what can I tell him everything I'm forgiving of us and he was like no you just need to tell him I believe you want to change and I forgive you because every time I go to God that is the posture he has with me he says Lisa I believe you want to change and I forgive you and he's the only one who knows whether I'm actually going to do it or not and I remember when you came home because we had to go to church together so I let him come home on Sunday morning when you came home I looked at you and it was one of the hardest things for me to do but I said to him I believe you want to change and I forgive you and that was a brand-new beginning for us it was I changed it was like I was trying to change but I couldn't change and when she said that to me it was like I was empowered to change whoever sins you retain are retained whoever sins you forgive or forgiven so I literally I'm wanting to be a better husband I'm wanting to be a better person the person that she's describing but I'm getting worse I'm like going opposite direction I'm failing over and over day she looks at me and says I believe you want to change I forgive you I was like I was freed up and and so you you really have to understand when we're married we're really one so whatever you do your spouse you're really doing to yourself I'm gonna get even you're getting even with yourself so you're gonna punish yourself to get even it really doesn't make sense when you think about it does it but it takes sometimes years to learn this and that's why we didn't want to come out here and just give you a few scriptures we wanted we want to really get out here and get down where it's nitty and gritty right where it needs to be cleaned up because we only got one session with you together and so you're looking at two people that have been married 37 years and I'm and I'm under I'm under the anointing if I if I was to say something not true right now god help me if I was single today I would in a heartbeat chase this woman without it out I would want to be married to this woman she is my very best friend but yet we want you to understand we've had some really rough times but we've chosen to allow God to cause those rough times to become sweet does that make sense and I think of everybody in marriage and you know I understand when somebody lives with an unbeliever maybe that person got saved a couple years after they got married and I understand that that's a little different situation but when I see believers that are just not getting along and believers ending up in divorce I'm like come on guys really are you serious you've got the nature of God in you you have the very same nature that forgave us from a lake of fire what we really deserved that's what we deserved but yet he forgave us you've got that in you and you tell me you can't forgive it's it's that parable Jesus tells of the guy that was forgiving of a ten thousand dollar debt or excuse me forgiving of a ten billion dollar debt and he couldn't forgive his brother for the ten thousand dollar debt it's it's like you you go really really so it really comes down to forgiveness forgiveness is what keeps your heart open and when your heart is open then you can hit your marriage goals so where we started with this tonight was is that God saw man and made a covenant with them because that covenant was supposed to expand because it started with his family then it went to a nation and then it went to the nation's so there always has to be in your vision that you're setting for your marriage it has to be bigger than you if your vision for your marriage only is you two you've fallen short because covenant is cut in the Bible it always expands into blessing others pardon me yeah a contract will shrink your movements a covenant will enlarge your movements so contracts are drawn up the out of distrust really like I'm going to make a contract with you and I'm going to limit your movement but a covenant says everything that is mine is yours everything that is yours is mine and I'm going to enlarge your life and so covenants are not contracts they're they're an enlargement of our life and that's God wants to actually enlarge our lives with marriage and can I tell this real quick okay so one of the things that we did right by accident early on is we we lived in Dallas Texas and we would go to this Chinese restaurant it was the closest we could get to something exotic in Dallas Texas and because we were poor we would split an order of moo shu chicken and get an extra pancake and plum sauce and we would sit there in this restaurant and we would dream we would talk about one day when we have children how are we going to raise our children are we going to give them money for an allowance just for being in our house we're like heck no we are going to only give them money if they do chores do we well how do we going to discipline our kids how are we going to live our lives we decided back then John was like I'm not buying a car for my kids I'll match whatever they save up to $5,000 we wrote it we made decisions off of the things that we had learned from our talked about ministry we talked about ministry things we said we wanted to do it together now back then what we wanted to do we weren't seeing we weren't seeing it yet so we rode out something we had not yet seen you got to remember we were 22 and 23 years of age now he's 60 and I'm 59 that was a really long time ago and we would write down we want to do life together we want to do ministry together we want this to be the way it looks we said we wanted to have a house where our children would have all their friends over so we said that means we're going to invest in ping pong table that means we're gonna invest in foosball that means we're gonna double up the padding on the carpet so that when children wrestle they don't break something we did those kind of things but we rode out at the end of our story at the beginning and we had no idea that the book of Malachi in chapter 3 verse 15 this is interesting it says then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another and the Lord listened in and heard them so a book of remembrance was written before him for those who fear the Lord and who meditate on his name so God will actually listen in on your intimate conversations you can actually begin to write your end now and some of us we didn't know to do that we're just like man I've just been free-floating now for the last 15 years and it's worked okay but I'm not living the life I had hoped I love my husband more now than the day I married him I didn't have that goal and I think I think that I think women actually live longer than men but so I think you'll go first but anyway I I didn't have that kind of dream because I didn't know that we could have that and so you can add to your dreams as you go along but you need to write it down because there's something about writing some thing down that takes it from like this ethereal realm and puts it into something solid a divorce is not final when it's spoken a divorce is final when it's written so we need to write things down so that we have pathways to move in that's so good the the other thing that that that we did as we said what's in our hearts what does God put in our hearts and Lisa made a comment about you know when we would sit in that Chinese restaurant I thought to myself I want my wife to preach the gospel the way God gives it to her I don't want her to be a reflection of me and the thing that I've loved watching is if you look at us separately we're very very different we're very different than the way we minister very people say you too it's amazing you you you are so unique in yourselves but yet we're very much one in heart with our message and I wanted my wife to not look like me to be a female version of John Bevere I wanted her to be unique in the way God had called her I actually had friends that said to me don't do that your wife will become independent she'll leave you she'll she'll separate from your ministry and I said no you know I remember that was a board member and a pastor of a successful church who said that to me and I had to make a decision right then last year and he has a strong conviction in his household and I thought am I gonna allow him to put his conviction here over here because that's not what I see I see a bunch of young couples in the future that want to do this together but want to be uniquely individual in the way God made them so that when you put them both together get this beautiful picture of something even larger okay and I had to make that decision that's not going the direction that God's put in our heart that we talked about in that Chinese restaurant and this is a person who's more successful than me at the time he's more experienced than me he's 10 years older than me and I'm going whoo you know but but I really knew that this is something that God wanted now have we had hardships in having a ministry with two different very strong leaders in it oh yeah there's many times both of us was like let's just create two different ministries you know we'd speak we'd laugh about it not laugh about it but we'd say it and then an hour later we go that's ridiculous because we're fighting for the next generation Lisa and I want to be an example to young people how they can do it and we had so many people I mean I mean answer amps or excuse me Vienna last week speaking in conference with 12,000 people over there and all these ministers came up and said these pastors from all over Europe were going though they were looking at going do you know that our ministry do you realize what you've been able to do that we are actually modeling and the wife would say I'm so fulfilled because I don't feel like I got to be a carbon copy of my husband do you understand what I'm saying or nothing or just taking care of kids and so and if there's no just taking care of kids that's an amazing thing yeah I'm sorry yeah no I'm sorry no it's okay no but I want to honor moms because yes I mean we do honor moms and moms will you put your minute you put I breastfed all my boys until they are caught yeah I was like yeah no no seriously yeah I you art it was two and a half so that was my youngest one no I believed in the right thing in the right season and I was a stay home mom when John was traveling and speaking and I did not start traveling until my boys were of the age where I knew that I had already put them in a pathway and we had people around it I don't I don't buy into women leaving their children to find a ministry out there I believe that when you have young children they are your ministry and so I write wrote put up so my books could travel and speak because so just just for an example the very first time I was ever invited to speak at Hill songs Women's Conference was in 2006 and Bobby Houston me John was actually gone on a trip and when I looked at this calendar it was during my children's spring break and I said I am so sorry I can't speak for you because it's my children spring break and John came home and he said you don't say no to Bobby Houston well I'll just go to Australia and I said no because I'll either have to be ignoring my boys or neglecting the ministry you have to know the right thing in the right CSAT oh and sometimes when you're a mom it just feels like it's a tired season but it is an important season it is a season where you are sowing in secret and you'll reap it in the next season and I found purpose the thing I'm the proudest of it's not any book I've ever written or any platform I've ever stood on it is my children and and that at the end of it I just want to be really clear about that so uh and they've been some of the greatest teachers in my life my husband has been pumping my mentor more than anybody else but I actually remember I came to him when I knew it was time and I would not go before I knew it was time and I used to go out on Friday come back on Saturday I did not ever do Sunday so I get my kids to church on Sunday morning because their dad did not was not there to take them I was in church every Sunday morning even if I flew in Saturday night at 1:00 a.m. so I just want I want to know we honor the house of God and we honor the seasons of life and I just I just want to say that because I know that sometimes people don't know the backstory they don't know that that I was home alone when John was traveling and I loved that season of sowing yeah yeah so I guess tonight we're we're really wrapping it down to is this get a vision for what God has called your marriage to be and to look like and one of our sons came in to Lisa one day and said mom what am I called to do and I know but it goes with what we're saying and Lord told Lea said that very moment be very careful and she said Alec I believe you're called to do something that we've never even seen that you'll actually handle what we only saw that you'll enter into what we didn't enter into and I I look at God he's a creative God and he's got he's got a great variety and I just believe that he is something very unique to your family your marriage your family what he's gonna do through you through that covenant relationship in this earth it's gonna affect other people outside your family any time God's involved it always affects others people in your world of influence and I think Lisa and I we want to say number one if there's something that's there that's caused your spirit to close let's forgive let's release and number two dream dream together God didn't make you in a cookie cutter form he made you unique and there's a unique calling on your life and on your marriage and on your family I really believe it will bless other people and so write those dreams down but you can't do it unless you forgive you have anything else I just feel it to pray I just want I just want us to just just bow our heads right now and I want I want you to just be honest have you closed your heart to your spouse have you did what the Corinthians did Paul said you shut up your emotions to us your heart to us you can't flourish in a marriage in a family if that's happen you've been forgiven of so much freely you've been given so freely give and I want you to just be honest before the Lord right now if you say John I've really closed up my heart I've closed my spirit and I'm willing to forgive the way I was forgiven if that's you I just want you to raise your hand so we can pray for you tonight just lift up your hand I see the hands going up just keep your heads bowed lots of hands going up right now just put them up don't be ashamed there's nothing to be shamed of anyone else a lot of hands up but I want to make sure nobody's missed okay we just put your hands back down can you pray this prayer with me right now say Father in Heaven all of us say his father in heaven thank you for forgiving me not only forgiving me but welcoming me into your household I was a miserable sinner yet you freely forgave me I ask you to forgive me for holding unforgiveness against my spouse you have commanded me and the only reason you command so that I can enjoy life your life you've commanded me to forgive as you have forgiven me I choose now to forgive my spouse I release you in the presence of God and I open my heart to you again father bring healing to my marriage to my heart and may your plans which you've customized our lives to do may they come to fruition may they flourish and may we be fruitful and successful and all that we put our hand to in Jesus name Amen amen [Applause] so we've written actually a book we decided for years and years and years our children said mom and dad would you write a book on marriage and we said no no no no and then in 2015 when we saw the institution of marriage really attacked in our nation that's when we said to our children we're gonna write this book and it's a book that we really get raw in we talk about sex we talk about vision casting together we talk about serving we talk about you know how to have fun in marriage a lot of different angles and so it's called the story of marriage because we believe every marriage has a story to it and so it's out there in the foyer also we did a curriculum in which we walk through the book chapter by chapter by chapter on a video and so you can do that as a family as a married couple you can do it as a small group if you want so he'll be out there and I just I just want to pray one more time because I'm you know I talked to pastor Mac on the hunt on the phone and he said John I just want this to be a weekend in which marriage and family is emphasized and so we just want to pray before we turn it back over to pastor Jim that God would abundantly bless you amen would you do that Lisa just just for God's blessing to be okay so what am i okay one thing I heard while John was praying you know I had made some inner vows like I will never stay with a man if he hits me and John hit me in the first year I had made some inner vows if my husband was ever involved in pornography I'm leaving him and I heard that some of you are forgiving but you need to break those inner vows you need to say you know what God you're bigger than that and that was something to protect yourself there is no position stronger or safer there for the Christian than surrender so I believe as we humble ourselves and we surrender that God would begin to exalt so father I thank you they you are the one that made to one father that you anoint both the man and the woman with the power of Dominion the everything that they come in contact with would multiply that there would be order where there has been chaos where there would be unity where there has been division father I asked that even as John prayed even as has constantly been the theme that you would paint a vision for them that you would reawaken dreams that are now dead that you would cause hope to spring back alive father I thank you that there is not a lost purpose and the things that you over early on will come alive later so father I thank you for better days and the best things that you have woven for them being yet before them so father I thank you as they draw near to you and to one another that one would set a thousand a flight but two would set ten thousand to flight give them the anointing of Dominion and clarity in Jesus name Amen have a very blessed marriage very blessed life we love you guys [Applause]

Channel: Living Word Christian Center

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Keywords: lisa bevere, marriage, john bevere, lisa john bevere, john and lisa bevere marriage, john and lisa bevere podcast, lisa and john bevere, john bevere lwcc, lisa bevere lwcc, lisa bever sermons, lisa bevere marriage unmasked, lisa bevere marriage youtube, lisa bevere begin with the end in mind, john bevere sermons, john bevere marriage, john bevere holy spirit, christian marriage, lisa bevere marriage, lisa bevere sermons, lisa bevere 2021, lisa and john bevere marriage

Id: sURoE7gY7n0

Length: 67min 36sec (4056 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 25 2019