It's Time to Wake Up [FULL SERMON] — Lisa Bevere

I hope you know that I am a grandmother of six and a mother to four men and what I have in my heart for the next generation is I believe that the Millennials and the Gen z's are going to experience an outpouring of the spirit of God I believe that the other the older people are going to be like wait a minute I believe that God is going to do something and I say something because we don't have words for the thing that he is going to pour out on this next generation and I know I know the year has changed but God has not changed and God has a plan even when the enemy has a scheme and God is Not stepped back nervous about anything God is saying I'm going to Astound this world with my glory with my presence with my power I love how you worship tonight and I hope that even as you were worshiping tonight you were asking because the spirit of God is asking his people to ask for Revival ask for the outpouring ask for signs and wonders and miracles we cannot draw back because we've been weary in well-doing we need to lean forward and ask and I want to kind of punctuate our time a few years back I read a quote by William Booth and this is what he said when he was asked what do you see as a challenge for the next 100 years he said the chief danger that confronts the coming Century will be religion without the Holy Ghost Christianity without Christ forgiveness without repentance salvation without regeneration politics without God and Heaven without help I feel like we are there right now but guess what you were woven for this moment in time and somewhere along the line we all got this idea that we could be heroes without a battle I don't know if it was social media likes that we're like well I'm a hero look at how many people liked this post well I'm going to tell you this right now that is a pretend world and every time I go to bed at night I turn off my phone and I say goodbye pretend world and I put it down I I love that I have the ability to speak to a lot of people I never have a chance to but the real world and the people that you can see are the people that God wants to have you touch their life and I get it it's so much easier I can post something and people are like oh Lisa you are so profound and then my husband comes in he's like wait why are you what what's for dinner I mean I'm like you don't understand I am profound people are like do you want to see what people are saying about me no he does not want to see what people are saying about me God actually is asking us if we want to be popular or influential and they are two very different things popular means common influential means powerful and it's very hard to have both of those things at once but we are going to have to decide that we want to be influential people people of God people who understand that we were hand-picked for this time and I I listen to parents and they they say things like man it's so scary raising kids right now well I understand that but see God actually hand-picked your children for this time period and we don't want to be like the children of Israel and speak fears over our children we want to actually go in with them we want to bless them we want to say it's going to be the old and the young it's going to be the men and the women it's going to be the visions and the dreams it's going to be the outpouring of God's spirit because see we have the best communicators on the face of the Earth right now but I am not interested in words without the weight of God's spirit because when we have words weighted by God's spirit it changes everything are you with me on this I feel like you are or you wouldn't be here on a Tuesday night so here's our day we have a day where everybody thinks they can have their own truth you can have a truth they can have a truth everybody has my truth well that doesn't really work because we have a generation that thinks their feelings are truth and as a 62 almost 63 year old woman who has been through menopause I'm gonna tell you right now feelings will lie to you they will take you emotional hostage they will say things like punch your husband in the face you cannot allow your feelings to be the truth and when people say what is truth they're asking the wrong question because truth is not a what truth is a who Jesus is the way he is the truth and he is the life and no one comes to the father except through him and people were like I don't think it should be that exclusive well he says come everyone anyone to have nothing have everything come come it's an open invitation but it is a narrow way a narrow way it's his way it's not my way it's not your way it's his way we have forgotten that truth is a rock it is not a river that changes and Ebbs and flows at different times and feelings we act like our culture has gotten better I'm sorry I've never seen us so crazy every once when I'm like I think I live in crazy town now I am like as soon as I think it's not going to get crazier it gets crazier and I want to say something to all the men as the mother of four Sons I love men and I am so sorry that our culture has said things like toxic masculinity because God actually likes men and God likes men to act like men now I get it there's toxic behavior that some men might have I love that women are standing up going yeah okay but there's toxic women Behavior as well just talked about wanting to punch my husband in the face okay but but God created US male and female In His Image and I don't know where we thought he said blend the image we need men to be men and we need women to be women and we need to remember again what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman and our culture has sexualized what it means to be a woman and sometimes I have to look at my own gender and think did we mishandle what it means to be a woman did I play on to that and say well I'll just I'll be about appearances but being a woman is a gift from God it is a entrustment to partner with God to bring forth life in a lot of different areas not just birthing children and God created man to reflect his glory and God created male and female to be a power Union not a power struggle this idea that we need to push the men aside or push the women aside that is the enemy that is the enemy trying to divide houses so they will fall so we have a culture that has pushed back on Truth redefine truth makes themselves the truth we're actually becoming a culture that is very Pagan we worship creation we worship ourselves instead of the Creator Romans talks about it says worse followed refusing to worship God they soon forgot how to be human men forgot how to be men and women forgot how to be women when we do not press into God we lose our Humanity I have never seen people so cruel and so inhumane but guess what when I read the book of Hebrews I used to get excited I used to be like wait a minute these people who through faith toppled kingdoms made Justice work and took the promises for themselves I used to get excited about being a warrior for God and you know what we've had some ease until now and we live in a day and a time where there's a little bit of a struggle it's not so popular to be a Christian anymore and we're going to have to understand that struggle is actually strengthening and the church always flourishes in hardship more than it does in prosperity so I'm going to bring you a message out of the Book of James because I thought it would be appropriate for our season I'm going to read it out of the message paraphrase but it's pretty much bad news in every single version James chapter 1 verse 2. says considered a sheer gifts friends when tests and challenges come at you from all sides you know that Under Pressure your faith life is forced into the open and shows its true colors so don't try to get out of anything prematurely let it do its work so you can become mature and well developed not deficient in any way if you don't know what you're doing pray to the father he loves to help you'll get his help and won't be condescended to when you ask for it ask boldly believingly without a second thought people who worry their prayers are like wind whipped waves don't think you're going to get anything from the master that way adrift at Sea keeping all your options open that is a lot so let's break this down first of all it opens up with considered a sheer gift friends when tests and challenges come at you from all sides that doesn't sound like a gift to me that sounds like a nightmare I mean when you are surrounded by tests and challenges I I get it like once in front and then you go beyond that one and then there's another one but James is actually saying it's a pure gift when you are completely surrounded by tests and challenges at all Sites that's where we are right now the the nicer version said consider it pure joy not mixed with any sorrow so what I want to propose is that our God sees ambushes without any means of Escape to be an opportunity for him to show himself strong so if you're feeling a little bit surrounded right now I want you to know I believe that God is unlocking some things when we were in worship I heard the Holy Spirit say there are people in this room that they have been locked up and I am unlocking something that has been locked up in their life and the thing is you didn't want it to come this way but the unlocking is going to come through how you respond to the tests and challenges he goes on to say you know that Under Pressure your faith life is forced into the open and shows its true colors I know that I know that Under Pressure I don't always like who I become like have you ever gone to get a massage and when you go into the massage they're like what do you want do you want light medium or deep tissue I want to be bruised the next day I want every penny of my money to show up on my body I'm like give me deep pressure I want elbows I want knees I've had people climb on me John on the other hand falls asleep I'm like how in the world can you fall asleep during a massage well John's like I don't want to hurt during a massage I'm trying to relax during a massage but I like pressure but you know what they tell me in the massage if this is too much pressure we'll back off that's not what happens with this scripture that's not what happens it actually forces your faith life into the open now I have lived in Colorado for a really long time I'm a national Nashville now for just a year if I start having an accent you'll know it'll be longer but I in Colorado we can basically grow things for two months and if you want to grow something that is not native to that climate you have to create a artificial climate and so I would go out to Home Depot and I would buy these bulbs and I would put them in my refrigerator drawer and I would say rest easy my friends you are having a mild maybe southern winter and when it should be spring but we had three feet of snow on the ground I would put them out on the windowsill it's a process called forcing them and God is creating environments for his people to bloom under pressure under pressure you find out the faithfulness of God Under Pressure you actually find out what you are really made of Under Pressure you find out that you're stronger in him than you know and Under Pressure you've got to cry out for his strength and I love the promise of God it says the moment I cried out you stepped in and made my life strong and large with strength so I don't know what you're going through right now but some of you needed to start singing then it goes on to say so don't try to get out of anything prematurely I'm going to tell you being a Christian for I don't know over 40 years now married for 40 years I'm going to tell you this right now you can back out of a test you can say well you know I I this church I don't feel like they're acknowledging my gift I feel like it's just a mega church and I don't know I'm not making any friends well there's a bunch of choices you got a bunch of choices in mega churches to make friends you can keep transplanting transplanting transplanting transplanting but what happens when you transplant transplant transplant it ends up stunting your growth the Bible says those that are planted in the house of God will flourish in his courts I want to see you flourish not be stunted and some of you what you did is you opted out of some things and I'm going to speak specifically to the last couple years some of you had some dreams going into 2020. and what you did was you got disappointed you got discouraged and instead of planting some things you buried them and there's a difference between planting and burying something when you bury something you put it in the ground and you walk away but when you plant something you have an expectancy you tend it you pray over it you watch for it you weed it you water it and God is saying that now is the time for you to dig up some of the things you buried in a season of disappointment and begin to plant them begin to water them begin to Speak Life over them things that you backed out or prematurely in college I remember there was so many times I did not prepare well for the test at the time and I always had to take the retest and the retest is always harder learn from me take the test the first time rather than the 15th time okay and then he goes on and say let it do its work so you can become mature well developed and not deficient in any way you know I have kind of an embarrassing funniest story I um went down to Australia many years ago like well not many but a while ago a decade ago and while I was there somebody made the mistake of telling me that they thought I was buff and when you tell a woman in her 50s that she's buff she will want to believe you even though she knows it's a lie and I was like oh wow I'm buffed so I actually came home and I told my sons I said Hey listen we're going to go to the gym because somebody told me that I'm buff and that I am almost just like the original Sarah Connor from Terminator now some of you all know who that is and that is why you're laughing because you're like no Lisa but I was like yeah I feel like I'm maybe two training sessions away from her buffness and so my boys they made a little pump up thing for me we go to the gym and I am all ready to like show how buff I am I thought the trainer would be impressed when he like saw my muscles he was he wasn't even looking up from his clipboard he was like before you work out we need to do an assessment I was like what an assessment he's like yes I need you to do like jumping jacks for two minutes or something well I was so nervous because I was out in the open there were people working out that knew what they were doing and he shoves me in the middle I haven't been in the gym in 20 years at that point and now I'm doing jumping jacks and I'm clapping at the top because I didn't want him to accuse me of cheating and my boys just began to back away like that's not our mom we don't know we don't know who that is but our that's not ours and then he asked me to like do weights and I he gave me like a five pound weight and I was like yeah and he's like nope you didn't do it right he does some kind of voodoo thing to my arm and then when I tried to listen I couldn't lift it and I was like wait something's wrong and then he started taking me through all these different courses and then it ended up at the peak of humiliation and that was when he decided it was important to measure my fat percentage and he put this thing that looked like a game controller in my hand he was like hold it out in front of you and we're gonna push it and we're going to get your fat percentage and basically I failed it he was like wow you're that's really high I was like yeah I thought it might be that high and then he said well I said maybe maybe I wasn't holding right let me do it again so I had him do it again it went up a percentage point and he began to systematically point out sisters in the gym who were a lot larger than me but apparently not as fat as me I guess I had a higher fat percentage than all of these sisters and he was like she's you're fatter than her you're fatter than her I was like okay wow I've just come in here thinking I was Sarah Connor and now you're just telling me that I'm fat he said well you're something we call skinny fat I'm like well why why I told him I said listen you need to hear this right now I am not some palpitate Couch Potato I just came from Australia I traveled the world I am a busy person I am not a lazy person he said oh yeah you're busy and that is why you are burning muscle rather than building it if you want to build muscle you have to withstand pressure when things come down on you you've got to learn how to press up against it it's a good point I'm still skinny fat anyway so so you want to let it do its work the trial you want it to do its work so you can become mature well developed and not deficient in any way then he goes on to say if you don't know what you're doing okay can I just be honest with you half the time I don't even know where I am let alone what I'm doing he says if you don't know what you're doing pray to the father he loves to help I think a lot of us think that God is like really you're going to ask me again I feel like you guys should figure this out by now you Wicked and perverse generation how long must I stay no God actually wants to get involved and how many of you know that we are in a day in a time that is going to require God's involvement so we need to ask God God help that's basically all you have to say and he's like awesome yeah I love that God says this is this is the amazing God that we have that before we even ask he's already answering but he waits for us to ask because when we ask it's a partnership and I believe that too many of you buried something that you're supposed to be tending now and asking God's blessing God's direction God's strategy see I believe that we are in the time period where God is pouring out his Spirit on All Flesh and it says that your sons and your daughters well what prophesy oh but we've settled for criticize no you're not anointed to criticize you're anointed to prophesy and people that prophesy they're not stupid they're not saying oh there's not a problem no prophetic people can see the problem in front of them and the answer behind it prophetic people will declare the problem is not an issue it's just an obstacle and God will use this obstacle to get us to this answer and so he will always speak the destiny rather than have you stop where you are right now I love this this quote by Winston Churchill because it gives me permission to cuss in church it says if you are going through hell you just keep going you don't set up camp and cry and whine and post on Instagram about how upset you are with your husband or your friends because nobody wants to be with you anymore because you're a whiner you need to go ahead and just get up and just keep going we also have to be very careful with our words people think well you know why do we have to be careful with our words well Proverbs is very clear I was actually reading this on the plane today that the perversity of words leads to a perverse path which ends up in perverse ways so perversions and all the weirdness it always begins with words and you and I are created in the image of God and he gives us his words you know I mentioned that because of the generosity of so many people we've been able to translate resources in so many languages and one of the things I've learned is even if we all are speaking a different dialect we're all supposed to be speaking the same language and that language is the language of our making it is the language of the word of God if we begin to actually pray the word of God speak the word of God read the word of God until it reads you don't just do it like oh I gotta read 18 chapters because I'm four days behind on the reading through the Bible I would rather you read when you can pause and when you can interact with God's word because God's word is alive and when the pressure comes down I want the word of God to come out rather than the words of people and it isn't about what you tweet retweeting doesn't count as reading reposting doesn't count as reading you need to like I'm great with you when that's a great one that's awesome share it maybe their background is cooler than what you could do but don't read to get a post read to let God build something into your life because I need you to be strong I need you to not be skinny fat I need you to be people who aren't just busy but they can bear up under the weight so you can ask God for his help it says you'll get his help and won't be condescended to when you ask for it but here's what it says it says ask boldly believingly without a second thought let's talk about the boldly believingly have you ever prayed a prayer that as it's coming out of your mouth your ears are hearing it you're like whoa whoa whoa where did that just come from see God actually says that we enter his courts we come into His courts with praise and thanksgiving it also you know I was this is something I'm I'm always in and and I hope I can unpack this correctly and I love that I'm with men and women but I my normal is women's meetings and then it kind of started being that I would sometimes do Sunday mornings but I got a little confused on the Sunday mornings because I I didn't want to be exercising authority over the men even though I wasn't doing any church discipline I was just like teaching so I was like I'm trying to do this so I would say everything like it was a question and the pastor pulled me aside and he said I watched you in the women's meeting and you spoke with authority and then you get up on Sunday morning and you embarrassed me you act like everything was a question my people were like what is does she know anything and I was like oh my gosh I've never even spoken my own home church I don't you know and he said well I just wish you could figure this out and so I was like wow and so I was praying and I was reading and it said that they were Amazed by Jesus because he spoke as one who had Authority not like the Pharisees Pharisees will put a question mark on everything that God wants to put a period or an exclamation mark on and I believe that we need to speak the word of God because we know the word of God and it isn't because I have authority it's because I have his authority and there's Authority attached to the word of God and so when I speak his word I should speak it not like it's a question mark because how many of you know that Ephesians says God wants to do exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask hope pray or believe but we're asking about this big God's like I need you to ask boldly I hear moms are like oh God just keep my kids a virgin until College just let them let him not turn gay let them not I mean I'm like okay listen we do not allow culture to form our prayers we do not pray in response to culture we pray in response to Kingdom thy kingdom come thy will be done on Earth in my children as God declares it from heaven listen we're first generation Christians my children were tortured every single night I would line them up and I'd say you are for signs and wonders and miracles you are not for death and destruction you are disciples tired of the Lord and great is your peace and undisturbed composure they're like What's I'm like it doesn't matter it doesn't matter when you need it you will have it and then they had to do the whole thing like feet shot they had to put their armor on to go to bed because I'm not a morning person so I was like you will sleep in your armor this is it they're like we just we just want to be like normal children and wear pajamas we're like no you're sons of the most high God you don't get to be normal well I wanted to make more room for my boys that had been made for me and I want to make more room for you than you can even imagine because God is not holding out on us he is not saying I'm mad at my people he is saying I'm waiting for my people to posture themselves in alignment with me my Bible says I know your pastor is taught on this so well my people who are called by my name humble themselves pray turn from their own Wicked Ways instead of trying to turn everybody else's Wicked Ways we got to turn from our own Wicked Ways God says I will hear from heaven and I will heal the land this land needs healing and it isn't so much about counting election returns it's about the elect returning and when the elect return back to God God's Gonna Hear he's bigger than that people okay he's bigger we can't like when did we think it was about balance hey my Bible says when the righteous Reign the people Rejoice we are supposed to be the people who are reigning in the spirit but we got to stop being mean you got to stop being me you got the the mean people over here the the progressive liberals but you got the mean Christians too oh they're so excited when anybody Falls they're like I knew it I knew it I knew it 10 years ago they get so excited they're putting things on social media everybody's UPS everybody's happy about other people messing up that's not how we're supposed to act we're supposed to actually cover one another it's like the body of Christ has some kind of autoimmune disease where we are attacking ourselves we need to stop that nonsense we need to we need to wash the body of Christ with the water of the word that's what Jesus does you can't say oh I love Jesus but I hate his church I'm sorry the church is Jesus's bride and he's not going to be okay with that so we need to we need to have people that yeah let's deconstruct the things that need to be deconstructed but if you don't have a heart for reconstruction that you are just an agent of Destruction and so we need to be people for asking boldly believingly without a second thought people who worry their prayers we're not going to be when whipped waves pray one way when this wind goes this way pray this way when this way the wind goes that way so I'm going to believe that in all of my Sicilian boldness that you are going to begin to ask because even though I don't like how the book of James begins I do like How It Ends James 4 7 says so let God work his will in you yell aloud no to the devil so you get loud with the devil people like I don't like it loud with the devil he might get mad he might come after me he's already mad he's already after you you need to get loud with the devil loud with the devil yeah Allowed no to the devil and watch his scam watch him Scamper say a quiet Yes to God and he'll be there in no time quit dabbling in sin quit it y'all it's nonsense this is not the time to be playing around with sin quit dabbling in sin she said well I'm not really doing anything I'm just watching it you will never have authority over the things you choose to be entertained by we have to watch what we are allowing into our households quit dabbling in with sin okay quit playing the field purify your inner life so let's get loud can I get everybody to stand on your feet right now you can do this at home if your kids are in bed don't get too loud okay but I want you to understand that enough is enough and God is saying I need to know If my people are ready to ask me boldly well I've already asked before and it didn't happen believingly without a second thought sometimes in my life I haven't had just the second thought I've had the third thought the forethought the fifth thought I remember John saying it must be hard to be in your mind you're so double-minded I said I'm triple-minded you have no idea what all is in here but then I get a hold of it and I ask boldly believingly without a second thought I don't know what you are standing for I don't know what you are believing for I don't know what area of your life is presently barren but I'm going to ask you to cry out to God and believe that he will answer you so lift up your hands and say heavenly father I am ready to be loud with the Devil Nation I'm not gonna dabble anymore I am committed to purifying my inner life God have your way your spirit Astound me with your faithfulness give me the courage to ask for the things you want release in this earth unlock your promises For Your Glory in Jesus name amen and amen God bless

Channel: Lisa Bevere

Views: 54,103

Keywords: enjoying everyday life, lisa bevere, strength, courage reacts, doubting god, why isn't god working, lisa bevere youtube, lisa bevere sermons, lisa bevere 2022, lisa bevere ministry, lisa bevere teaching, lisa bevere bible study, lisa bevere adamant, lisa bevere truth, lisa bevere strong, end times, end times prophecy

Id: V3xJone7x3M

Length: 38min 6sec (2286 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 09 2023