PODCAST: Conversations with John & Lisa | Ep. 176: The Fruit of Obedience (part 1)

[Music] hey everybody welcome to another conversations podcast with john and my amazing wife lisa bevere i was like are you forgetting my name now no i'm i'm actually i try to think of adjectives that now you know those make me annoyed so i know that you can just say with lisa you have to model this because it's very important that husbands nurture and cherish their wives and part of that is to verbally say how much i adore you and i do so let's move on conversations is a part of messenger international network and this includes the godmothers no no not the god mothers the god mother with lisa bevere and let's talk about it with sons and daughters and then our messenger podcast is being reformatted and you just need to stay tuned yep rebranded for what it is to become today we are talking about something that is so foundational to our walk with god it's one of john's favorite it is one of my favorite topics and it's called obedience now do not turn this podcast off you're going to find out it's a very positive message that we're going to bring to you today uh before we get into this amazingly fun subject lisa so i kind of feel like you're disobedient when i tell you i don't like you describing me certain ways then you do it anyway oh boy i'm modeling disobedience right there um i want to just remind you if you haven't subscribed or rated the show this really helps get the message out if you're getting helped why not let other people get helped as well and today what we're going to do is just read a testimony from tommy excuse me i think it's jimmy today we're going to read a testimony from jimmy jimmy sorry wait i changed your name to tommy let's do a this is what jimmy says who is aka tommy i love listening to this couple they both have respect for one another one does not try to dominate but they both recognize guns they both recognize god's giftings on the other marriage is never meant to be something we dread or to be ordered lorded over but to walk side by side as we are both created in the image of god these two walk the path we are trying to walk that path today so yes listen i'm excited to talk about obedience with john bevere because actually people don't realize that obedience isn't a bad thing now it's been you know it's that culturally people think disobedience is freedom disobedience is disruptive and disordering of everything but actually we can have freedom in obedience to god to god i'm not saying to to things we shouldn't be obedient to but i love that we are talking about obedience so jb let's talk about obedience well let's um let's take this one way back to the beginning all right i want to take it back to cain and abel i just think there is a principle that god i thought you were going to do adam and eve uh i am i'm actually going back to adam and eve but uh i think it's pretty amazing you know god said to adam and eve i want relationship with you but i don't want robots so he puts them into this garbage version of the bible is that that's the jb paraphrase um but he he said i'm gonna put a tree and there's probably thousands of trees in that garden i'm gonna put a tree in there that if you choose to eat from that tree you choose to not have a relationship with me you're going to be separated from me at that very moment and that's death because i'm the source of all life and so um when adam and eve disobeyed they sought to cover themselves in the presence of the lord with fig leaves the fruit of the ground god came in and said no no guys you are ignorant the way you cover yourself is by the skin of an animal thus god immediately showed them that it would be a sacrifice that he would redeem us back through not our works it's okay to wear cotton now you don't have to wear a skin of an animal but redemption wise but i think it was right there in the beginning that god showed us you will not have a relationship with me by keeping the law you will have a relationship with me through the sacrifice of my son which we're going to show provided something but adam and eve were ignorant cain and abel weren't cain and abel both are working diligently to bring an offering to the lord in fact cain's actually working harder because farming is harder than shepherding are you speaking from experience uh no but i have i'm speaking from interviewing farmers and shepherds so cain brings his fruit to the ground and abel brings the firstborn of his flock the bible says in genesis 4 that god rejected cain and his offering not just his offering he rejects so cain is sullen he's downcast right and god says this to him and it is so amazing he said why are you so angry the lord asked cain why do you look so dejected you will be accepted if you do what is right in other words if you simply obey me your mom and dad were ignorant but you knew from what i taught your mom and dad that right now you're disobeying me you're trying to please me in your own efforts instead of obedience and so he said but if you refuse to do what is right if you refuse to obey me then watch out sin is crouching at the door and it is eager to control you but you must do it and be its master okay can you pause just a moment because you said so many things i want to highlight first and foremost when you're referencing that adam and eve were ignorant you're not talking they were ignorant about do not eat from this tree what you were saying was hey you can't cover yourself with fig leaves but it needs to be a sacrifice so redemption does not come with our ability to cover ourselves that jesus was the lamb slain before the foundations of the earth that was an important point because i don't want anybody to think you were saying adam and eve didn't know they weren't supposed to eat second i think you brought up something so incredible that disobedience disobedience sets us up opens the door for oppression depression feeling rejected and isolated but the cure for all of that is obedience yes now what the law did for us is the law showed us that it is impossible for for us to obey god in our own ability so i want to set this up right in the beginning of this podcast because when you're talking about a subject like this you put you you would almost think we're putting pressure on our friends that are listening we're not we're saying that the law proved you can't obey god in your own ability right so jesus comes along and he is a sacrifice to for us right and he provides what the new testament called grace now grace not only frees us from the penalty of sin it empowers us to be able to once again walk in obedience to god because that's where abundant life lies yeah so it frees us from the oppression of disobedience and sin yes it does and so if you look at the new testament obedience is spoken about in a very positive light because why we're empowered to do it so if i try to push my car 100 miles to the next big city i'm going to really struggle and i'm probably not going to do it in a day but if i put gas in the tank all i have to do is turn on the ignition and i'm in that city in two hours okay one one is my own efforts the other one is allowing the car to take me the gas would be a type of grace yeah so this is why god says to the apostle paul my grace is sufficient for you for my power works best in your weakness what's your weakness our inability to obey god yeah so his grace god describes his grace as his empowerment in order to do what we couldn't do before and that is obey god wow i love that you know john i love your breakdown of john 14 15. and how i mean like i've heard you preach a bazillion times but i always love watching the light come on in people's eyes and i'm just going to read john 14 15 and then i want you to explain what happened to you so this is what john 14 15 says it says if you love me obey my commandments now tell us about this tell us about how you used to read it and and what god did i was a youth pastor and i was going to preach on the scripture and it was the night before the youth service and i read this scripture and i heard the holy spirit as clear as i just heard you he said you didn't get it read it again so i read it again if you love me obey my commandments god said you didn't get it read it again this went on eight times lisa finally i started reading it like this if okay if i got it you that would be me i got it love that would be i looked up the word love is the coffee or i mean i you are an engineer i i spent like 10 15 minutes reading this one sentence okay and i i read it that slow and the holy spirit said you didn't get it read it again and i'll never forget i was on the carpet i was going god just forgive my stupidity i don't see it and i couldn't believe it the very next time i read it he showed me what he was saying but it said in my new king james if you love me and there was a little number a reference number by that word me i went over to the reference and it said you will and all of a sudden lisa i saw it jesus the way i had seen it those eight times was if you love me you'll prove it by keeping my commandments right so if you don't obey them then you obviously don't love me that's what we heard right but then when i read with the reference the way it's read in the original greek if you love me you will obey my commands all of a sudden now i saw it as him saying fall head over it in heels in love with me you have no trouble keeping my commandments okay wait wait no that was really good okay all right so what you said is if you fall in love with me okay if you love me jesus said if you love me to peter feed my sheep he says that's how you could you if you love me feed my shape so the truth is when we receive god's love because he first loves us we're empowered to love him back and when we receive his agape love we have this ability to love and that ability to love actually empowers us to keep his commandments now i love it when you compare it to a marriage thing so when we were engaged um i remember we would make up any kind of excuse to spend time together one time i came over to your house and we spent about four or five hours together i went back to the dorm at purdue university and you called me and you said hey you forgot yeah you forgot your top on purpose probably yeah probably and i said well i'll just have to come pick it up and i came back and we spent another four hours together and what did we even talk about we everything we and i i used to describe it as if you would have called me in the middle of the night and said honey i want an ice cream cone i would have said do you want haagen-dazs or briars i'll be there in five minutes that won't happen anymore but then we but then we got married and i started putting the ministry ahead of you sports ahead of you and now football football is that included yes okay yes now it's not honey you want chocolate or vanilla i'll be there in five minutes it's like honey i don't want to help you right now because the dallas cowboys are playing right and i and everybody got upset you know hey listen i i've had many favorite teams so just leave leave it at that okay we're living in dallas at the time we tried to loyal to our city right we tried to be loyal to our city and that very same thing happened with me and the lord because i was watching a cowboy game they were down by four points but they were driving it was eight minutes left and the holy spirit said son i need you to pray now he didn't speak it i felt a burden to pray yeah you felt drawn and i remember saying god no no no i i i i i'll pray in eight minutes when this game's over because it was a crucial game and i remember you know the longer i watched the greater the burden got to pray and i remember i said god i'll pray all night long if you just let me watch the end of this game and i remember i watched the end of the game and they won so i wasn't upset about that and i went up to my study and i got my face it's really the second bedroom in our ghetto two-bedroom apartment and i remember putting my face on the ground and the urge to pray was gone and i couldn't work it up and i then i heard the voice of the holy spirit and and and i it because because i made this statement i humbled myself i said god i chose the cowboys over you i you asked me to pray but yet i chose to watch him and then i will never forget what he said to me he said son i don't want your sacrifice of five hours of praying all night i want obedience yeah and that's when i realized okay my first love was waning because the dallas cowboys became a greater love to me than obedience to him and before you move on to the next scripture on that i want to what i used to love would you say like when we when you make marriage vows you you don't have to threaten that person if you're unfaithful yeah if you do this if you if you you're you want to do all those things because you're in love with that person you know it isn't about don't you dare date don't you do this it's not the don'ts don't don't it's a i want to give my whole life for you and you're giving your whole life to me and so i think too many people hear it as law and they think because they haven't kept a commandment then they have failed and they're trapped in shame they're trapped in guilt and god is just saying hey reset your heart on me because i've already set my heart on you move away from shame move away from darkness move away from guilt ask me ask me to expose disobedience in your life not because he'll do it not to shame you but to free you and so i love that and then john kind of paraphrased the scripture that is just a key obedient scripture first samuel chapter 15 verse 22 i'm going to read of the new living translation says but samuel this is this is saul this is saul messed up he was disobedient but samuel replied what is more pleasing to the lord your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice john's birth offering and sacrifice was those i'll pray all night i'll do the five hours nope i needed you during the dallas cowboys and you said no and then he says listen obedience is better than sacrifice and submission is better than offering the fat of rams wow so here's a good litmus test a lot of people read the book of revelations where jesus says to the church you've left your first love so here's a good litmus test if the holy spirit asks you to do something at an inconvenient time if it is a burden to do what he's asked you to do then chances are good you might be slipping from your first love but if it's a delight to do what he tells you to do then that shows you not god he already knows it shows you that he's still your first love so i found this challenge okay so because i think that we have to be obedient even when it's hard yeah and and i will say that it's a struggle this home was painful this whole thing happened during a time period where god started exposing all the idols in my life because i started praying i said god if there's anything that i put before you expose it that's such a dangerous prayer it is the dallas cowboys then came golf i remember i was praying one day and lord said i want you to give your golf clubs to pastor so-and-so and i realized that i would get up at four in the morning to make a tea time in dallas texas this is back when we had our apartment in dallas but i wouldn't get up at four in the morning to pray and i realized something was really wrong and then it was food now food's an essential thing but i loved eating i would eat even when i wasn't hungry sneak off to the yogurt the frozen yogurt every day and you not know it and uh and and so i was pouring just getting ready to pour my breakfast cereal and the holy spirit said i'd like you to fast this morning i heard it so clear and i said god i'll fast three days next week well that was a sacrifice so what happened i chose sacrifice over obedience so god god in because he knew i really did want to be close to him said okay son if you really want this i'm gonna ex i'm gonna expose what keeps you from obeying me okay because here's what happens when you really fall in love with him you're not so concerned about disobeying you're more concerned about disappointing wow i know um i know this is really crucial and we need to keep going on this but i want to i want to close out with one little story you talked about how you laid golf down i remember you putting your golf clubs in his trunk and you know what is beautiful john god gave it back to you in another season when it was in the right place so obedience is about god actually protecting our heart he doesn't want anything that's going to divide our heart or tear our heart and so guys i just want to say there's more to talk about yeah and i i barely scratched the surface we did and so let me say thanks for tuning in and i just want to ask you please to rate review and subscribe to conversations and when you do this it really helps get the message out to many more people and don't forget if you haven't already downloaded the messenger x app we made it just for you hey and over 100 000 people have so you're getting left out if you haven't done it that's true in 9 500 cities of the world and 197 nations now lisa it's mind-blowing but there are free courses there are eight books on there these books are all there five friends to go through courses with you we want to encourage you to invite at least two friends and go through a course together and enjoy it together that's an official messenger conversations with john and lisa's challenge we're challenging you pick a course off the messenger x app and share it with two friends you can do that it's super easy you just find the course you just push the share button and share it with them you know what we even track your shares now and i shared with some of my friends two weeks ago in the last two weeks i've sent them the bait of satan course and i have nine share credits right now on my messenger x so if you open up the messenger x app just go to uh if if you've got an android go to google play if you've got an iphone just go to um what do you go to the app store and type in messenger x and it will come up no space between messenger and x so you'll see your impact and it will have sharing impact and your global impact your sharing impact every time you share a course with somebody you get credit for it yeah and so you we should have a contest on who gets the most in a month or something we should talk to our producers about that that'd be a blast so anyway it needs to be a prize until next time guys this has been conversations with john and lisa bevere thanks for listening to conversations with john and lisa let us know your thoughts by leaving a review you can subscribe and share these episodes through apple podcast spotify or wherever you get your podcast and while you're there be sure to check out our other shows in the messenger podcast network including the godmother with lisa bevere let's talk about it with sons and daughters and the messenger podcast you can also connect with john and lisa through facebook instagram and twitter and don't forget you can download the messenger x app today in the app store until next time

Channel: John Bevere

Views: 1,115

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: uLlwEfVC_xs

Length: 21min 37sec (1297 seconds)

Published: Tue May 11 2021