It Starts Here
Notes
Transcript
We are in week 4 of our series “Called”.
We’re talking about how God has a specific call for each one of us.
Last week we talked about how our rewards in heaven are not based on what we did but what we were called to do.
If you missed any of the messages you can check out our facebook, YouTube, app, or website.
We’ve discussed why it’s important to live your calling and today we are going to start to talk about HOW we find our calling.
Before we get into it there’s 3 things you need to know about your calling.
Your calling is bigger than you.
Your calling isn’t about you.
It’s about all the people you’re going to impact for the kingdom.
You can’t bring anything physical with you to heaven.
You can’t bring your house, your car, your shoes.
All you bring with you is the influence you’ve had on people's lives.
That’s why we serve others and put them above ourselves.
Your calling is not singular
God may call you to do more than one thing.
You may be called to be a teacher but He may also call you to lead a ministry at your church.
Or to start an organization to help people in need.
That also means that your calling may change from one thing to another.
I think it was week 1 where I said your calling doesn’t change no matter what you do.
Meaning God has a call on your life and you’re not going to change that by how much you read your bible or pray.
Now that doesn’t mean that your calling doesn’t change to you.
God may have called you to work construction for a company and you’ve been doing it for a long time.
But He may now be sayin it’s time to move on.
It’s time to move into the next chapter of your life.
Sometimes God calls us to do things for a season to prepare us for what’s next.
So His calling is not singular.
Your calling is now
Right now God has a call on your life.
It’s not just for in the next year or five years.
It’s now.
This is something that I stressed to teenagers when I was Youth Pastoring.
Because so many young people think of their calling as something that’s in the future.
Where am I called to go to school?
What field am I called to go into?
And they don’t realize that God has a calling on their life right now where they are.
God has put certain people in their life to impact.
God may be calling them to start a Bible study or to get involved in the church.
But our calling is now.
So how do I find my calling?
Hebrews 11:6 “ But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”
Many of us have heard this verse but have you really thought about what it’s saying?
You can’t please God without faith!
Why do you believe in God?
Because you have FAITH that He exists.
So if you have faith that He exists you should have faith in what He can do.
So the first thing you need to do to find your calling is Go to God in Faith!
Trust and believe that He does have a calling on your life.
Expect Him to speak to you and show you.
“He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”
We talked about rewards last week.
Notice who it says He rewards?
He rewards people who DILIGENTLY seek Him.
It doesn’t say those who casually seek Him.
So the next thing we need to do to find our calling…
Diligently Seek God
Diligently seeking God doesn’t mean I have to spend 4 hours a day praying to God.
People can have more effective prayers in 15 minutes than someone who’s praying for 4.
Length doesn’t mean diligence or effectiveness.
Have you ever been to a prayer meeting that was an hour or two long?
How many of you know there were times where your mind wandered off and you started thinking about what you were going to eat when you leave.
Wow you were at a prayer meeting for a whole hour?
Yeah but 30 minutes of that was dreaming about a cheeseburger.
Diligently seeking God just means you’re purposeful.
It means you eat, sleep, and breathe, God I know you’re going to show me.
It’s a constant expectation that God is going to speak to you and show you.
It’s when randomly throughout the day you just talk to God and ask Him to speak to you.
It’s being intentional
When we do this I believe God will give you a glimpse of what He wants you to do.
Have you ever noticed that it seems like God hardly ever lays out perfectly what someone’s life is going to look like?
I don’t know of anyone who God showed them exactly how their life was going to go.
“You’re going to go to this college to be an engineer where then you’ll work at this company for 10 years until I call you to this other company where you’ll be in management, all the while volunteering at this church…”
God doesn’t do that.
He gives you glimpses.
He did the same thing to people in the bible.
Remember Joseph?
God gave him a glimpse of him ruling over the people and his own family bowing down before him.
He didn’t show him getting sold by his brothers or spending years in a prison for being falsely accused of something.
David knew he was going to be king but God didn’t show him the time of him living on the run from King Saul who wanted him dead.
God doesn’t show us everything.
WHY?
2 Corinthians 5:7 “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”
This is where faith comes in.
God wants us to live by faith.
Faith is believing in something you can’t see.
It’s like if you’ve ever done a trust fall.
If I called someone up and told them to close their eyes and just fall back off the stage, they would need to have faith that someone is going to be there to catch them.
They don’t see them but they have faith that we’re not going to make them smash their head on the hard ground.
That’s our relationship with God.
We don’t always know and see what’s going to happen but we have FAITH that He’s in control and He’s got you.
If He showed us every part of our future we would be living by sight and not by faith.
It’s easy to believe and obey when you see how everything is going to go.
It’s much harder when you just have to have faith and trust.
You don’t think Joseph was having some second thoughts about God’s plan for him when he was sitting in prison?
But he continued to have faith in God.
Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; 6In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.”
I think of my own life.
When God called me into ministry He didn’t give me the whole outline of what it was going to look like.
All I knew was at that moment God called me into full-time youth ministry.
I had to make a choice to have faith that God knew what He was doing and be obedient.
The hard part is when God gives you a glimpse of something and you think it’s going to happen right away.
God doesn’t give you a timeline most of the time.
My timeline was a couple years.
God's timeline was 8 years.
But I had to keep doing what I thought I was supposed to do at that time and have faith.
Then after finally being in full-time youth ministry and doing that for 8 years God called me to help lead a church plant in Greenville and be the Preaching Pastor.
You don’t that took faith for me?
Preaching to teenagers is one thing but ADULTS?
I had my concerns as definitely questioned if I could do this but when it came down to it I felt this was what God wanted me to do.
And now after a year and a half I know this was the right decision!
But God didn’t show me all this.
He just gave me a glimpse of something and I had to trust and walk in obedience to get here.
There are a few things we can do while we are diligently seeking God.
If you’re here and are struggling with a decision or what God wants you to do I recommend doing these things.
FAST
Acts 13:1-3 “Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 2 As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 Then, having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them away.”
Fasting is a way to connect with God on another level.
It causes you to focus on Him and it forces you to make a sacrifice which honors God and shows how serious you are.
Fasting is powerful
Fasting is not necessarily a quicker way for God to speak to you.
Some people think that if I fast for a week that God will speak to me during that week.
He might, but He might not.
Fasting is a way to honor and worship God and quiet your body and Spirit to hear from God.
And you might not hear from God until a month or two after your fast.
PRAY
This tends to go hand in hand with fasting.
But some people fast but they don’t actually pray.
If you fast food and don’t pray during that time you’re just dieting.
Prayer is key.
How can you expect to hear from God if you don’t spend time talking to Him.
How could I ever know what my wife wanted me to do if I avoided her all the time.
If you want information from someone you talk to them and then listen!
1 John 5:14-15 “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.”
God is passionate that you do His will for your life.
He desperately wants us to fulfill our calling.
But we need to seek Him and pray.
Because if we ask in His name according to His will we will receive it.
Now this verse gets misinterpreted and misused often.
Many people will quote John 14 where Jesus says, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do”.
And so they’ve built this theology around name it and claim it.
If you just ask for ANYTHING in the name of Jesus He’ll give it to you.
You want a lot of money, just ask.
You want a certain job, just ask.
This is where the Word of Faith theology and prosperity gospel comes from.
Just believe it and receive it.
But the problem is in 1 John he clarifies what John 14 says.
This is why it’s important to look at the WHOLE Bible and not just take one verse out of context and build a theology around it.
John 14 says ask anything in my name but in 1 John he says “if we ask according to HIS WILL”.
That’s key because it’s not that we can just ask for anything and get it.
If that was the case we would all be millionaires and we would never die.
But that’s not the case.
Because it’s all about asking God to do things based on HIS WILL.
I don’t want to be a millionaire if it’s not God’s will.
I don’t want anything to happen in my life that isn’t what God planned for me.
So I’m going to pray like crazy.
And in my prayers I’m going to ask for Him to show me His will for my life.
And I’m going to have confidence that whatever I ask for that’s in His will, I’ll receive.
READ THE WORD
Psalm 119:11 “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
God loves to speak to us through His Word.
So many times I’ll read the Bible and something just pops in my head.
I know it’s the Holy Spirit speaking to me.
Reading the Bible is just another opportunity for God to show you what He’s called you to do.
I know we’ve talked about doing these things in the past but I feel like it needs to be repeated.
Because I could tell you to seek God, pray, and read the Bible every week but how many of us actually do these things.
And then we wonder why we don’t hear God’s voice.
We wonder why we feel so lost and confused in life.
There’s only one person who can show you your calling and that’s God.
Seek Him, be patient and listen for the answer.
And I believe He WILL show you.
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