Called to . . .
June 28, 2020
Have you ever felt you were supposed to do something? Sometimes it’s as simple as feeling like you need to call someone or pray for that person. Maybe you were certain you were called to a specific profession. Maybe you knew without a doubt the person you were going to marry. Maybe it was someone who needed help at a very specific moment.
Maybe it was a calling by God. Have you ever believed God was calling you to do something? Maybe it was to be involved in a ministry. Maybe it was simply and powerfully to give your life to Him. Maybe it was to turn from some addiction.
Erwin McManus tells the story about the time he was at the beach with his son and he saw a man who was disabled. This man was walking on the beach, but he kept falling in the uneven sand. The man was down the beach to his right. McManus said he put his arm around his son’s shoulder and guided him to turn left.
Have you ever done that? Have you seen someone in need, considered it for a fleeting moment, and then went the other way. McManus said the moment he did it, he regretted it, but there was no turning back . . . that is - until his 10 year old son turned to him and said, “I need to help that man.”
McManus said, ‘his words pierced through me, and I stood there paralyzed in my hypocrisy.’ His son ran across the beach to help that man. In many respects, whether that man who fell knew it or not, this was a divine moment. Eventually the man was helped to level ground and I’m sure didn’t think much more of it.
But for that 10 year old, it was a moment which was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. It was divine. McManus concluded ‘his sense of shame was overshadowed by a deep sense of pride in who his son was becoming.’
Have you ever faced this kind of moment? A moment filled with opportunity . . . and you let it slip away. Have you ever known you should go to the right, but you went to the left? Has it ever been in your power, within your ability to do good, yet you did nothing?
You see, you didn’t choose to do evil, you just chose not to get involved, you chose to be neutral, you chose to be a nonparticipant and to do nothing.
In many respects the way of life for the Christ follower has been to learn what are those things we’re not supposed to do, and focus on those. We learn a little about what to do, but we raise and teach our kids what not to do so that they would stay safe. I get it! I’ve been there. I’ve done it.
If we were to be really honest, the choices between good and evil, especially on what is evil, are pretty clear. We know the major sins, we kind of know the 10 commandments . . . we know what not to do. We may do them anyways, but we know pretty quickly what’s right and what’s wrong to do. And after doing what’s wrong, we tend to know it.
We don’t get stuck at this point. Again . . . it’s a choice. We choose to do what’s wrong, what’s sin and evil in the sight of God. These are almost the easy choices.
Where we get stuck - - is in choosing between so many good opportunities. And, so often our struggle comes in self loathing when we choose and end up doing nothing. The opportunities are there, but we’ve become so accustomed to moving away from the negative choices in life, that we miss out on the potential good we can do.
You see, we’re called to be holy. We read in the Bible, in Leviticus and later in 1 Peter, the admonition from God - Be holy as I am holy! You see to be holy - means to be set apart. It means we are viewed as faultless, as different from the world, because God is different from the world.
So, we define holiness, as separating ourselves from sin, as opposed to doing good. What I’m going after today and for the next number of weeks is a return to what we were talking about earlier in the year - WHO AM I IN CHRIST? Who has God called me to be? You see, I think we get hung up on what type of person am I supposed to be. And that’s important, but really, let’s be honest, we know who we’re supposed to be. If you’ve been a Christ follower for awhile, then you know . . . you know who you’re supposed to be.
We can list all of the do’s and don’ts for being a Christ follower.
Too often, we just don’t choose to live that way for a myriad of reasons, which I’m not going to get into today.
You see, I don’t believe we can follow God in neutral. We can’t just coast - we can’t sit back on our lazy-boys and lazy-girls and really believe we are drawing closer to God. That we are honoring and glorifying God . . . Because we’re not.
Earlier in the week I was talking to my sister, Janet, and we were talking about God, and she asked the question . . . . “How do I know if I am filled and being obedient to the Holy Spirit?”
Isn’t that a great question?!?! That’s a million dollar question. I told her I was getting another call and hung up!
No! Not really!! We continued talking about that and more things. We talked about what does it mean to pray and read scripture and to intentionally draw closer to God. What does all of that mean?
Because if we don’t do this, then we’re never, never, never going to understand our purpose in this world. I mean how would you know? Is God just going to send you a text message . . . “Hey Deutsch - you need to do this or don’t do that!!” You know what I mean?
We need to be in commune with God. How many people live according to the Fruit of the Spirit? Most people don’t know what they are. We may guess and get a couple of them right, but overall, living this way changes the world. But we can only get them through the power of God.
Think about these . . . LOVE, PEACE, JOY, PATIENCE, FAITHFULNESS, GOODNESS, GENTLENESS, KINDNESS AND SELF-CONTROL.
That’s a pretty good list Paul gives us. But those are attitudes and character traits. We don’t always know what to do. And we’ll get into that next week and beyond.
Do you remember the story of Abraham? He was told to leave his wealth and comforts of home to go to some distant land that didn’t have a name. He wasn’t given a GPS system. He wasn’t given coordinates. In Genesis 12, we read - -
1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.
2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
God told Abraham to go - and he went. He didn’t know the final destination. He simply trusted that when God said GO, it meant don’t argue, don’t ask about it, don’t find excuses not to . . . just GO! It was a divine moment for Abraham. He was going to screw up along the way. He made lots of mistakes. Remember, there’s no perfect families.
Can you imagine if Abraham told God “I’ve got it pretty comfortable, I think I’ll stick around here for awhile longer.”
But that’s what happens when God calls you. You know if He calls you, He’s going to go with you. God isn’t going to send you and then bail out on you! That would be ludicrous. That’s not who God is! So, we have comfort that when God calls us, He will go with us. It doesn’t mean the journey and adventure won’t be difficult. It may be difficult, but God promises to be with us.
How often do we KNOW God has called us to do something, but we hesitate? We seek confirmation and we wait. We ask friends for their advice and we wait. We decide to pray, or fast about what we’re supposed to do … and we wait. Let me add, there’s nothing wrong with getting confirmation from friends and family. That’s actually smart. What I’m saying is we tend to use them as excuses not to follow what God is calling us to do.
Has that ever happened to you? I’m not the only one here am I? I know when God called me to go to seminary, I thought God had a wrong number. No way! I hesitated as long as I could, I asked others, I prayed, I waited more, I hoped the calling would pass. I hoped God would call me back and tell me He was playing a divine joke. Not such deal! Then finally, I said YES!
Some of you know what that’s like. God has called you. He said GO and you hesitated. And in fact, I would say there’s some of you who are still waiting, still hesitating, still waiting for that text message.
God told you to start something, leave something behind, change your career, end a relationship, take that risk, visit, call or text that person … but you’re still waiting.
If you know what you’ve been called to do, but are scared or hesitant, then I would tell you that your are human. You are normal. But God has a plan for you. And I would encourage you to pray . . . to draw closer to God, so that you can experience His power and grace and have your ears and heart and spirit open to grasp His call.
In many respects, that’s what my sister and I were talking about. How do we allow the Holy Spirit to fill our heart, spirit, mind, and entire being so that we would hear the call of God and GO! We would seize our divine moment with God.
That’s part of what we’re going to be talking about over the next couple of weeks.
It’s about being open to the Spirit of God to jump on those divine opportunities He sends our way. It’s easy to miss them because we are so busy doing all of our daily tasks. It’s easy to say - “I’ll get to that tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, or whenever I feel like it.”
It’s too easy to focus on what we shouldn’t do, and miss out on what we should do. It’s easy to become so focused on ourselves and what’s comfortable for us, when God is calling us to join Him in His adventure.
You see, I think we short sell all of these divine moments. We look at those little moments and think they’re really nothing - when in reality they are something. Every moment is priceless, unique and possibly unrepeatable. We can’t always go back and manufacture that same moment again.
That’s why we have to seize those moments. Those moments are filled with the power and presence of God. God is in the mundane, the boring, the everydayness of life. It’s being aware of those daily moments so that we can demonstrate to the world who God is.
We have these divine opportunities. It’s almost like being Isaiah on a daily basis. When the prophet Isaiah was called by God during a vision. Isaiah wrote -
8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”
9 And God said, “Go, and say to this. . .”
That’s the call of God! When God calls us. . . when God asks that question . . . whom shall I send? I think we have the tendency to duck behind someone else. If possible, I get behind George! He’s a lot bigger than me. Maybe God will not see me!
But that’s not what we should be about. It’s looking around and saying “Here I am God!” Is this today’s or this week’s divine moment? Let’s go for it. Lead me Lord, lead me.
Then go and do it! Seize that moment. If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll end up waiting forever. So . . . don’t wait for the perfect moment, you have the opportunity with the help of God to make that moment perfect.
I’m actually going to stop here. Because I want to give some examples from scripture next week and talk about what this means and how it impacts our lives and the world around us.
God will give you the courage you need to take the first step. This week, whatever you do, wherever you go . . . look for those divine moments. Those opportunities you have to make a difference in someone else’s life.
You may think nothing of it, but it might just mean the world to someone else! And this is a gift from God. That is divine!
