When God Calls Your Name

When God Calls Your Name 10/19/02

You all know the show “The Price is Right”. Your name is called out and you have the opportunity to be a participant to win lots of prizes. Can you imagine setting in that audience and hearing your name called out, only you don’t answer that call. No, you would jump up screaming and run down that isle and you might even give Bob Barker a kiss.

Sometimes our names are called and by someone a lot better then Bob Barker and prizes worth more valuable than any new car or any exotic vacation. I’m talking about the times in our life when God calls our name and we have opportunity to win prizes that last forever in our eternal vacation with our Lord Jesus Christ. I’m talking about when God calls your Name.

How do you respond?

Do you set in your chair and pretend you don’t hear?

Do you hear but delay your response?

Do you hear and respond with Joy?

Today we will talk about the types of calls and the responses that proceed after them.

2 Timothy 1:8-9

Types of Calls

When I say types of calls it makes me think of hunting. I grew up on the river and growing up on the river you either went hunting or people would go think you were weird. Now I had a pet chipmunk, Chipper, who lived for over eight years. I had pet groundhogs, raccoons, and rabbits. It was not my nature to go and point a gun and shoot some animal, and by no means am I condemning those who do. I guess I was never hungry enough to use hunting as a means to fill my stomach or I’m sure I would. My point is I don’t know that much about hunting.

I love the computer games, Deer Hunter, and all of those. But I never knew there were so many different types of calls. You have grunts, snorts, and all them other funny noises. Let’s talk about the different types of calls that the Lord calls to us.

The call of Service

If you are here today and are a Christian, then you are called to service.

Ephesians 2:10; “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

His workmanship, we were created for a purpose. What is that purpose? To reach the lost however he chooses.

For some it may be to serve in some aspect in the church. The word Deacon literally means servant. It could be to teach a class or to sing a song or share a testimony. You may also be called to preach the Gospel. A call that you will have no peace until you answer it with the proper answer.

Others may be called to be a beacon, a light to others in their workplace and in their community. You need to be the salt that makes others thirsty for the Living Water. You need to be the light that shows others to Jesus.

Some people are called to service that are never seen. The ones who decorate the Church, the ones who rake the leaves, or shampoos the carpets, those who work behind the scenes without the recognition. Every Church has them and every Church needs them.

Then you have those prayer warriors. The ones who you go to knowing they have a Gift of a fervent prayer life and they spend their call on their knees praying to God.

The call of Repentance

Luke 19:10; “ for the Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost.”

If you are here today and you have never accepted Jesus Christ; then He is calling you.

Revelation 3:20; “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him and he with Me.”

Have you ever heard someone knocking at your door and you look out the window to decide if you want to answer the door or not. I have. We don’t see a lot of door-to-door sales people today like we use to, but I’ve heard about people who have a Jehovah Witness come to their door and they don’t won’t answer the door. That sure is showing them the Love of Christ.

If you are here today and have never have asked Jesus Christ into your heart and life then Jesus is knocking at the door of your heart, and calling for you to let Him in.

Maybe you are here today and are a Christian, but you have sin in your life.

2 Chronicles 7:14, “If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”