Three Steps to Finding Your Calling

[Music] all right guys we're in lesson number five and guess what we're now getting into the meat and potatoes of this whole thing so the next six lessons is the meat and potatoes now we can finally turn to the question and that is this how do i discover what is my calling how do i discover it okay let's just give the overall picture here the global church is called to build god's house we've learned that right when we put all of our different specific gifts and callings together what we get is a great team that is building god's house all engineered designed and led by the holy spirit himself three things you need to know about your specific calling number one your calling is bigger than you all right your calling isn't about you it's about all the people you're going to impact that's great that's our greatest reward you know i can't bring my favorite genes to heaven i can't bring my house i can't bring anything physical the only thing i can bring to heaven is the influence that i've had on people's lives that's what your calling is about that's why we want to go from thinking about ourselves eighty percent five percent of the time and others fifteen percent of the time to where we really live and we think about others more like 85 percent of the time and ourselves 15. what a life because have you ever noticed when you're serving others you feel the most fulfilled have you ever noticed how miserable you feel when you're serving yourself why people don't get that i don't understand so your calling is bigger than you your calling isn't singular i am called to preach i am called to write i don't put one above the other they're both very important but you know when i was in my 20s i was called to serve in my local churches and i served with all my heart like i served with all my heart right now so your calling is not just singular it's progressive your calling is now point number three now not later okay you're in your calling right now and what you're doing today is a building block for what you're going to be doing tomorrow you know this was the temptation when i was serving in my church and driving the van and picking up my pastor's groceries and taking care of my pastors and wife's kids giving their kids swimming lessons in the ymca pool i was preparing for what i'm doing right now i was building for what i was doing but you know what i was doing then while my pastor was touching millions of people and he was i was touching millions of people because i was doing what i was supposed to be doing that's great and so when we're when we're when we're plugged into what we're called to do our effects of what our calling does goes so far beyond us and what we can even see it'll be revealed at the judgment seat all right so what is my calling how do i discover my calling here's the question we're going to be asking now right hebrews chapter 11 verse 6. i'm going to put it up on the board but this does not say that god rewards those who casually seek him in wonder and doubt i want you to notice that he says but without faith it is impossible to please god so what i want to know is why are people not talking more about faith chris why casey why arden why i mean i want to please god but yet the bible says it is impossible to please god without faith so let's let me tell you this number one in order to discover your calling you better go to god in faith i remember one time i said lord how come you're not speaking to me i'm asking you things and the holy spirit said he was merciful to me he said because you don't ask in faith he said when you approach me you hope i will speak to you i went oh my gosh he said son you will hear my voice when you know i will speak to you i remember i used to give altar calls and hardly anybody would get saved and one day a pastor looked at me and and and a few dozen people got saved and we went to play golf the next day and we were coming back and i said hey you haven't say anything about the few dozen people that got saved you said well that was a really bad sunday for us usually we have anywhere from 150 to 200 people saved every sunday and i went i'm all ears what what am i doing wrong and he said the first thing you got to do when you take an altar call is it has to be done in faith he said everything we do in christian life has to be done in faith and you know the next year the altar calls in the same churches i was going to tripled because of one word faith okay so don't even think you're going to discover your calling unless you have faith and that's why you're listening to me right now that's why you're doing this course right now is because it's building faith faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of god and that's what we're doing every time we sit down to talk in these lessons all right so without faith it's impossible to please him for he who comes to god must believe that he is and that is he he is a rewarder now look at this of those who diligently seek him not those who casually seek him so god does not reward people who casually seek him and wonder in doubt so number one in order to discover your calling you got to do it diligently you got to seek god diligently now that doesn't mean that you spend 24 hours in a room don't come out that means you eat sleep live and breathe god i know you're going to show me okay i have watched people that have spent four hours in a prayer room not pray as effectively as somebody that has prayed 15 minutes in faith and passion okay so please do not assume that to diligently seek god means i do it for hours and hours and hours now you may do it that way because you're so passionate and you just love spending time with god that's all right but to diligently seek god means i'm intent about it people look at me a lot and they say how come you're so intense well because i live purposefully yeah i love that all right i live a life of faith and so i love that i see that in our sons i see that in our team members here i love that passion i love that diligence all right so let me just kind of give you a little history all right let's let's take it back i'm going to use myself as an example i'm a young boy i'm in the catholic church and as a young boy who's still a little tender to god at the age of five i feel like i'm supposed to be a priest now i didn't realize god had called me to the ministry but the only thing i knew about ministry was priest right so then i start sending real good you know i'm doing my nature and all that leaves and so now i'm like okay what am i going to do am i going to be a professional tennis player i don't think i quite could do it my dad looks at me and says you need to be an engineer so okay i'm an engineer so i get an engineering degree and i'm miserable i can't stand it but i get saved in my fraternity in college one of my fraternity brothers who is a phenomenal athlete presented to me the campus crusade for spiritual laws i gave my life to jesus and then once the holy spirit was in my life i started getting a little more sensitive and i started thinking uh oh i'm feeling this tug towards ministry now i want nothing to do with ministry why because i grew up in a little town and and there was only one pastor in that town i knew of and he was a little weird his house smelled and his kids were really strange and i went into their house one time and it was so disorganized so smelly i had to hold my breath until i could get out so i was like i want nothing to do with ministry my idea of serving god was i was going to get my mat because i was on the dean's list at purdue as an engineer i was going to go to harvard and get an mba i was going to marry a pretty girl work for a large corporation move way up into management make a lot of money pay ties to my local church and take three vacations a year with my pretty wife that would be my idea of serving god well one of the things i was doing is i was co-opting now do you know what co-opting is it's a program that some universities have where you go to school semester and then you go work in your profession at some company as a junior for a semester so my company that i work for was ibm so here i am as a young co-op engineer working in raleigh north carolina for ibm one day i was in my junior year so i'd already been doing it for a while and i notice i'm miserable i'm not having any fun but i'm like hey it's a career right it's going to get me to being a manager one day in a big corporation well i remember one day we were celebrating one of the engineers in our department's 38th anniversary so we're all sitting in the room there's about 14 engineers in the room and they're all drinking their coffee i don't drink coffee my wife has tried for years but it's not working so they're all drinking their coffee and we're all just doing the small talk right and we're celebrating this guy's 38th year and the guy all of a sudden says this he says yep he said i've hated every single day i've walked into this company for 38 years and everybody laughed in the room except me and i'm waiting for somebody older and wiser to say something right and nobody's saying anything they're just laughing with him so finally i said wait a minute why have you done this you've hated every single day you've walked in here for 38 years he goes yeah i said why have you done this and he said john it's a job and he said it very condescending me like you dumb stupid young engineer student right and i remember right there i i was totally quiet and i thought okay i'm getting out of this and i'm gonna figure out what god's put me on this earth to do and i remember i came into my senior year and i called my catholic my roman catholic mother and i said mom i'm not coming home from college on thanksgiving break and my mom was like what i said i'm not coming home this year for thanksgiving break she said what are you going to do i said let's stay here in the fraternity house and i'm going to pray so i fasted those four days thursday friday saturday sunday as a result of that fast god gave me glimpses of some of the things i'm doing today wow he literally said you'll be a nourishing tree and nations shall draw from the wisdom that i give you we've given away over 10 million resources to pastors and leaders in 83 nations all over the world i literally now have seen what god gave me a glimpse of in that fraternity house i've seen it come to pass now some over 35 years later so i sought god diligently i said lord i'm setting this time aside i got to know why you put me here on this earth i didn't get that answer in that fast it came about a month or two later so here's the thing people whenever whenever they go into fasting they think okay i'm going to get my answer in the fast so it almost becomes a hunger strike with god it's not a hunger strike so i'm going to quiet myself down so god can impart into my spirit and i can fellowship with him so that i can know what i'm called to do now god gave me a glimpse of what i was called to do remember i said that just like he gave joseph a glimpse he gave david a glimpse right why doesn't he show us the whole picture god didn't show joseph the prison the dungeon and all that stuff he doesn't show david living in the wilderness and all that why does he just give us a glimpse because of this we walk by faith and not by sight if god gives us the whole plan how the whole thing's going to be mapped out it becomes casey a walk of sight right he doesn't want that he wants us to keep looking to him and and seeking him are you getting this now um this is why proverbs tells us trust in the lord with all of your heart and lean not to your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him and he'll direct your paths and i'll i'll tell you how god directed my path right after that fast he shows me i've called you now to preach i showed you i'm going to impact nations and you know what the thing he spoke to me was i want you to interview to become an engineer oh you talk about upset angry i'm going to talk about that in a couple lessons in the future but you see god doesn't give you the whole picture yeah he told me to interview as an engineer oh is that a good one so these are the three things i did in that fraternity number one i fasted okay so think about this acts chapter 13 i'm going to read this now in the church that was in antioch there were certain prophets and teachers as they ministered to the lord and fasted that's what you want to do when you're on a fast you minister to the lord you know god likes to be told i love you you know he loves it brandi when you his little girl says dad i love you that's ministering to the lord so many times we as children when we go into the prayer closet god give me give me give me we're like the kid at college dad send money and that's the only time he hears from us right my boys aren't like that i want you to know that okay but you know god loves it when we say you're just awesome dad you're awesome i love using that word awesome because i never get to use it except i'm i have this personal conviction i don't say awesome unless i'm talking about dad about god because awesome means full of all right so i know it's okay you guys you guys in australia you say it all the time it's okay i'm just talking about for me i like to reserve that word for him but i loved in my prayer class i loved saying dad you're awesome you're just awesome that's ministering to the lord so that's what these guys are doing they were ministering to the lord and fasting the holy spirit said now separate to me barnabas and saul remember separate means chosen and elected separate to me barnabas and saul for the work to which i have called them then having fasted and prayed and laid hands on them they sent them away so being sent out by the holy spirit they went so there we go they fasted they ministered to the lord the second thing i did in that fraternity is i prayed okay first john 5 14-15 says now this is the confidence that we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will guys it is god's will for you to know what he's called you to do you know what the lord said to me one time he said who created this calling that's on your life me or you i said you did he said don't you think i'm more concerned about the calling i created than you are and went whoa man that's good so you have confidence god wants you to know more than you want to know what he's called you to do write that down he's more passionate about you knowing your calling than you are okay so this is the confidence we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us and if we know that he hears us here's faith whatever we ask we know that we have these petitions we have asked of him the third thing i did in that fraternity is i read the scripture your word is a lamp unto my feet and it's a light under my path i remember one of the major callings on my life is to resource pastors and leaders overseas our team this is a calling on our team on my life lisa's life and on our team and like i said we've given over 10 million resources to pastors and leaders in 83 nations do you know when that calling came i was in my basement reading the book of daniel on may 31 2010 i had no idea but god speaks to me so clearly i want you now to get your resources in the hands of pastors all over the world and leaders all over the world that calling came reading the scripture once i arrived in dallas because i went to dallas i interviewed i got 13 job offers as an engineer do you know the lowest paying one was rockwell international and that's the one god told me to go work for wow but let me tell you it was in that very place that god began to raise me up into what i'm now doing right now so we're going to talk more about this in these upcoming lessons because we've got to ask some more questions what else do we need to do besides seek god earnestly to discover our calling what are some of the things that can kill or hinder or hamper the calling what are some of the things that can hinder us from being in our calling we're going to answer these questions in upcoming [Music] sessions

Channel: John Bevere

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Id: TdJshEY0pTc

Length: 16min 50sec (1010 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 17 2020