Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdik. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
Speaker 1: it builds your faith. Hope it gives you perspective to
Speaker 1: see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: There is a passage of scripture that has always fascinated me,
Speaker 1: and I knew it was the one to start this
Speaker 1: series with because most of my sermon ideas come from
Speaker 1: a text, usually a text in the Bible. But this
Speaker 1: whole series came to me through a text on my
Speaker 1: phone and somebody texted me, but I didn't have their
Speaker 1: number in my contacts, but they had texted me before
Speaker 1: and their name was in the text. So you know,
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs is so smart, even from beyond the grave.
Speaker 1: He made a suggestion on my iPhone and he said maybe,
Speaker 1: and then it said it could be this person. And
Speaker 1: when I saw it on my phone, I realized that
Speaker 1: that would make an amazing way to spend several weeks
Speaker 1: in the Word of God talking about those times where
Speaker 1: we don't know if it's God or not, and so
Speaker 1: we're trying to lead our families some of us, or
Speaker 1: we're trying to get our education, or we're trying to
Speaker 1: decide about jobs or dates, or trying to decide about
Speaker 1: moving to a new house or new apartment, or just
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what it is that we were
Speaker 1: put here on earth for. But the series is called
Speaker 1: Maybe God, Maybe God. We worship a God who can
Speaker 1: be best explained as mystery, and yet we live in
Speaker 1: a culture that worships certainty. And so I want to
Speaker 1: talk about that for several weeks with you. And I'm
Speaker 1: so glad you're here. Touch somebody and say he's so
Speaker 1: happy you're here. That preacher, That preacher is happy you're here.
Speaker 1: That's true. I'm so glad you're here. And what I
Speaker 1: need you to do right now is give your attention
Speaker 1: just to this text in First Samuel, chapter three, where
Speaker 1: we will encounter a young man who's encountering God. And
Speaker 1: I pray that we will encounter God in the process today.
Speaker 1: First Samuel three, verse one. The boy Samuel ministered before
Speaker 1: the Lord under Eli. In those days, the word of
Speaker 1: the Lord was rare. There were not many visions. One night, Eli,
Speaker 1: whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely
Speaker 1: see was lying down in his usual place. The lamp
Speaker 1: of God had not yet gone out. Touch somebody say,
Speaker 1: there's still time, There's still time. I know you might
Speaker 1: have got off track in your life, but there's still time.
Speaker 1: I know there might be some things out of order
Speaker 1: in your house, but there's still time. I know you
Speaker 1: might have wasted some years chasing your own ways, but
Speaker 1: God brought you here because there's still time. God left
Speaker 1: you here because there's still time. If you're still breathing,
Speaker 1: there's still time. I got a friend named Perry Noble.
Speaker 1: His favorite quote is, if you're not dead, God's not done.
Speaker 1: And I just believe that. I believe it. So the
Speaker 1: light had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying
Speaker 1: down in the house of the Lord, where the ark
Speaker 1: of God, which symbolized the presence of God was, And
Speaker 1: then the Lord called Samuel, and Samuel answered, here I am.
Speaker 1: And he ran to Eli and said, here I am.
Speaker 1: You called me, but Eli said, I didn't call go
Speaker 1: back to sleep, man, wake me up in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night. I didn't call you. Go back and
Speaker 1: lie down. So he went and lay down again. The
Speaker 1: Lord called Samuel, and Samuel got up and went to
Speaker 1: Eli and said, here, I am. This is really strange,
Speaker 1: right like, because you expect when God calls it'll sound
Speaker 1: so deep. So baritone Samuel apparently it sounded. It sounded
Speaker 1: so much like what he was used to be around
Speaker 1: that he ran to the place where he normally went
Speaker 1: and he was like, here, I am, you called me,
Speaker 1: my son, Eli said, I did not call, go back
Speaker 1: and lie down, but you need an ambient, a weighted blanket,
Speaker 1: some milk, a cookie. Now, Samuel did not yet know
Speaker 1: the Lord. The word of the Lord had not yet
Speaker 1: been revealed to him. A third time, the Lord called Samuel,
Speaker 1: and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, here,
Speaker 1: I am, you call me. I know you're messing with me.
Speaker 1: Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy.
Speaker 1: So Eli told Samuel go and lie down. If he calls,
Speaker 1: you say speak Lord, for your servant is listening. The
Speaker 1: title of this message is something that I have heard
Speaker 1: people say to me of all ages, of all ethnicities,
Speaker 1: of all economic status positions. And I want you to
Speaker 1: look at the screen for the title of my message.
Speaker 1: It goes like this, I'm confused about my calling. I'm
Speaker 1: confused about my calling. I love God and I love
Speaker 1: my family and I want to make a difference. But
Speaker 1: look at somebody next to you and say you look confused.
Speaker 1: Tell them I am, I'm confused about my call. Lord
Speaker 1: have your way, speak your word. We're listening in Jesus' name. Amen,
Speaker 1: Now be seated. You are forgiven. If when I say
Speaker 1: calling you roll your eyes a little bit. It is
Speaker 1: one of these terms that is so popular in culture
Speaker 1: that it almost means nothing anymore, and it can be
Speaker 1: frustrating the older you get when people talk about lofty
Speaker 1: ideals like finding your calling. You need to find your calling,
Speaker 1: and you know, well, for most of us, that's way
Speaker 1: outside of the realm of our everyday life where we're
Speaker 1: trying to pay bills. It's like, you know, you need
Speaker 1: to find your calling, and you're like, well, I'm doing
Speaker 1: good to find my keys in the morning, and you
Speaker 1: want to talk about finding your calling. And as much
Speaker 1: as I understand that, I also understand that there's a
Speaker 1: reason that the majority of questions that I have been
Speaker 1: asked as a pastor in these thirteen years going on
Speaker 1: fourteen years, the reason for it is that there is
Speaker 1: something inside of you that wants to find the thing
Speaker 1: that you were made to do, and you will never
Speaker 1: be satisfied with anything else. And no matter how much
Speaker 1: sex you have, money you make, friends you meet, no
Speaker 1: matter how big the house is that you build, no
Speaker 1: matter how many cars you part in the driveway, there
Speaker 1: will always be something unsatisfied in you until you find
Speaker 1: that thing that we call a calling. And yet, and yet,
Speaker 1: so much damage has been done in popular culture by
Speaker 1: the concept of calling that it actually makes us discontent
Speaker 1: with our lives because rather than understand the real nature
Speaker 1: of a calling, we have a concept of a calling,
Speaker 1: and often we spend our lives wishing that we were
Speaker 1: doing something that God did not tell us to do.
Speaker 1: So to break this first sermon down today, and there
Speaker 1: will be several in this series, I'm praying that you
Speaker 1: come to all of them. And I'm praying if you
Speaker 1: can't come to all of them, you'll watch them all
Speaker 1: because they're all online for free. And I can't figure
Speaker 1: out a reason in the world why you couldn't spend
Speaker 1: forty minutes with me on YouTube each week, even if
Speaker 1: you have to do it while you're walking the dog,
Speaker 1: even if you have to do it while you're falling asleep,
Speaker 1: I'll put you to sleep. I don't mind. Whatever I
Speaker 1: can get. I'll help you run on the treadmill. Just
Speaker 1: whatever you have to do to get these messages. The
Speaker 1: Bible says in verse one that in those days, while Samuell,
Speaker 1: the twelve year old who was apprenticing in the tabernacle
Speaker 1: because his mother Hannah, prayed that she could have a son,
Speaker 1: and she had trouble conceiving. And when she finally had
Speaker 1: the son, she dedicated him to the Lord. And she
Speaker 1: dropped him off at age four and only saw him
Speaker 1: once a year, and she put him under Eli, who
Speaker 1: wasn't doing a very good job. He was letting his
Speaker 1: sons run around in the tabernacle and have sex with
Speaker 1: women at the entrance to the tabernacle, and he knew
Speaker 1: about it, but he wouldn't do anything about it. And
Speaker 1: he was letting his sons beat people up who had
Speaker 1: brought their sacrifice to the temple, and they brought their
Speaker 1: sacrifice to God, but the priests took it for themselves.
Speaker 1: Hofney and Phineas Eli's sons, would send their messenger out
Speaker 1: to the tent and say, hey, Hoffney said, you got
Speaker 1: to give him the fat portion, And the people who
Speaker 1: came would be like, well, that's for the Lord. They
Speaker 1: can get the portion after it burns off. That's the
Speaker 1: priest portion. But they had gotten confused about what it
Speaker 1: meant to honor God, and they had started honoring themselves
Speaker 1: and their opinions and their desires, and they started treating
Speaker 1: God as common. And so the Bible says something interesting
Speaker 1: in verse one. It says, in those days, with all
Speaker 1: of that going on, the word of the Lord was
Speaker 1: rare because they treated the Lord as common. The word
Speaker 1: of the Lord was rare. Because we live in a
Speaker 1: day where it is so easy to get information but
Speaker 1: so difficult to get truth. I figured this verse would
Speaker 1: apply to us. Would you agree with me that we
Speaker 1: are drowning in information, drowning in opinion, drowning in agenda,
Speaker 1: drowning in projections, but starving for truth. You know I'm
Speaker 1: right about it. It's such a crazy time. You don't
Speaker 1: know who to trust anymore. You don't know if it's real,
Speaker 1: you don't know if it's fake, you don't know if
Speaker 1: it's inflated. You don't know if it's a statistic. And
Speaker 1: let me give you a statistic. Eighty three percent of
Speaker 1: statistics are made up that's a statistic. I made it up.
Speaker 1: It's a time where truth is hard to find. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that there wasn't access to the Bible.
Speaker 1: God knows we have access to the Word of God.
Speaker 1: You could pull out your phone right now and a
Speaker 1: British person will read you the Bible on the Bible
Speaker 1: app That made me think of something real funny. One
Speaker 1: time Graham asked me do British people find American accents soothing?
Speaker 1: Probably not. But here's the thing about it. It's not
Speaker 1: access to the Word of God. It's our attitude to
Speaker 1: the Word of God. It's our attitude. It's why some
Speaker 1: people can come into church and look narcoleptic in church.
Speaker 1: That's why some people can come into church and leave
Speaker 1: during the invitation, because God forbid it takes you seven
Speaker 1: minutes to get the cracker barrel. It's why some people
Speaker 1: can click around to different sermons and be like, Ah,
Speaker 1: I don't know Fredi's not on today. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: over here to this one and that one. And that's
Speaker 1: what seeing. When the Word of God becomes common to us,
Speaker 1: we will have access to the Word of God, but
Speaker 1: it will not have impact on our life and So
Speaker 1: the first thing I wanted to mention is the culture.
Speaker 1: The culture in Eli's time was a culture of neglect,
Speaker 1: a culture where the value of who God was and
Speaker 1: what he said was negotiable. Therefore there was an absence
Speaker 1: of that special presence of God. The word of the
Speaker 1: Lord was rare because the Lord of the Word had
Speaker 1: become common. And I just want to say to you
Speaker 1: today that many of our cultural concepts of calling are
Speaker 1: really just self help, individualistic, ambition oriented delusions dressed up
Speaker 1: in Christian cliches. And because you got a trophy when
Speaker 1: you were seven does not mean you get to play
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball. And the culture of our day is
Speaker 1: kind of like, instead of worshiping God, we worship our
Speaker 1: idea of God's will, And rather than being in relationship
Speaker 1: with God, we want God to be a resource who
Speaker 1: is more like Siri than he is like a savior.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you come back next week the
Speaker 1: way I'm starting to discern him, but we need to
Speaker 1: get something straight right off the bat that until I
Speaker 1: treasure the voice of God, value the voice of God,
Speaker 1: hearken to the voice of God, make time for the
Speaker 1: voice of God, consecrate myself I can't get it by skimming.
Speaker 1: I can't get it by just you know, running around
Speaker 1: to this person and that person. It is the revealed
Speaker 1: will of God that we're after. It is the revealed
Speaker 1: will of God. Now, when I was in my twenties,
Speaker 1: I did all this teaching and preaching. And now you know,
Speaker 1: now that I'm wiser, I turned forty next year, you'll
Speaker 1: better start working on my gift now, because it's a
Speaker 1: big one. It's kind of cringey for me to look
Speaker 1: back on the way I spoke about calling in my
Speaker 1: twenties that probably left people feeling at the very least
Speaker 1: confused at word, frustrated, and maybe even full of resentment
Speaker 1: because the way it happened in my life is different
Speaker 1: for all of us. Here's Samuel, who is receiving a
Speaker 1: revelation of God. And in my life, I never heard
Speaker 1: anything audible that God said to me. I never, you know,
Speaker 1: the Lord never said, Ardich Steve, what God called you
Speaker 1: by your last nammey for someone I don't know, but
Speaker 1: he said. He never said, you know, preach to me
Speaker 1: out loud. There were desires, there were opportunities. I noticed
Speaker 1: some effectiveness. It's the weirdest thing. When I first got
Speaker 1: up to pray for Pastor Mickey, who asked me to
Speaker 1: pray at a Lions Club meeting. I noticed that people
Speaker 1: seem to be blessed as I prayed, and they connected him.
Speaker 1: And it took Pastor Mickey to explain to me that
Speaker 1: that was the hand of God on my life. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that. If he hadn't been there to guide me,
Speaker 1: I would have maybe thought I was just a charismatic speaker.
Speaker 1: But he helped me to see that there was something
Speaker 1: supernatural involved. And I was sixteen years old, and I
Speaker 1: had someone who had been around long enough to see
Speaker 1: some things to tell me it was special. Otherwise I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have known him. Now here's what I did with
Speaker 1: that knowledge. I preached in my twenties that just like
Speaker 1: God called me to preach, God has called each Christian
Speaker 1: to do something. You agree with that. But here's the
Speaker 1: part that I think was incomplete. While I'd be up
Speaker 1: there saying to people, you need to find your calling.
Speaker 1: You need to find your calling. You need to find
Speaker 1: your calling. You need to find your calling. You need
Speaker 1: to find your calling. You find your calling. You need
Speaker 1: to find your calling. You need to find your calling.
Speaker 1: You need to find your calling. You need to find
Speaker 1: your calling. You need to find a calling, because he
Speaker 1: gets annoying after a while. Right, It's like I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to like I need a job. Man, I don't
Speaker 1: know about a calling. I've seen a raise right now?
Speaker 1: Is that it makes it sound as if it's something
Speaker 1: that you can just get and just know. And yet
Speaker 1: did you notice in the passage that even Samuel, who
Speaker 1: was the link between the period of the Judges and
Speaker 1: the monarchy of Israel a thousand years before Jesus, that
Speaker 1: even Samuel, who none of his words fell to the ground,
Speaker 1: even Samuel didn't get it right the first time. I
Speaker 1: don't know why, but that encourages me just reading this
Speaker 1: little story, to know that there's someone that God used
Speaker 1: to do something great, and he called him and he
Speaker 1: chose him. But even this great prophet didn't get it
Speaker 1: right the first time. I want to set you free
Speaker 1: today from the feeling that you have to find your calling.
Speaker 1: That's a cultural concept, it's not a biblical one. You
Speaker 1: don't have to find your calling. In fact, if the
Speaker 1: is correct, if Samuel is an illustration, then I don't
Speaker 1: have to find my calling because if I will serve
Speaker 1: the purpose of the season that I'm in in my
Speaker 1: life right now, watch this, get ready to shout. My
Speaker 1: calling will find me in that good news, Christian soldiers,
Speaker 1: aren't you too glad to know that? When Samuel heard
Speaker 1: a voice and he didn't even know whose voice it was.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing about it, I want to talk
Speaker 1: about the culture, and then I want to talk about
Speaker 1: the contact, the contact, because when he first heard the voice,
Speaker 1: it sounded like something he had heard before. Have you
Speaker 1: ever noticed is hard to know the difference between when
Speaker 1: you're speaking to you and when God is speaking to you.
Speaker 1: And watch out for the Christians who are running around
Speaker 1: so sure that it's God speaking to them. Those are
Speaker 1: the weird ones. Those are the crazy ones. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm serious. You gotta watch out for him. And they're
Speaker 1: here at Elevation, just like they're at every church, and
Speaker 1: they'll find you in the bathroom and they'll have a
Speaker 1: word from the Lord for you, and they don't even
Speaker 1: know you. And it's weird because it's the bathroom. Can
Speaker 1: I wash my hands? If God spoke to you, he'll
Speaker 1: do it in the lobby. Now, let me finish using
Speaker 1: the bathroom. I'm serious because I'm a preacher and people
Speaker 1: always think I want to be spiritual, and people will
Speaker 1: stop me in the bathroom sometimes at a restaurant and
Speaker 1: give me a word from the Lord. But if it
Speaker 1: was really the Lord, he would have told you it's
Speaker 1: weird to talk to people in the bathroom and wait
Speaker 1: till a man gets outside, because there is such a
Speaker 1: thing as germs, and God doesn't cancel out germs. I
Speaker 1: don't want your prophetic word. Well, I'm trying to so,
Speaker 1: but because he gets weird, because he gets weird, we
Speaker 1: still have to realize that the only way that the
Speaker 1: will of God, or the word of God or the
Speaker 1: voice of God can be recognized. That's what the Bible
Speaker 1: said that Eli who was old, who couldn't see physically.
Speaker 1: I've been on this thing lightly that we really need
Speaker 1: people in our life who are older than us, who
Speaker 1: have been along the journey, and to respect the price
Speaker 1: that they paid, and to not just think that because
Speaker 1: they don't go on SoundCloud or because they don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of Instagram followers, that they have nothing to
Speaker 1: teach us. I'm really seeing the value and people who
Speaker 1: they may not have the physical vision that they used
Speaker 1: to have, but they can discern spiritual things. And Eli
Speaker 1: wasn't even a perfect priest. In fact, God was in
Speaker 1: the process of moving him out of the way. And
Speaker 1: even in that transition, because the whole passage is about transition.
Speaker 1: It's Samuel transitioning from a boy to a man, from
Speaker 1: boys to men. I was just thinking, you know, it's
Speaker 1: hard to say goodbye. But when Eli is transitioning out,
Speaker 1: and when Samuel is transitioning up, and he's ultimately stepping
Speaker 1: into the thing God created him for. God deals with Samuel,
Speaker 1: but he does it through Eli. And whatever God is
Speaker 1: going to speak in your life is going to come
Speaker 1: in the context of relationships. And I chose the word
Speaker 1: contact to describe it because whoever you put around you
Speaker 1: the most will start to affect the voice inside of
Speaker 1: you that speaks to you. And have you ever noticed
Speaker 1: that God's voice sometimes in your life sounds like your wife.
Speaker 1: Sometimes for me, it sounds like my kids. Sometimes in
Speaker 1: my life I've noticed that if I am not selective
Speaker 1: about my contacts, I will start hearing I don't mean
Speaker 1: like out loud voices. I don't want you to send
Speaker 1: me off after I've preached today or anything like that.
Speaker 1: I mean the voice in my mind. A lot of
Speaker 1: times when I was going through a counseling session to
Speaker 1: try to understand myself better, the one thing that the
Speaker 1: therapist would keep saying, is whose voice is that? You
Speaker 1: know these things you say to yourself, You go like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm so stupid and you never get anything right,
Speaker 1: and well, of course you screwed it up, you screw
Speaker 1: everything up, you know all that. And she keeps saying,
Speaker 1: whose voice is that? Whose voice is that? And I
Speaker 1: didn't know if she was just trying to get me
Speaker 1: to say, you know, it was my dad, you know, oh,
Speaker 1: like the point of all therapy, my diapers were too tight.
Speaker 1: I got it. But what I realized is that most
Speaker 1: of us who are not clinically insane don't actually hear voices.
Speaker 1: We process thoughts, right, so we say the voice of God?
Speaker 1: How does the voice of God come into your life?
Speaker 1: Through thoughts? Through thoughts? And that's why Samuel was confused,
Speaker 1: right because he heard something, so he went where he
Speaker 1: knew to go. And I want to point out something
Speaker 1: about this. He did the right thing, He did the
Speaker 1: right thing. He ran noticed the Bible said that when
Speaker 1: he heard his name called Samuel. First of all, it
Speaker 1: didn't sound it didn't sound strange to him. It sounded
Speaker 1: like what he was used to. So he ran because
Speaker 1: that's what he did, because he had the right passion.
Speaker 1: But he ran to the wrong person. Some of you
Speaker 1: right now, you had the right passion, but you're running
Speaker 1: to the wrong person or the wrong place. Now, this
Speaker 1: is not only true in the case of Samuel. It
Speaker 1: was true of Moses. God called him to deliver his
Speaker 1: people from the Egyptians. Moses had the right passion, but
Speaker 1: where he messed up. Listen to this, U see when
Speaker 1: he killed the Egyptian it was the right passion, but
Speaker 1: it was misplaced. He tried to do it his way.
Speaker 1: He didn't get it right the first time. And some
Speaker 1: of the things that you've gotten wrong in your life,
Speaker 1: some of the mistakes that you've made, it was God's up.
Speaker 1: But it was eli that you ran to. You ran
Speaker 1: to the thing that God was trying to remove out
Speaker 1: of your life because that's what you were used to.
Speaker 1: You ran to the thing that you were familiar with
Speaker 1: because it's all your mind could understand. And so God
Speaker 1: gave you a gift, but you used that gift for
Speaker 1: you for a little while until you found out. Unless
Speaker 1: I offer the gift back to the giver, it's going
Speaker 1: to come back empty. But God brought you here today
Speaker 1: to let you know. That was my voice calling you.
Speaker 1: That was me that gave you that talent. That was
Speaker 1: me that made you good at that. That was me
Speaker 1: that opened the door for you. That was me that
Speaker 1: gave you that responsibility. That was me that gave you health.
Speaker 1: That was me that gave you strength. That was Me
Speaker 1: that gave you that connection. It was him the whole time.
Speaker 1: It was It was the Lord that called Samuel, but
Speaker 1: it was Eli that Samuel ran to. What are you
Speaker 1: running to? If you run, if you're running to something
Speaker 1: that is not your purpose, you feel it. You feel
Speaker 1: it in several ways. But one of the things I
Speaker 1: want to mention is I'm trying to surround myself in
Speaker 1: this stage of my life with people who bring out
Speaker 1: the God in me. And that's just me. Now. I
Speaker 1: don't mean I'm going to be mean to people who
Speaker 1: don't know the Lord, or I'm gonna go out and
Speaker 1: live in a monastery or something like that. But you know,
Speaker 1: there are some there are some texts that I don't
Speaker 1: return in this stage of my life because I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm in a season where I'm trying to do
Speaker 1: important things and my calling is valuable, and so my
Speaker 1: contacts are very important because certain stuff is contagious, and
Speaker 1: I know there are certain people. When I get around them,
Speaker 1: I feel something rising me that lets me know I
Speaker 1: can overcome. And I need them around me. I need
Speaker 1: them to rub off on me. I need them to
Speaker 1: speaking to my life. I need them to encourage me.
Speaker 1: I don't need people who are laying back on the
Speaker 1: last thing God did in this season of my life.
Speaker 1: I need people to push me forward. Yes I do, Yes,
Speaker 1: I do. I gotta be careful reading the comments on
Speaker 1: my Instagram in this season because whatever I may contact
Speaker 1: with I catch and see. I need the word of
Speaker 1: the Lord. I need vision, I need hope, I need purpose,
Speaker 1: I need security. And so he runs to Eli, but
Speaker 1: Eli tells him is God you need to speak to
Speaker 1: and the right contact in your life will always point
Speaker 1: you back to the only one who has real power.
Speaker 1: Thank you God for this word. I feel your spirit
Speaker 1: on this one. This is gonna help you because the
Speaker 1: concept of calling that most of us have is that
Speaker 1: you're going to go on a forty day fast in
Speaker 1: the Holy Land, and God's gonna speak to you when
Speaker 1: you walk where Jesus walked and the Sea of Galilee.
Speaker 1: But the Lord is not gonna speak to you on
Speaker 1: the Sea of Galilee from a voice on the water.
Speaker 1: He's gonna speak to you. And I know you don't
Speaker 1: want to hear it because it's sexy to thing that
Speaker 1: someday there's gonna be a voice that speaks from heaven.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna be like that. It's gonna sound like Eli.
Speaker 1: It's gonna sound like Eli. And it is through Eli
Speaker 1: that God calls Samuel Eli. This isn't Billy Graham. This
Speaker 1: is the dude who blew it. And this is how
Speaker 1: bad he blew it. Watch what ultimately happens when Samuel
Speaker 1: laughter three times? Everybody say three times? How many times
Speaker 1: do I have to tell you? One time, Holly, she
Speaker 1: loses her temper with our kids a lot. Y'all pray
Speaker 1: for her. It's kiddy. It's a very patient mom. But
Speaker 1: one time she was so mad at Elijah. He was
Speaker 1: only about or She said, how many times do I
Speaker 1: have to tell you? You You? Got this real fear look
Speaker 1: in his eyes, He goes three times. Look at the
Speaker 1: verse eight again a third time. How many are glad
Speaker 1: that God has called waiting that God will call you again?
Speaker 1: Ask Jonah. Jonah wasn't even a talented preacher. He didn't
Speaker 1: have funny stories, he didn't have good charisma, he didn't
Speaker 1: even like people. But God used him because when God
Speaker 1: calls you, he will call back. You know how there
Speaker 1: are some people when you call them, you have to
Speaker 1: call them, and so you're secretly hoping you get their
Speaker 1: voicemail because you really don't want to talk to them anyway.
Speaker 1: Some of you think God is like that, like he
Speaker 1: really wants someone else and he's really glad that he
Speaker 1: doesn't have to deal with you. But God wants you.
Speaker 1: God wants you. God shows you. God put the genetics
Speaker 1: in you, the DNA in you, the passion in you,
Speaker 1: the opportunit unity is for you. What God has for you,
Speaker 1: it is for you. That's why you don't have to
Speaker 1: be jealous, insecure, bitter, resentful. That's why you don't have
Speaker 1: to get back. That's why you don't have to take revenge,
Speaker 1: because what God has for you is for you. Y'all awake,
Speaker 1: Somebody shout here I am. And that was really the answer,
Speaker 1: because it's not only the culture that confuses us in
Speaker 1: our calling. It's not only our contacts sometimes, but it's
Speaker 1: the conflict of calling. The conflict of calling is great
Speaker 1: on an internal and an external level. Now what Samuel
Speaker 1: did next, What a beautiful little story right to show
Speaker 1: us that God repeats things one way I know he's speaking.
Speaker 1: You ever notice this when God is trying to get
Speaker 1: your attention. It's kind of like when you're shopping for
Speaker 1: a certain car and you start seeing them everywhere. When
Speaker 1: God wants to get a message across to you, he'll
Speaker 1: he'll put you in the market for it, and you
Speaker 1: never even looked at anybody else's beats. But now you're like, well,
Speaker 1: what's that one? How's that one different than that one?
Speaker 1: And this one and the other one? Because I'm in
Speaker 1: the market for God. When you get in the market
Speaker 1: for God, you start noticing that He's He's been speaking
Speaker 1: all along, just like just like there was there was confirmation.
Speaker 1: I didn't have time to put this word in the sermon.
Speaker 1: It starts with the letter see, so it could be
Speaker 1: a bonus point confirmation God. God will speak something over here,
Speaker 1: over here, over here, and you'll start noticing it. You'll
Speaker 1: start noticing little things, and then it'll you hear it
Speaker 1: in the sermon, and then you hear it in a movie,
Speaker 1: and then you hear it in a song, and then
Speaker 1: you hear it you see it on somebody's the back
Speaker 1: of their window, and then you hear it through your
Speaker 1: your husband, and then you hear it through and you
Speaker 1: just see it and just hear it, and you start
Speaker 1: seeing it and you start and then you have to discern,
Speaker 1: which is to separate. That's what Eli did. He discerned
Speaker 1: the Hebrew word is being. He discerned, he separated, He
Speaker 1: made a distinction. He had a discernment to know. This
Speaker 1: is the Lord calling the boy. So he said, when
Speaker 1: it happens again, and this is the word of the
Speaker 1: Lord for you when it happens again. When it happens again,
Speaker 1: if it happens again, just say speak Lord. Your servant
Speaker 1: is listening, and I want to show you something that
Speaker 1: the Lord. Just show me. His greatest revelation happened in rest.
Speaker 1: Eli didn't say, Oh, that may be God. You better
Speaker 1: run out and catch him before he leaves. Well, if
Speaker 1: God spoke to you, better chase him down. No, if
Speaker 1: it was God's speaking, he'll come back. All you got
Speaker 1: to do is be in position for it. That's all
Speaker 1: you've got to do. You don't have to find it,
Speaker 1: it'll find you. Trust me. God is not playing hide
Speaker 1: and seek in the Tabernacle. God is not running around
Speaker 1: the tent. Ha haha. If I hide behind this table
Speaker 1: of showbred, Samuel will never find me back here. God's
Speaker 1: not hiding behind the labor you know, He's not hiding.
Speaker 1: And even though God is always moving, he's never hiding.
Speaker 1: That's what the Tabernacle was was a portable structure, and
Speaker 1: they set it up in the wilderness because they never
Speaker 1: knew when God was going to say stop, and when
Speaker 1: God was going to stay go. Why Because God does
Speaker 1: not want you to depend on his will. He wants
Speaker 1: you to depend on him. There's a difference. One is God,
Speaker 1: just show me what to do. That way I won't
Speaker 1: need you. The other one is God, I want you
Speaker 1: wherever you lead me, wherever you take me, whatever it means,
Speaker 1: whatever it costs, and whatever it looks like. But here's
Speaker 1: the conflict. Because Samuel goes in and he lays down
Speaker 1: Bible says he didn't know the Lord yet he knew.
Speaker 1: He knew how to bake the bread in the tabernacle,
Speaker 1: that was his job. He knew how to open the
Speaker 1: doors so people could come worship. He knew how to
Speaker 1: follow Eli around and get me this and get me that.
Speaker 1: But there's a big difference between the rituals of religion
Speaker 1: and a relationship with God. And if you're going through
Speaker 1: the motions, like you know, singing songs, not really thinking
Speaker 1: about the words, just kind of singing them, or just
Speaker 1: kind of like hearing little forgettable things that I say
Speaker 1: in my sermon that you know, you won't even remember
Speaker 1: what it was about fifteen minutes after I'm done. It's
Speaker 1: possible that you don't know the Lord yet. I don't
Speaker 1: mean you're not a Christian, not necessarily. I don't mean
Speaker 1: you don't believe in God. Don't mean not necessarily. But
Speaker 1: to know Him is to know his voice. And when
Speaker 1: you know him like that, you can hear things that
Speaker 1: are hard to hear. But you can know that even
Speaker 1: when he says things that are hard for you to hear,
Speaker 1: he says them from a spirit of love, grace purpose.
Speaker 1: One of my friends is a real overtext. I can't
Speaker 1: keep up with him, and I love him, but my
Speaker 1: thumb's hurt and I can't do it. And I don't
Speaker 1: voice text because it's annoying because it corrects the wrong
Speaker 1: words the wrong way, and you can get in trouble
Speaker 1: that way and say something you didn't mean to say,
Speaker 1: end up firing somebody you meant to hire. But it changes.
Speaker 1: It doesn't know because your voice anyway. One time he
Speaker 1: texted me, he said, how come our conversation is all
Speaker 1: gray on iPhone? When they text you, it's gray, when
Speaker 1: you text is blue. When he said that, I wondered
Speaker 1: if sometimes my relationship with God is all gray to
Speaker 1: where he is speaking and he is prompting and he
Speaker 1: is provoking. But God can speak, speak speak. Three times
Speaker 1: he did it. God didn't say anything different the third
Speaker 1: time except this when he said, speak Lord, your servant
Speaker 1: is listening, and he laid down in his place. I
Speaker 1: got to hit that real quick. I know we're running
Speaker 1: out of time, but it says Samuel went and laid
Speaker 1: down in his place. That's first nine. Put it up.
Speaker 1: Samuel went and lay down in his place, in his place,
Speaker 1: in his place. You will realize God's purpose when you
Speaker 1: get in your place, Touch somebody next to you, and
Speaker 1: say get in your place, because if God is dropping
Speaker 1: off the mail but you're not home, you won't get it,
Speaker 1: and you'll think he didn't send it, and you'll think
Speaker 1: he didn't speak. But I learned something with my friend.
Speaker 1: It was it was not just the conflict of the calling.
Speaker 1: It was the color. It was all gray. But the
Speaker 1: breakthrough is in the blue. It's not just when God speaks.
Speaker 1: It's when you get in your place and say, God,
Speaker 1: here I am the real me, the honest me, the
Speaker 1: open me, the ready me, the humble me, the broken
Speaker 1: down me, the me that is ready to do your will.
Speaker 1: Because I've done my will and I saw how that
Speaker 1: worked out, and I'm ready to do your will. That's
Speaker 1: what Isaiah said. He said, I'm an unclean man with
Speaker 1: unclean lips. But if you'll take that coal and touch
Speaker 1: my lips, I'll speak for you. Because Holy, Holy, Holy
Speaker 1: is the Lord God Almighty. So here I am. I'll go.
Speaker 1: Moses stood at a bush. He turned aside, took off
Speaker 1: his shoes and said, God, I'm slow of speech, I'm
Speaker 1: not eloquent, and you saw the things I did that
Speaker 1: put me in this predicament. But if it's you calling here,
Speaker 1: I am somebody shout here. I am Jeremiah. I'm too
Speaker 1: young for this, and your people are stubborn and you
Speaker 1: know they're not gonna listen. But if it's you calling
Speaker 1: me here, I am somebody shout here. I am. And
Speaker 1: the reason I'm confused about my calling is because I
Speaker 1: don't just have one. This is what I didn't know
Speaker 1: in my twenties because I felt like God called me
Speaker 1: to preach you. I felt like God called you to
Speaker 1: do something, put you somewhere. I mean, maybe it wasn't
Speaker 1: something big spectacular. Maybe you're not gonna do a halftime
Speaker 1: show at the super Bowl with it, but God called
Speaker 1: you to do something. I just saw your Patriots gear
Speaker 1: made me think of the super Bowl. God bless you man.
Speaker 1: Congratulations on that. I hope you're happy. Now. How many
Speaker 1: is it gonna take for you guys to shut up
Speaker 1: about it? But there's a there's a blessing in it.
Speaker 1: There's a blessing in it, even if it's a small thing.
Speaker 1: And you say, Okay, God called me to do this.
Speaker 1: But then what happens is, look, I was called to preach, right,
Speaker 1: so I start preaching. I start going on preaching. I'm
Speaker 1: preaching everywhere, preaching everywhere they asked me to come preaching.
Speaker 1: I'm preaching at the lock in I appreach. So I
Speaker 1: preached some one time, so late at the night. It
Speaker 1: was three am, and I had this sermon illustration where
Speaker 1: I would take a mirror and I'd break the mirror,
Speaker 1: and I preach Genesis one twenty six about the image
Speaker 1: of God. And Holly can tell you we knew where
Speaker 1: the mirrors were in every walmart in the state of
Speaker 1: South Carolina, because every time we get to a new
Speaker 1: little town to preach the fifteen kids, I'd go in
Speaker 1: and get a mirror and then I'd break it with
Speaker 1: a hammer, and I say, this is what send us
Speaker 1: to you, you know, put the condemnation on the young people.
Speaker 1: Just put it on them. Are breaking mirrors. And one
Speaker 1: boy went to the emergency room because the glass flew
Speaker 1: up and hit him in the eye. And I had
Speaker 1: to call his parents and tell him not to sue me.
Speaker 1: I'm a man of God and I got a ministry,
Speaker 1: and if you assume me, God's gonna curse you and
Speaker 1: make you. But I didn't say that, but I was
Speaker 1: running around preaching. Right, But then I married Holly and
Speaker 1: I realized I'm called to be her husband too. Come on,
Speaker 1: it's the conflict of calling. It's complicated. You can make
Speaker 1: it sound sup. Well, find your calling which one? Because
Speaker 1: then I was called to be a preacher and a husband,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they needed different techniques. What if I walked home,
Speaker 1: I said, Holly, give him a seal of praise. It's
Speaker 1: different callings. That's three people, just I guess it just does.
Speaker 1: And then by the time I'm getting these callings, you know,
Speaker 1: I got how many? You got at least two callings
Speaker 1: in your life, at least two things that you're responsible for,
Speaker 1: and they're in conflict. Sometimes Here she comes pregnant four
Speaker 1: years into marriage. Here she turns up pregnant. Now I'm
Speaker 1: called to be a parent. Now I'm called to you
Speaker 1: feel like you're not just putting on different hats, but
Speaker 1: you actually have like different heads. I read that in
Speaker 1: that Sitser book, The Will of God is a way
Speaker 1: of life. He said. I felt like I didn't just
Speaker 1: have different hats, I had different heads. And this is
Speaker 1: the conflict of calling. But the answer is allays availability,
Speaker 1: presence access. When he said speak Lord, your servant is listening.
Speaker 1: It created access not only for God's work to come
Speaker 1: to him, but for God's work to come through him.
Speaker 1: And what God said was difficult. He said, I'm transitioning.
Speaker 1: Not only am I transitioning you from an apprentice to
Speaker 1: a priest, from a priest to a prophet, but I'm
Speaker 1: transitioning Eli and his Son's out of the earth so
Speaker 1: that my purpose can be fulfilled. I'm transitioning. I'm transitioning,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna have to go through a difficult transition
Speaker 1: right now. But by the time we get to First
Speaker 1: Samuel four, verse one, the Bible says that Samuelil's word
Speaker 1: came to all Israel. I was curious why I didn't
Speaker 1: say God's word through Samuel. But by this point in
Speaker 1: First Samuel four, because Samuel said, here I am speak Lord,
Speaker 1: we have now gone from the word of the Lord
Speaker 1: was rare to the word of Samuel came to all
Speaker 1: Israel because he had gotten to a point where he
Speaker 1: heard God's voice on the level that when he spoke,
Speaker 1: what he spoke came directly from the throne of God.
Speaker 1: God wants to get us to the place where we
Speaker 1: are not running around all the time talking about what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do one day. Some of you are using
Speaker 1: the concept of a calling as a crutch to not
Speaker 1: fully embrace the season of life that you're in, and
Speaker 1: that is not the will of God for you. And
Speaker 1: you may be called to be a mom one day,
Speaker 1: but if you're not a mom right now, can you say,
Speaker 1: here I am to this season. And you may be
Speaker 1: called to own your own business one day, but can
Speaker 1: I just say that in the meantime, the only thing
Speaker 1: that God has ever wanted from you was all of you.
Speaker 1: The only thing that God has ever asked of you
Speaker 1: is here I am. It's what Jeremiah said, It's what
Speaker 1: Moses said, It's what Isaiah said, it's what Samuel said.
Speaker 1: And when he made himself available, the word of God
Speaker 1: became abundant. I want you to stand to your feet,
Speaker 1: because God has been speaking your whole life. He's speaking
Speaker 1: through hard things. He's been speaking through painful things. He's
Speaker 1: been speaking through pleasure, passion, he's been speaking through rejection,
Speaker 1: he's been speaking through restlessness. It wasn't that God wasn't speaking,
Speaker 1: is that the people had lost their ability to listen.
Speaker 1: And so God said to Samuel, before you can speak
Speaker 1: for me, I need you to learn to listen. This
Speaker 1: is what God wants to find tune in our lives
Speaker 1: over the next few weeks. This is what God wants
Speaker 1: to do in your heart over the next few weeks,
Speaker 1: because honestly, some of you are still running to Eli
Speaker 1: when it's really God. Some of you are running trying
Speaker 1: to find something out there when God is trying to
Speaker 1: speak to you in your place. That's what got me
Speaker 1: this time, because I didn't preach that last night, but
Speaker 1: when I was speaking to you, God was speaking to me,
Speaker 1: and I try to listen, and he said, tell him
Speaker 1: stay in your place. Samuel didn't wake up that morning
Speaker 1: looking for a calling. And maybe that's the problem with us,
Speaker 1: Maybe that we've made this thing about calling and what
Speaker 1: God has for my life. What if what God has
Speaker 1: called you to first and foremost is himself. Wouldn't that
Speaker 1: set you free? That the will of God is not
Speaker 1: which job, The will of God is not which school
Speaker 1: you put your kids in. My God. I was talking
Speaker 1: to Buck the other day. One thing I love about
Speaker 1: Monk's Corner better than Charlotte. There was two schools you
Speaker 1: could go to. There was just two. It was the
Speaker 1: public one and the one that everybody that smoked weed
Speaker 1: at the public one got sent to the Christian school.
Speaker 1: But listen to me. We've made the will of God
Speaker 1: a resource. It's not a resource. It's a relationship. It's
Speaker 1: a relationship. It's a relationship. So I want us to
Speaker 1: go through this next several weeks not looking for clarity, certainty,
Speaker 1: but confidence to know that if I will make myself
Speaker 1: available to this calling in this moment, his speak, he
Speaker 1: will speak. Question is will you respond? What I've learned
Speaker 1: to do now is not necessarily say this is God
Speaker 1: or this isn't God. I got this new thing. It
Speaker 1: may be God. I don't know. Only way for me
Speaker 1: to find out, The only way I can experience the
Speaker 1: breakthrough is in the blue. So speak, Lord, I'm listening.
Speaker 1: Say that to your life, say that to your pain,
Speaker 1: Say that to what you think was your mistake. You
Speaker 1: know what your mistake may be, God, he may. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna show you that next week. That's my sermon. Next week.
Speaker 1: I am going to show you next week how your
Speaker 1: mistakes are miracles in disguise, in disguise, the presence of
Speaker 1: the Lord is in this place. Would you lift your hands.
Speaker 1: God is here. Father. I thank you for the word
Speaker 1: that came forth today. We receive it. Somebody say I
Speaker 1: receive it. Quit sitting there with your lips just puckered up,
Speaker 1: just stressed out, open your mouth and say, I receive it. Lord.
Speaker 1: Everything that you're doing in my life, everything that you're
Speaker 1: calling me to be, all the things that you're doing
Speaker 1: that aren't really about me. Lord, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be self centered and just self consumed. I thank you
Speaker 1: that the wind of your spirit is blowing. So I
Speaker 1: set my sales on this new series. God, I'm not
Speaker 1: asking you just to speak to me. I'm asking you
Speaker 1: to open my eyes to see you in my ears,
Speaker 1: to hear you. Open the eyes of my heart, open
Speaker 1: my understanding, open my will to your will, and your
Speaker 1: will be done in my life. Thank you for your presence,
Speaker 1: Thank you for your purpose, Thank you for your provision.
Speaker 1: Lift your hands high as you can say, speak Lord,
Speaker 1: say it out loud, to speak Lord. I'm listening. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna listen to my life. This week, I'm gonna listen
Speaker 1: to I'm gonna listen to the still small voice this week.
Speaker 1: Too much noise, too much noise. Word of the Lord
Speaker 1: is rare when the Lord of the word becomes common.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look for you this week. I'm gonna find you.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna seek you, seeking you fine. Thank you for
Speaker 1: joining us. Special thanks to those of you who give
Speaker 1: generously to this ministry. Is because of you that this
Speaker 1: ministry is possible. You can click the link in the
Speaker 1: description to give now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash
Speaker 1: podcast for more information and if you enjoyed the podcast,
Speaker 1: you can subscribe. You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 1: You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
Speaker 1: share it on your social stories and tag us at
Speaker 1: Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God bless you.