What's up, Resonates? Good to see you guys. My name is Keith. I'm lead pastor here at
Resonates and it's exciting to be here. Exciting to kind of close out this
series about God's will. And as we do that, as we begin to get into this, I was
thinking about this idea that if you've ever heard like stories of people
that wander in the woods and stories of people who might wander in the desert,
there's this idea that we're wandering in circles. Like people, like as they go
out, if they don't have anything else, they just walk in circles. And it was kind
of this baffling idea. As I begin to kind of process this, I begin to think, is
that really true? Is that really right? Is that really what happens? And so I
did some research and I came up a few years ago, this group of people decided
they wanted to figure out the same thing. Is it really true that like it's really
difficult for us to walk in straight lines? And so this, these people in
Germany decided to put together this test and they put about 15 people, put
GPS on them and they released them out into the forest and out into the desert.
And so I'm not sure who signs up for that. Hey, yeah, just release me. Put a
tracker on me, but don't do anything. Just see if I die, you know. I'm not sure
how that works. But anyway, they did it. So they released these people out into
the forests and out into the desert. And basically what they did is they just
let them go and they said, walk on a straight line. Go as straight as you can
go. Just go and try to find civilization or whatever. And so they
tracked them. And as they tracked them, they realized that this pattern was
indeed true. That is, you know, kind of this urban legend or kind of this thing
that we we think about is that actually these people, they did, they started to
go in circles. And so they started to go around and around and around. And so they
thought maybe this is just something that is basically someone's leg being
longer. But then when they look closer, sometimes they would go left in a circle.
Sometimes they would go right in a circle. They don't have, you know, any
longer legs. It's not because of any of that. It's just, they said it's really
difficult for us to actually walk in straight lines. And so they begin to
think, okay, so what if, oh, and another thing that they did is they took and they
measured in terms of if it was an overcast day, they would walk in tighter
circles. And if the sun was down, they would walk in tighter circles. And so
then what they did is they blindfolded these poor people. So let's release them
out into the forest blindfolded. That sounds like a great idea. And so they
released them out into the forest. And when they were blindfolded, their
circles got no more than about 66 feet in diameter. 66 feet, these people are
thinking that they're walking straight. And they're, you know, they're probably
about the size of this room, right? They're walking around in circles and
they're blindfolded. And they think they're going dead straight. And it's
just this fascinating thing. And so these people published their findings. And
they said this, I said, it's possible. He said, if you do get lost, it's important
to know that your body might end up doing the opposite of what your brain
intends and begin to talk about this. And he said, if you're going to move, make
sure you know how to move in a straight line, which is pretty interesting with
the thing that they just did. The study said, it's hard to find a spot in the
continental United States that's more than 20 miles from a road. And then he
concludes the whole article with this statement. Straight lines are helpful.
Circles don't get you anywhere. Not exactly sure how that's like helpful
in any of this. But he's basically saying this, straight lines are helpful.
Circles, you end up at the same spot. Going back to all these things. If hikers
found dead usually less than a mile from where they started, all of these things,
it's this idea that when we begin to think about the geographical
implications of this, when we begin to think about all of this, this kind of
reality is that we will in circles. But I think the same truth is true for us, not
just in terms of hiking through forests and hiking in deserts. That if we don't
have a destination, if we don't have a point that we're headed to, we end up
going in circles in our life. It's the same truth. And you might see it,
psychologists call it being in a cycle, being stuck in cycles. And so we're
talking about this idea. If you haven't been here the last few weeks, we're
exploring what it means to find God's will. And we're walking through some of
these significant ideas that we begin with this idea that God gives His will
not for consideration, but for participation. He waits until we're
ready to be submissive to whatever it is that He does to direct His, direct our
paths. We can find God's will by, by beginning to listen to the wisdom of
godly people in our lives. And ultimately, all of God's will is founded on
His scripture. And when you begin to take all of those things together, you begin
to say, what's God's air will? What's the thing He's doing that's no matter what?
This is just what God is doing in the world. What is His moral will? What's
the, that's kind of the ground will? What is He doing that is, that is said in the
Bible that kind of gives us clarity on what's best for us? I think in all of
that, God, who is the master communicator, is not trying to keep His will from
you. He is trying to reveal His will to you. And if you begin to integrate Him
into your life, you're not going to miss it. And I think over and over when I
begin to see the big ideas, the big things that are happening in people's
lives, when they begin to say, I want to listen to other people that are godly
people, I want to take and integrate scripture into my life and begin to
know what are the ways and natures of God? What are the principles of God?
You're not going to mess up a whole lot in your life when it comes to the big
things. But what I think is really clear, and today what we're going to talk about
is how you make decisions on some of the smaller things. What are some of the
things that when you begin to say, okay, both of these are within, I think what
God would say is okay. These are both good things, but, but Keith, I'm stuck
because there's two good things and I need to have some clarity in what to
choose. I want to be able to have joy and confidence in my decision because I
know that I'm choosing what is best. And I think that's a good place for us to be
because oftentimes good is the enemy of best. When we begin to think, okay, both
of these could be good, but what is the best thing? What I want to give to you
out of scripture today is how you can understand in a couple of good things.
When we eliminate, this is sinful or this is not in line with who God is, but
these are some options. Do I go here or here? What do we use to help us to make
those decisions? And it's a story today that if we begin to understand the
illustration of scripture to us in our lives, that if we begin to kind of
integrate this and leverage this principle into our lives, you will have so
much clarity in your life and you will have so much confidence in the decisions
that you make. So we're going to get into this and this story is, is, is from the
Bible and it's from the Old Testament and it's based on a guy, it's from a guy
named Nehemiah. Nehemiah lived in about 450 BC to the west of Nehemiah. It was a guy
at the same time named Socrates to the east of Nehemiah was a guy named
Confucius. And so this is kind of the time frame within which Nehemiah
operated. Nehemiah was a Jewish guy who had experienced the exile. And so what
did happen? We talked a couple of weeks ago about how the kingdom was being
split apart. When the kingdom got split apart, it got weak. When it got weak, it
got overthrown by the Persians. What the Persians did is they took the people out
of Israel that had skills and leadership and they brought them back to Persia and
integrated them into their society. One of those people was a guy named Nehemiah.
And Nehemiah ended up being a cup bearer to the king. Now what that means is that
morning, noon, and evening for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the king would have
meals. And those meals would be tested in order to understand if there was
anybody that was trying to kill King Artaxerxes. And so Nehemiah was the guy
who would test the food to make sure it was safe. And so he would die, right? So
they would say, are you still alive? Yeah, you're still alive. Okay, we can feed
this to the king, right? And so then this is what he would do. And so he would
serve the king. And so this is a place of incredible trust. And in fact, the king
would put his life into the hands of his trusted servant Nehemiah every single
day. And Nehemiah would stand before the king. And so there was a little bit of a
relationship there between King Artaxerxes and this guy named Nehemiah.
Well, one day Nehemiah's brother comes back from their homeland from Israel and
he says, the walls in Jerusalem have been torn down. And this does something to the
heart of Nehemiah. And King Artaxerxes begins to see that his servant, his cup
bearer, is kind of distraught by this. And he begins to ask him, what's up? And Nehemiah
begins to unload what he thinks is God's calling on his life. He begins to
unload this vision of what is going on and what he feels like this is
something that is significant. Can I go there? So ultimately King Artaxerxes
lets Nehemiah go. He gives him safe passage. He even funds part of the journey
to get there. And ultimately he lands, Nehemiah lands there in Jerusalem. The
walls have been torn down and this is not just a physical thing. It is, these
people are demoralized and so he's rebuilding a nation. And in 52 days
Nehemiah leverages this place of leadership in order to rebuild the
walls around the city. It's a fantastic feat. And when we go back into the
Bible, it's one of the most significant things that happened. This
country got rebuilt and so these people are telling the story of what happened
when Nehemiah came back and rebuilt these walls. And as he
rebuilds these walls, there's something that happens. There's a moment
that gets captured by Nehemiah in his journal. He writes it down and when he
writes it down, I think it's incredibly important for us 2,500 years
later to be able to hear what he does and help us process how to make
decisions. So I want to go to Nehemiah chapter 6 verse 1. We're going to read
through the first five verses in here and I hope something lands and we
can kind of tear it apart and begin to figure out how this integrates into our
life. It says this, when word came to Sandballot, Tobiah and Gashem the Arab
and the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left
in it, though up to that time I had not set the doors into the gates. Sandballot
and Gashem sent me this message, come let us meet together in one of the
villages on the plain of Ono, but they were scheming to harm me. So I sent
messengers to them with this reply, I'm carrying on a great project and cannot
go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you? Four times
they sent the same message and each time I gave them the same answer. Now we can
read this, it might not seem like it's a big deal, might not seem like it's a
mind-blowing kind of idea, but a couple years ago I preached through this and as
I begin to integrate this idea, as I begin to understand what Nehemiah was
doing here, as I begin to understand what was happening, it's radically changed
the way that I make decisions. And so this might be kind of a strange place to
end this whole series, but I want to say if you will grasp this idea that Nehemiah
is unpacking here, this will just change your life. It'll change in every way, the
way that you make decisions. And I want you to understand what's happening here.
I want you to get what is going on. Nehemiah is encountering some opposition.
So sand ballads, Tobiah and Gashem, they're all wondering what's going on and
so they're building these walls, right? And as they build these walls, it's a
little threatening because this was a demoralized group of people. This
was a people that wasn't really interested in putting up any kind of a
fight. They were just kind of like, you know, we've been overcome, we've been
taken, we don't have anything. And then some guy comes in and he begins to build
up the walls and so they send him threats. And he ignores the threats.
They do all these things to kind of go against him, to scheme against him, but
finally they get to the point and say, if he's not going to respond to our
threats, here's what we're going to do. We're going to distract him. And what they
do is really interesting. They just simply ask him for a meeting, right? And
this seems like a decent thing to do. So if you're moving into the neighborhood,
if you're going to establish this kingdom, maybe you should have some interaction
with the people around you. Maybe you should have some interaction with these
neighbors of yours in order to build friendly relationships and stuff like
that. But what happens is, D.M. Maia knows specifically what he is called to. He
understands the vision which God has laid out for him and he understands
that anything that is not in alignment with that vision is a distraction. He's
got a destination. He understands what that is. And he makes a decision based
upon that destination. There's tons of things in our lives that could be good
things that distract us from the things that we have to do. And so what you need
to know is that, is that Nehemiah has this vision, understands what this is.
And here's what a vision is. It's simply a destination of where you want to end up
in life. It's a destination of where you want to end up. It's a picture of what
needs to happen in various areas of your life. It's a mental image of what could
be fueled by what should be in light of my life. So this conviction, should this
be true of my life? Could this be true of my life? And Nehemiah has some clarity
in that. And that clarity helps him to make these decisions. And here's the big
idea. The big idea is that this, disciples make decisions based upon
destinations. Disciples make decisions based upon destination. So if you're
trying to figure out how do I make a decision, one of the key things as we
unpack this whole thing is to understand where is my destination? Where am I
going? And you might say, okay, that's great. That's wonderful. But how does that
actually help me make a decision in my life? Let me help you
understand. The clearer the vision for your life, the fewer the options. And the
easier it is to make a decision. When you have clarity that I'm going here, that
begins to eliminate all the things that don't align with that decision, you begin
to have clarity and say, I don't need to go in this way or that way because I have
clarity that this is the place that I should go. And really this idea, in
our lives, there's all these different pieces of what it looks like for us to
go and make these different decisions. And so it could be a little bit like this.
It's like the puzzle of our life. And so we're trying to figure out how to put
this puzzle together. And in this puzzle, we have all of these pieces, right? And so
this piece, okay, this is a part of my education. But how does the education fit
into the rest of my life? But this piece, it doesn't necessarily look
like it fits right now. And so I don't understand how this fits with who I need
to date. And then like, what should I spend my time doing? And where should I
live? These are all pieces. And then what, as I live there, what should I spend my
time on? What should I give my life to? And all these different pieces, when we
begin to put this all together, when we begin to try to understand it, this can
be incredibly confusing because you're looking at this and you're saying, I'm
trying to make this decision about this major. I'm trying to make this decision
about this girl or this guy, but I have no context to see whether this is right.
And so I just go on feelings and I have this, do we have chemistry together or
do we not? And that's such a poor way to make decisions. Or does it seem right
right now? And with all the wisdom I have or don't have, is this what I should
be doing? What does it look like? And as we begin to think through this, we get
lost. And then we get full of anxiety. And as we've said before, you are a
people that have more options than any other generation in the history of the
world. And there's so many things and you're getting bogged down and you're
losing sleep and you're trying to figure out, what do I do? And there's so much
pressure and I need to do this and this and this and this. And I don't know what
to do and we get paralyzed. But what Nehemiah is illustrating here is when
you have a picture, you begin to see this, this, this puzzle piece. Okay, I have
an understanding of where it gets. Okay, this, this decision to date her or not
to date him. Okay, I understand how this fits in my life. As you make decisions,
one of the most significant things I can tell you is illustrated in the book of
Nehemiah is getting a picture for where you're headed. You walk in circles in
your life if you don't understand where you're going. And all the things about
that I could go this way and this way and maybe both are kind of within the will
of God. Where is it that I have clarity in which to be able to make that
decision to be able to go this way or that way? It's based upon the picture.
It's based upon what you're heading. It's based upon knowing where you're going
and establishing some sort of an idea of where you should be going, what it looks
like. And when you began to know that, you said, I can't put this puzzle piece
here. I can't try to cram this into this because some of you in your dating
relationships, you're trying to cram a puzzle piece into a place that you're
going. And in some of your majors, you're trying to cram a puzzle piece in a
place that you don't know. And some of your relationships and the friendships
that you, you're cramming a puzzle piece in a way that doesn't fit your future.
Over and over, as you begin to say, what does this look like? Where am I headed?
It begins to bit by bit help clarify today. As you begin to think about your
future, as you begin to think about what it looks like, what picture are you
living? And for some of you, you don't have a clue. You don't know what it looks
like. You don't know how this is supposed to work because you don't know where
your destination is. You're just trying to get through. You're just trying to live
life and you're just trying to, as it comes, just trying to do the best that
you can. And I want to say that there's more. There's something better. So the
first thing I want to say is, do you have a picture of what could be and what
should be? But this is all just the self-help thing that you could find in a
Barnes and Noble or stuff like that. There's tons of books on
creating clarity. So I'm not telling you anything that you can't find in other
books, but in this book, there's something specific. And the Bible helps us to say
that not only is there to be a specific picture of our life, that not only do we
live our life better and make decisions better when we have some specificity
about where we're heading, but that God wants to direct your paths. That God has
a destination for you. And so, do you have something that could be, that should
be, that is aligning your life around? And second, is this an alignment with God?
Or is this whole idea fueled by what God desires in your life and how He wants to
leverage you and how He wants to direct your life? And have you given thought to
that in every aspect of your life? What does God think about this? So when we
begin to kind of lay this all out in terms of our dating relationships, we
begin to say, where am I going in this? What does God have for me on the other
side of this? What does a destination look like that God is honored by, that God
is stoked from being able to say, this is what I'm aiming for? And then when we
begin to say, we talked about in the very beginning, there's tons of people for
you to choose from. But when you know what God has called you to look, this is
what I want marriage to look like. Some of you guys, I just want to be married. And
we can do that. That is easy to get. If you just want to be married, that's
really fairly easy. But I think that most of you have some sort of a
destination of what you want. But the problem is it's kind of an ambiguous one.
Well, I kind of want someone who's like this and I kind of want someone who's
like that. But when you begin to say, God, what do you want from me? What do you
want for me? What does that look like? Can I paint a picture of that relationship?
Can I begin to understand, God, what would that look like for me to meet
someone who is deeply in love with you, who is on mission for you? And when you
begin to say, who could that be? Again, that ambiguity begins to have
specificity to it. And that specificity begins to say, this person aligns with
that or this person doesn't align with it. Because there's tons of relationships
that I've seen where these people have chemistry, but they don't have alignment.
And I promise you, chemistry can wear off. Alignment is something that has much
longer implications to it. Find someone who you're aligned with. Make that the
priority and then ask God for chemistry. God will bring that. You can fall in love
with a lot of different people. When I'm saying, where do you want to be? When you
begin to think about this, okay, so 10 years from now, what do I want my marriage
to look like? How do I date towards that picture? I want this guy to be like this.
I want him to be able to treat me like this. Here's where I want to lead our
family. This is what I want for this to happen. Who is that guy? When you begin to
have that much clarity and focus, you can say no to the wrong guy or no to the
right guys and say yes to the person who is going to fulfill that thing. Guys, as
you're dating, as you're figuring this out, who is it? As God began to clarify my
vision, what I began to look for is if you're leading me towards being a
pastor, if you're leading me towards ministry, I want to figure out who is the
woman that I can find and get to marry me. Who is the best person I know at that?
Alignment. And here's what happened. I ended up marrying my best friend. God began
to stir within my heart these chemistry things, right? He can do that, but what I
had to do is have an alignment. If God, if you're leading me here, this is what I
want to choose. When we begin to think about what is your major, how does that
fit with what God wants to do in your life? How does that fit with a career that
allows you to live in what God has called you to do? What does that look
like for you to be able to have God speak into this picture? How is it that we
begin to speak into this? How does God begin to, we have lenses to see that and
he begins to clarify what his will looks like and how does it look like for us? So
when we begin to think about this and what we begin to kind of understand, as
some of you just, you still, as I talk about this, we're still flying the plane
too high. We're still, you might not be able to kind of understand, how does this
actually fit, Keith? What does this actually look like in my life? How do I
figure out what this is to look like as I go forward? And I want us to look back
at Nehemiah, because I think this kind of gives us some clarity and this not
might not fit everyone, but I think that as you begin to look and to see how
Nehemiah could develop this vision, it might help you to understand some
pathways forward. In Nehemiah in verse, in chapter one, verse three, he says this,
he said, they said to me, those who survive the exile and are back in the
province are in great trouble in distress. This is what they're saying to
Nehemiah about what is happening. He's in Persia, they're back in Jerusalem at
this point. He says, the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and the gates have been
burned with fire. When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some
days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. See, what
happens is Nehemiah gets confronted by this reality and he sees this reality and
there's something in him that begins to be burdened. There's some sort of this
this heart thing that begins to go on and he's like, this is not right. This is
not how it should be. The first part of understanding a vision is to be able to
say, is there anything in my life that I think this is wrong? There's something
that needs to be done about this. So the first thing, is there something wrong
with it? Is when you begin to think about an area of your life, is there
something that needs to be fixed in this area? I have a heart for this. I'm
trying to figure out how do we help kind of create some vision in our life. It
says this after that, Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God who
keeps His covenant of love with those who love Him and keep His commandments.
Let your ear be attentive and your eyes be open to hear the prayer your servant
is praying before you today, day and night for your servants, the people of
Israel. I confess the sins of Israelites, including myself and my father's family,
and have committed against you. We've acted very wickedly towards you. We have
not obeyed the command's decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses. Remember
the instruction you gave your servant Moses saying, if you are unfaithful, I
will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and obey my
commands, even if your exiled people are at the father's horizon, I will gather
them from there and bring them to the place I've chosen as a dwelling for my
name. See, Nehemiah gets soaked because he begins to say, this is wrong, but
here's what. I know who you are, God. I know your nature. I know what you're
doing. And here's the thing. I know that that's not your desire. There's
something wrong with this. And I know that you want to fix it. I know that
you're about redemption. I know that you're about doing something in terms of
redeeming this in the world. That's who you are, God. I know I've sank my teeth
into your scriptures. I understand who you are. And then he begins to do this.
He goes on. Verse 10, they are your servants and your people whom you
redeemed by your great strength in your mighty hand. Lord, let your ear be
attentive to the prayer of this, your servant and the prayer of your servants
who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting
him favor in the presence of this man. He's saying, what? I want to do something
about this. He's saying, let me go. There's something that's wrong. I know
that's not about you. Let me at it. It's a vision. It's clarity. Then when he gets
in the wall and people are coming against him, people are scheming against him.
It's real easy for him to say, you know what? I'm not all about all that. I'm
about this wall. So let me build the wall. I'm just going to build the wall. It
makes the decision super easy. He knows what's happening. He knows what it's
about. He has clarity in this. And this is the kind of clarity I want in each of
your lives to be able to know that's what I'm about. I'm not all about that. So
you can go on Friday nights. You can do all that kind of stuff, but I'm not about
that. That's not heading towards my goal. That's an easy decision to make. And
she's cute, but I'm not about cute. I'm not about something that's leading me
towards the destination that God has for me. That guy, man, he is funny, but
funny is not where I'm headed. I'm headed towards a life on mission. And so
when we begin to have those lenses, man, that makes a ton of money. It takes a
ton of time. It takes my life. I'm going to have to give my life to that. But you
know what? I've already given my life to Christ and the mission of Christ. So I'm
going to figure out a job that allows me to do that. As we align our hearts, as we
have vision for this, what does that look like? How do we begin to say, I'm going
to do what I do for the glory of God. I'm going to do it well for the glory of
God, but I'm going to do it strategically for the mission of God. And God has
called us to be able to have the vision, to be able to have a part of this and to
be able to align our lives and say, I might go and be a CEO of a company. But
you know what? My real mission is doing something for the kingdom of God. I might
be an architect. I might be an engineer. I might be a school teacher, all of that.
But my calling, my vision, what's directing my decisions is because I'm on
mission with Jesus Christ. That's clarifying these decisions. So where
should I move? Well, I'm moving to Ellensburg because that's where
resonates starting a church, right? Yeah. And so where do I go in this? Where do I,
what does this look like? How do all these things have a compelling vision that
you begin to say it's super easy for me to say no to that six-figure job? Because
at the end of the day, it's not about the money. Unless that job is to fund a
church plant in Ellensburg, which I say go for it, you know? So here's the
thing, you know? So in all of these things, God's calling you to a ton of
different things, but being able to say all of that, all of these things that I
could be doing, what should I be doing? How does align with what has God has
called me to do? Where's the vision in my life and so that you can say, here's how
I parent. I've said this over and over to you as I've talked about this, a
significant decision in my life was coming here. And I talked about allow, I
wanted to go somewhere else and saying, God, okay, I'm gonna let you create the
pathway to this. I gathered community around and here's what community said.
It said this exact principle. I said, Keith, you know what? You've been called to
start a church. We see it. You talk about this. This is what God has said. You
would, it would be ridiculous for you to go any other place. God has called you
to go to the place where He's opened the door for you to plant a church. So we
landed in the Palouse, right? So this is how this works. When you begin to have
clarity in this and so how do I live my life? What does this look like? It gets
really easy because I know what we're trying to accomplish here. Do you know,
in every place that you're making a decision in your life and everywhere
that you have say, this is a significant decision in my life. Do you have a
destination that you've understood from what God is saying in your heart? Have
you allowed God to align your heart with what He's doing? To create clarity and
you have that picture so you can choose a major saying, here's what I'm going for.
You can choose a location. Here's where I'm headed towards. You can choose you're
gonna date. You can choose where to go in the summer times on spring break. You
can choose what you're gonna live with next year. You can
choose what this is gonna look like. It all becomes really, really clear when
you have a picture of where you're headed and then you can say, does this align
with what God has called me to do? Does this align with what God has called me
to do? How does this work? Over and over when we begin to integrate this, when we
begin to look at this and see how God is saying, I'm bringing all this stuff
together so that you know, so that you know how to date, so that you know how to
choose a major, so that you know what to do with your weekends, what friends to
hang around. It becomes really clear when you have the picture. Nehemiah. See, here's
what's so cool about this. We don't see Nehemiah, God is saying, hey, I need you
to do this thing and Nehemiah is like evading the call. Nehemiah says, God, I
know how you work. I see an opportunity. Pick me. What this says to you and me is
that there's a lot of things that when we begin to just see where God is headed,
that we can do, that God is saying, man, I'd love for you to be a part of this.
There's many of you that God's just waiting on you to have some clarity on
saying I can be a part of something that's happening here at the University of
Idaho, here at WSU. What does this look like? How do you begin to engage that? But
for some of you, let me just kind of parenthetically say this. For some of
you, God's calling you to give your life to the church as a vocation. God's
calling you to leverage who you are for the church, to equip the church.
Nephesians, it says, is giving apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds,
teachers, all of these things. And this is what God is doing. And this is where God
is going. And I believe some of you here are called to be those people. See,
Jacob, Louise, they're headed out. You come here next year. They're probably not
going to be here. Why? They're planting. They're going out. We're expanding the
gospel, going on to campuses. Some of you are going with them. But some of you are
going to be here. Who's going to be the next person? Craig in U of I is going
out. Who's going to be the next person? I believe God is calling some of you to
step up. That God's a put a calling that that can't thing is getting a little bit
more narrow. And he's saying to some of you, God is calling you out to lead the
next generation of churches across the Northwest, across the nation. And I want
to call out the cold to challenge you guys to say, is God calling me to be a
pastor? Is God calling me to plant the church? Is God calling me to be a part of
the team? Is God calling me to land in a place where I can help put this seed of
the gospel into this place and to be able to see a immense amount of fruit come
out of this because this is God at work. It's happened over and over. This is how
we're here in the Northwest. It came from Jerusalem because people said, I want to
land somewhere. I want to be a missionary. So I'll call some of you guys out.
This is what God is doing and needs people to step up. And for this thing to
continue to go, people need to step up into leadership. But today as you begin
to think through what it is that God has called you to do, I want you to pull out
this little thing in your program because I don't want this to be ambiguous. It'd
be remiss of me for us just to talk about this. You should add a pin. If not,
there's pins in the back. We're going to kind of just land here for a little bit
because the worst thing that can happen is for you just to kind of have a fly
by in this. We have been praying for you. I've been praying for you in this
moment because I think that God is about to do something in the next few
minutes that if you will allow this, this can be either as amazing or as just
boring as you let it right now. If you engage this, I think God is ready to
speak to you. There's some questions. I want us just to give some first steps to
discovering this God-given calling. And they're pretty just open to be able to
just put what you need to put on there. There's no right answer. There's no wrong
answer. But the first question is, what am I better at than most? If there's a
hundred people in the room, what am I better at than 98 of them? And fellas,
I'm not talking about World Warcraft here. So just to clarify, someone said, I
love me some flappy birds. Not exactly what I'm thinking about. What am I
better at than most? Write that down. What is it? This is not a time for you to be
bashful, for you to be humble, but for you to recognize what are you uniquely
good at? What has God done in your life to create you the way that you are? What
are you better at than most? Start thinking through. Write that down. It
doesn't have to be crazy. Nehemiah, better wall builder, got famous. It doesn't have
to be like, well, you know, I'm really good at math. I was going to have an
equation there, but I couldn't think of one. So I just said math. Didn't land as
significantly as I thought it would. Number two, what has God given me a
passion for? What has God given me a passion for? What is it that just like
something in your heart is just drawn to this and you can't even explain it?
Nehemiah, here's the walls have been torn down. These people are humiliated.
They're devastated. And what happens? This dude starts weeping over it. That's not
right. What's the thing that you say? That's not right. It doesn't have to be a
big deal. It could be in my friends. They're just struggling in life and it
just breaks me up. It doesn't have to be like a Sarah MacLachlan commercial
about pets, right? Or not pets, I guess. Abandoned pets. Wow. You probably
had a moment there and then you began to think through those puppy faces and
stuff like that. What is it that God's given you a passion for? If it's pets,
it's okay. Okay. So where do I see a need? Where is it that I look around and I
say someone should do something about that? That's not right. Something should
happen there. When you begin to think about that, what do you think God's
desire is for me in that area? How does that align with what I believe maybe God
is leading me towards? Do I have an idea of what God would want in that situation?
Maybe right now you don't know. Maybe you're here and you're just kind of
seeking and trying to figure out what this Christianity thing is about and
that. What Jesus is? What does this look like? Is there something that you'd say
this is God's desire? In Hebrews 12-2 it says, for the joy set before Him. See,
Jesus had something clear that He was going. He said, for the joy set before
Him endured the cross throughout the Scripture over and over. It's because
we're headed somewhere. And then this here's how I want us to really land this
and as the as the band comes up I want to give us some opportunities to to really
have some clarity in this. What area in your life needs a vision? What area in
your life needs a vision? Maybe you say, I don't know what my purpose is. I don't
know what my calling is. In this relationship I need some clarity. In this
idea of where I need to go in terms of a career I need some direction. I need a
vision. I don't know what this looks like. I want you to do this. This is
there. Describe a picture of what could be and what should be in as much detail
as possible. Now this doesn't have to be what is binding to you for the rest of
your life. But if you're trying to figure out, do I date Him or do I date her? I
want you to think through 10 years from now. What's the situation that you want
to be a part of your life? Describe it in detail. Make up a scenario. There's some
stuff that I see and I've told my wife, I want us to have a conversation. I want
you to describe for me how you've walked through this and how this has been a
significant thing in your life that you've dealt with, but you have found
victory in Christ. You wanted to lean into me to fulfill that, but you
understood that I was not your Savior, that Jesus was your Savior, and you're
telling this to me. That's that scenario. I want to have that conversation. I
want to sit over coffee and hear that and so that I can direct as I lead my
wife and as we begin to think about where I'm going in my marriage, what that
looks like. As you begin to think about what this looks like in terms of your
vision for your life, when you begin to think about 10 years, 20 years from now,
at the end of my life, here's the job that I want. This is the scenario of my
life. I want to have been a part of this. I want to have been a part of that. How do
I align myself in this way? How does this look like? To have details in this. One
of the most powerful moments of my life was in college. I'm writing down stuff
and I'm understanding that this is how I'm made. This is how I'm wired. This is
the desires of my heart and having a picture of what this looks like and
having a picture of how it lands and that picture is not too far off from this
moment. 17 years ago, writing that down. I want you to have these moments where you
begin to say, what does it look like? And so there's going to get up here and play
because I don't want you to distract from hearing God and writing down
something and being able to have a moment where you're just writing down
stuff. Again, just let your mind be filled with it. Just what do you want, God? If
this is crazy, let it be crazy because I think some of you are going to emerge out
of this and here's what I think. Today is going to be a place for some of you where
the rest of your life was clarified. I don't want to cheat you from that. So
they're going to play you right. You understand what is it that God's
calling you to be? What's the vision that He's called you to?
