From Small group meeting to Disciple-Making

 

  • Commitment Part 1 5th Jan
  • Commitment Part 2 12th Jan
  • Character 19th Jan
  • Calling 9th Feb
  • Charisma 16th Feb
  • Competency 23th Feb
  • Christ-Likeness 1st Ma

 

Calling 9th Feb 2020

  • Have you come across questions like, “What is your calling?” or “Do you know what the calling of your life is?” or “Have you found what your calling is?”
  • People get stressed when they try to find out the calling of God upon their lives.
  • We all want to know God’s call upon our lives, after all He knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-10).
  • His desires for us is to give us an abundant life (John 10:10) and it only make sense for us to fulfil His calling upon our lives.
  • God is most willing to review to us His call of our lives but it is dependent on the conditions of our heart.
  • Joke: A man was praying about returning to church. So he prays for a sign as he walks toward a nearby church. Suddenly his phone vibrates and “No Service” pops up. He concluded that it is not God’s will to go back to church.
  • We laugh at such a joke but how often we hear Christians trying to know God’s will through unscriptural means.
  • As Christians when we talk about calling, it is often about a career or serving as a missionary, a ministry or a Church. However is that calling?
  • Do you know that our calling can be for a specific situation, for a season of life, or possible for a lifetime.
  • The important thing for us is to discern whether it is God’s will or simply it is our own desires.
  • God calls each of us to different things, at a personal level such as relationships, jobs, ministries, etc.

At different times in our lives, He may call us to do something, to start somethings, or on the reverse to stop doing somethings.

  • How can we know whether God has called us? More importantly, what is God calling us?
  • In the New Testament, “Call”, “Called” and “Calling” occurs in 54 verses (Excluding repeats on other Gospels; calling for someone or calling upon God).
  • What “Calling” is not?
  • It has nothing to do with our passion or vision.
  • It has nothing to do with our gifting or talent.
  • It has nothing to do with our capability or career.
  • It has nothing to do with our success or future.
  • One very important unchanging fact is “The CALLER (GOD) is greater than the calling. Being first then the doing.
  • It is all about the Caller – GOD. And not about our calling.

 

What is “Calling” in the Bible?

  • While every Christian has one main calling – to live a life of obedience to God – each Christian also has an individual calling.
  • The fulfilment of the primary calling of God gives clarity to our personal calling.
  1. Primary calling of God to all Christians – Two categories:
  2. Position:
  • John 15:15 “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.
  • Act 15:17 So that the rest of mankind may seek the LORD, even all the Gentiles who are called by My name, says the LORD who does all these things.’
  • Romans 1:7 To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
  1. Participation (Roles & Responsibilities):
  • Matthew 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
  • Luke 16:2 “So he called him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’
  • Ephesians 4:1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,
  • Greatest CommandmentMark 12:30-31
  • Great CommissionMatthew 28:18-20
  1. Personal Calling of a Christians – Two categories:
  2. Office:
  • Ephesians 4:11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,
  • Romans 1:1 Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God
  1. Occupation:
  • Romans 1:1 Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God
  • The fulfilment of the primary calling of God gives clarity to our personal calling.
  • Exodus 4 God’s call to Moses to lead the people out of Egypt.

 

Roadmap – how can we know what is our calling?

  1. Start with what we got – What is in your hand?
  2. Do what we can – Cast it to the ground.
  3. Trust God for His anointing – I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.

 

  1. Start with what we got – What is in your hand?
  • We pick up the story where God called Moses through the burning bush, to speak to Pharaoh to let the Israelites go.
  • Exodus 4:1-2 1Then Moses answered and said, “But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice; suppose they say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you.’ ” 2So the Lord said to him, “What isthat in your hand?” He said, “A rod.”
  • Instead of getting ourselves so concern about God’s call, it is to focus on what we got in our hands?
  • One of the best way to know God’s call is to focus on what we got. Whatever ability that God has given us, that is what we got.
  • Zechariah 4:10a For who has despised the day of small things?
  • We do not have to wait until we have more resources, more money, and more opportunity.
  • We just have to start with what we got; no matter how small that can be.
  • We must willing to start small and people who desires to achieve big things must be willing to be faithful with small things.
  • God asked Moses “What isthat in your hand?
  • Judges 3:31 After him was Shamgar the son of Anath, who killed six hundred men of the Philistines with an ox goad; and he also delivered Israel.
  • Not even Rambo can match him.
  • Shamgar killed six hundred men of the Philistine with an ox goad. Shamgar use what he got and he delivered Israel.

 

  1. Do what we can – Cast it to the ground.
  • Exodus 4:3-9 3And He said, “Cast it on the ground.” So he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. 4Then the Lord said to Moses, “Reach out your hand and take itby the tail” (and he reached out his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand), 5“that they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” 6Furthermore the Lord said to him, “Now put your hand in your bosom.” And he put his hand in his bosom, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous, like snow. 7And He said, “Put your hand in your bosom again.” So he put his hand in his bosom again, and drew it out of his bosom, and behold, it was restored like his other 8“Then it will be, if they do not believe you, nor heed the message of the first sign, that they may believe the message of the latter sign. 9And it shall be, if they do not believe even these two signs, or listen to your voice, that you shall take water from the river and pour it on the dry land. The water which you take from the river will become blood on the dry land.
  • Three things the Lord asked Moses to do: Cast, reach out and pour.
  • With what we got, we use it to serve the Lord.
  • Cast – A sign of surrendering
  • Reach out – A sign of restoration
  • Pour – A sign of offering
  • What we need today is men and women who is willing to cast our cares and surrender our lives to Him.
  • We need men and women who is willing to reach out to see restoration of lives around us.
  • Today we need men and women who has the passion to pour our lives as an offering.
  • Don’t let passion leads you but let your passion follow you in whatever you go and whatever you do.
  • What can I do? What can you do?
  • We can lead, we can encourage, we can pray, we can preach… just use whatever we have to serve God.

 

  1. Trust God for His anointing – I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.
  • Exodus 4:10-12 10Then Moses said to the Lord, “O my Lord, I amnot eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” 11So the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? 12Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.”
  • Some of us can begin to identify with Moses: I am not good enough.
  • I do not have a degree. I do not have the talent or gifting. I cannot sing, I cannot play instrument, I cannot preach, I cannot…
  • Whatever God calls you, He will enable.
  • Whatever God calls you, He will anoint.
  • Mark 10:27 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men it isimpossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.”
  • Philippians 1:6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete ituntil the day of Jesus Christ;
  • Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
  • We can trust God for His anointing when we are doing His bidding.