Called to This | Pastor Chip Parker | Week 3

So, one of my favorite stories in history is the story of one young man whose life changed when he found his calling.

This young man had lived a life even early on of rebellion and sin.

He tells later on in autobiography that he enjoyed lying, that he made games of stealing, and that he would fight against any authority that would dare try to correct him.

At 14 years old, his mother passed away, but he didn't find out until two days later because he was away from home drunk on a bender.

At 16, he was arrested and thrown in jail.

And then out of jail.

At 20 years old, he was invited to attend a prayer meeting by a friend.

Later that night, broken by his sin, he cried out for forgiveness and trusted Jesus as a savior.

And with that, he surrendered his life.

He grew in his love for Jesus.

And as he began to follow him, he felt a call to specifically care for orphans.

Now, finding his this stepping out by faith, he began to pray and he began to prepare.

Eventually, he started his own orphanage.

And over his lifetime, George Mueller cared for over 10,000 orphans.

He provided these 10,000 orphans with food, with shelter, with education, and he told them about the hope that he had found in Jesus.

The most amazing part of George Mueller's story is that in caring for these 10,000 orphans, he never accepted any government funds and he never asked for donations.

Anytime a need arose for the orphans, George and his staff would pray, and then they would see the need met sometimes miraculously.

If you don't know George Mueller's story, I would encourage you to go read about it, read his autobiography.

It is incredible how God worked in his life.

But I think the principle there for us is that when we walk in God's calling for our life, God is going to use us to have an extraordinary impact.

That's what happened in Mueller's life, and I believe that can happen in your life as well.

Because I believe, like George, that you were called.

And specifically, you are called to a very specific this in your life.

Like uh we have said all series long, that doesn't mean that you have to be called to be a pastor or a missionary.

Your this may be something far more ordinary.

Your this might be your career.

Maybe it's not.

Maybe your this is just your service and the margins of your life, where you volunteer, the team that you coach, the people that you invest in, mentor, or the kids that you raise.

The point is, we all have a calling.

We all have a this in our life, and that's what this series has been all about.

It's been about a biblical story of calling, the story of Nehemiah.

And we've been walking through the first four chapters of Nehemiah, seeing how his calling teaches us about our calling.

For instance, we saw that God turned Nehemiah's burden into a calling.

Nehemiah was the king of Persia's cupbearer, and yet upon hearing a report from Jerusalem that the city walls were torn down and in disrepair, he began to be burdened.

God burdens us as well.

And like Nehemiah, we see those burdens lead to callings in our life.

We can't help but do something about it.

And then we also saw that God, through his sovereignty, had positioned Nehemiah to fulfill that calling.

If anybody else had tried to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, it could have been seen as treason.

But Nehemiah, positioned as cupbearer to the king, had the relationship to ask and ultimately get the king's permission to go and rebuild the walls.

So even years before, God had positioned Nehemiah to do what he had called him to do.

God puts us where we are on purpose and for a purpose.

And so even if you haven't found your this yet, I know that God's already positioning you for that.

And then last week we saw that over a period of months, God matured that call in Nehemiah's life.

Through prayer, through planning, Nehemiah's calling was matured so that when the door was opened for him to act on it, Nehemiah was ready to walk through and take action.

He knew God's will, and so he started to move in that direction.

And he trusted God to guide the outcomes.

Now, last week we we kind of ended our reading of the text in Nehemiah chapter 2, verse 8.

Nehemiah 2:8

But if you continue on with chapter 2, you see when Nehemiah actually gets to Jerusalem, he begins the project of rebuilding the walls.

He starts out there in chapter 2 by inspecting the walls and the gates in secret, really, I think just trying to wrap his mind around the specific work that needed to be done.

And then after he sees what needs to be done, he gets the elders, the scribes, the workers, the people together, and he casts a vision.

As a matter of fact, we'll read in Nehemiah chapter 2, verse 17.

Nehemiah 2:17

It says, So I said to them, again, this is Nehemiah writing, so I said to them, You see the trouble we're in.

Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned.

Come, let's rebuild Jerusalem's wall, so that we will no longer be a disgrace.

And I told them how the gracious hand of my God had been on me and what the king had said to me.

So Nehemiah does his research, he gets ready, he rallies the troops, and he casts vision.

But I think that begs the question, right?

Like this is Nehemiah's calling.

This is what God has burdened him with.

So why did Nehemiah call the people together to cast the vision of rebuilding?

Um, I think there's a couple of reasons.

Number one, I think it's because God rarely works through heroes, right?

Like, like sometimes you have heroes like Nehemiah who leads the charge.

That's not normally how God works, but even when he does use heroes, so to speak, he uses ordinary people as well.

What we see is that God primarily works through the faithfulness of ordinary people who work together in ordinary obedience.

That was how God was going to accomplish his will of seeing the walls rebuilt.

That's how Nehemiah was going to fulfill his calling by rallying the people to have an extraordinary impact.

And so then at the end of verse 18, the people respond, ready to work.

They said, Let's start rebuilding.

And look at this.

And their hands were strengthened to do this good work.

And so then, after all of this action in chapter 1 and in chapter 2, we come to chapter 3.

And we're just going to read today the first two verses of chapter 3.

Nehemiah chapter 3, verses 1 and 2.

Nehemiah 3:1

It says this the high priest Eliashib and his fellow priest began rebuilding the sheep gate.

They dedicated it and installed its doors.

And after building the wall to the Tower of the Hundred, the Tower of Hananel, they dedicated it.

The men of Jericho built next to Eliashib, and next to them Zachar, son of Imri, built.

So that's just two verses of an entire chapter.

And maybe you ask, well, why are we only going to read two verses of chapter three?

Well, if you've already peeked ahead in chapter three, if you've already read ahead in chapter three, you know why we're only reading two verses.

Because chapter three is one of those chapters in the Bible, we see them often, that's made up primarily of unpronounceable names and long-forgotten people, right?

You've read those chapters.

Maybe you started out this year reading through the Bible from beginning to end.

You've hit those chapters.

You've hit the ones where it's so-and-so begat so-and-so begot so-and-so, or even the census of the people of Israel after the Exodus.

And when you read through your Bibles and you come across chapters like chapter three that are lists of names that are super hard to pronounce, it's hard.

And honestly, it can even be a little discouraging in your Bible reading.

Really, what chapter three is, is a list of the people that worked to rebuild the walls and the gates of Jerusalem.

And it was specifically a list of who did the work and where they were responsible to work.

You see through chapter three, specific people taking specific sections of the wall in order to get it rebuilt.

So why is it important for us?

Like why are we taking a week out of this series to look at this?

A few reasons.

First, as one commentator wrote, God is a great believer in putting down names.

We've already said there are many chapters like this in Scripture.

But I think those chapters of all of these hard-to-pronounce names of forgotten people, it should encourage us.

It should mean, uh remind us that God knows our names and that he doesn't forget it.

And that if God hasn't forgotten their names, he's not forgotten our names either.

We serve a God who loves to record the names of obscure people who are obedient to him.

As a matter of fact, as you live a life of ordinary obedience, maybe God is writing your name down in some great book right now that other people will read in years to come.

We serve a God that likes to write down names.

But second, I think that this chapter is a great reminder that we need others and others need us.

And we've talked about this before at the orchard, the need for community.

Not just what we get from community, but what we give to community.

Pastor Ray Steadman said that we can learn from the New Testament there are two things you cannot say any longer once you become a Christian.

The first is, you do not need me.

Everyone in the body of Christ needs everyone else.

The second thing is, I do not need you.

You need others.

It is this awareness of that truth that makes a church a living, warm, vital, and loving fellowship.

We need others, and others need us.

You may be sitting watching this online right now, and maybe it's because you're out of town, maybe it's because you're sick, maybe it's because you had to work, whatever, or maybe it's because this is your primary form of church.

And I would encourage you, if this is your primary form of church, it's not enough.

Like I'm glad you're watching, I'm glad you're getting the content, but you need community.

You need other people in your life who can speak into your life.

And maybe you would say, well, Chip, I don't really need that.

I'm doing good on my own.

Well, then how about this?

Others need you.

When you are missing from the church, the church is missing a piece.

Your giftings, your personality, your thoughts, your encouragement, that is missing from the local church.

I think this chapter, seeing the people come together in different parts of the wall to help Nehemiah rebuild, is a great reminder that we need others and others need us.

That's true for you.

But I think even to go further, maybe we would ask why is this chapter important for our calling?

For us to talk about what we are called to, the this in our life.

And I think that that may be a little bit more sensitive of a subject for us to deal with.

And hear me when I say this.

The hard truth is, we want to have a calling on our life, but I think far too often we want to be called to be the hero.

We want to be Nehemiah.

And, you know, on its own, I don't think there's anything really wrong with that.

Well, actually, let me back up.

Let me clarify what I mean.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be called to big things.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to accomplish big things for Jesus' name and for his kingdom, for the good of our neighbor, for the glory of God.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be called to do big things, but I believe we can and we do go wrong when we want to be the quote hero.

And we've said this over and over again at the orchard.

If we are the hero, Jesus isn't.

And so I think one of the reasons we need to look at this chapter in its part that it plays in our calling is to be reminded that you aren't called to be the hero.

And sometimes you're not even called to do these big, grand, extraordinary things.

That's why this chapter is so important.

You might be missing God's this for your life because you're only looking for it in the big things.

See, God rarely asks us to build the entire wall, right?

Each person here was given their section.

And sometimes God gives us our section of the wall in our home, in our church, in our community, and he asks us to build that section faithfully.

Maybe you don't need to lead an entire ministry, but God is calling you to lead a small group.

You might not be called to be a pastor, but maybe you're just being called to disciple one particular person.

But here's the point that chapter three puts in our faces so clearly we can't ignore it.

When everyone builds their section, the wall rises.

And I think that we miss that, right?

We look for God's this in our life to be a big thing, an extraordinary thing where we're popular, where we're seen, where everybody tells us how wonderful we are.

But maybe what God's calling you to is this section in the wall that He's put right in front of you.

Something that the world would say is simply ordinary.

But what I want you to understand is that God's work moves forward when ordinary people take their place and faithfully build what's right in front of them.

That's how God achieves his purposes in the world.

Yes, sometimes God will raise up an extraordinary hero, but not often.

That's the exception, not the rule.

God usually accomplishes his will through ordinary people living in ordinary obedience with extraordinary results so that he alone receives the glory.

If we really want to move the needle on lostness in North Central Florida, if we really want to see the kingdom of God advanced in our part of the world, then we don't need God to raise up a hero to lead the charge.

We need ordinary followers of Jesus living out ordinary obedience, walking in their calling, building their part of the wall.

God's purposes are always accomplished when ordinary people take their place.

And so what I want to encourage you with today is maybe you've missed your this in life because you've been looking only at the big things.

And what God is calling you to, maybe not be something that's that glamorous in the world's eyes.

But like we've said all along in this series, that if God has called you to be a plumber, you'd be living in disobedience to be the president.

You don't need to ask God to call you to something big.

You need to ask God to call you to something specific.

And maybe that specific thing is right in front of you.

And though it may not seem overly important or overly impactful, what we know is that when God's people, ordinary people, take their place, the wall is built, the mission moves forward, and God is glorified.

So my prayer for you right now is that you'd find your place and you'd take it.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for the time to look at this hard and maybe even obscure chapter in Scripture.

And God, I pray that as we look at it, you'd help it be a great reminder that we need others, that others need us, that none of us are obscure or forgotten in your eyes.

And that though we may not be called to something that the world would see as extraordinary or important or flashy, that you would call us specifically to something right in front of us.

And that we would live with an ordinary faith and ordinary obedience that you will use as you have used to bring extraordinary results so that you alone would receive the glory for it.

God help us to find our this and to step out in faith to see it through.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.