Everyone is in Full-Time Ministry // Good Work Pt. 2

Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast.

Church of the Lookout is in Boulder, Colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love.

Visit us online at the lookout.church.

Alright.

Alright, everybody.

Take a deep breath across the room.

Close your eyes for a second.

Just feel your feet on the floor.

And uh take a deep breath and just kind of hold it.

Hold it in your lungs.

Just feel that oxygen just head to toe.

Breathe in.

Let's breathe in the goodness of God.

Let's breathe out the anxiety.

The Broncos are not playing today, so there's no need to be anxious.

We just get to be here in this moment.

And it's amazing that we live in a day where when we come to church, part of our worship is learning how to breathe again.

We breathe shallow most of our weeks and most of our days.

We're filled with many worries and concerns.

But today, even now, let's just worship God with our breath.

Breathe in again.

Breathe out.

God, we thank you today for the gift of life.

And I thank you that you've actually given us our lives with the intention that we would enjoy them with you.

I know that doesn't mean everything goes our way all the time, but God, I thank you that you have given us joy and equality of joy that cannot be stolen from us.

And we thank you that today we get to receive your gift of life.

So as we open your word today, Jesus, we thank you to speak to us.

And even right now, Holy Spirit, you know us better than we know ourselves.

So would you get our attention so we can follow you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

So who was here last week?

We started a new teaching series called Good Work.

Anybody here last week?

Okay, I'm gonna catch you guys up.

Good work.

We're actually coming to church to talk about work, which is not probably what you thought you wanted to talk about at church when you got up out of bed this morning.

But I'm telling you, this is incredibly good news.

Um, this this series, good work, really is about rediscovering God's design for our work and what we call vocation and creative participation with God on earth.

Um, and a couple things that we talked about last week.

Number one, the first thing we learned about in the scriptures is that God is a maker, he's a worker.

He worked for six days and he was stoked about his work.

He loved working, he loved it, he knew when to stop, too.

But God was a worker.

It's the first thing we learned about him, and he was a worker, and he made us, he worked, part of his work was us.

We were part of his good work, and he actually made us to join him in the work, which was cultivating the land and being fruitful and multiplying and subduing the earth and bringing order and beauty and uh and abundance to the to the world that he made.

And so, one of the key ideas that we talked about last week is just it's not a topic we we talk often about in church, but we we do need to talk about it because we believe that all of life is meant to be lived under the rule and reign of God.

There's no part of your life that doesn't get touched by the by the goodness and the rule and the reign of King Jesus.

Amen.

He touches it all, which means that work isn't a necessary evil that we're trying to get over and eventually conquer into our retirement days, but it's actually part of the gift of our creative participation with God on earth.

So we get to work, not toil, but we get to uh wake up each day joining God, just like Jesus did, joining the Father.

And what is the work that you've given today?

What is the food?

Jesus says, My food is to do the will of God.

And this is so important because we live in a day that we're, as Christians, we we all have to take up our place in whatever He's given us.

And we say it often, and but we we do mean it, that there are no spectators in the kingdom of God.

There's nobody just sitting on the side watching eating popcorn while the professional Christians do it on the field.

Okay?

And even if you think that's what's going on, that's not what God actually invited it into.

We we are all participants with God in the restoration and renewal of all things.

So we're gonna read a couple verses to start today as we build upon this thought.

We're gonna start in uh Colossians chapter three, and then we're gonna move to 1 Peter.

Okay.

So Colossians chapter 3, this is Paul writing.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

He says, This he says, Whatever you do, work heartily.

I love that word.

Heartily, with heart, as for the Lord and not for men.

Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.

You are serving the Lord Christ.

So your boss is not who you think it is.

Your boss is Jesus.

1 Peter 2.9.

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Who has been called out of darkness into marvelous light today?

Come on.

Thank you, Jesus.

So, these passages I read, this is the word of the Lord.

And we say together, thanks be to God.

So, what's really interesting is when we open the full um the full breadth of the scriptures, we read about men and women from start to finish.

We remember them based on their faith in God and in certain works that they did, how they sacrificed, how they served, how they followed God with all their heart.

But what's really interesting is that their lives before God were not separated from the work of their hands.

And so I just want, just take a moment to appreciate that all of the men and women in scripture we read about had day jobs.

Can we just appreciate this for a second?

So, Abel, Abel was a keeper of sheep.

Noah was a builder.

He, thank God he was a builder.

Joseph was an administrator for Pharaoh and Pharaoh's government.

Moses, we know, is a shepherd.

He was minding a flock by himself when God called his name.

Bezalel, he's one of the guys, lesser-known guys, but he was a craftsman in Exodus 31.

Most of us don't know who he is, but he's actually the first person that God filled with his spirit for the work of his hands.

In order to go into the temple to make the temple beautiful.

Ruth was a gleaner in the field.

David was a shepherd, and then a musician, then a king.

A few career changes for David.

Nehemiah was a cupbearer to the king, and then later, more or less a general contractor to rebuild the wall.

Daniel was a civil servant in a pagan empire.

Amos was a herdsman and tender of sycamore figs.

Peter, James, and John were all fishermen.

Lydia, she was a dealer in purple cloth.

Paul, he was a tent maker.

Jesus, as we talked about last week, was a carpenter.

He spent years with sawdust on his hands before he ever preached a single sermon.

And these men and women, what's really interesting is that they all had significant contributions in their life, to say the least.

Sometimes they would stop their work in order to go respond to a new invitation from God, but often they would all do it in tandem.

There wasn't a struggle for them.

You never get this idea from people in the scriptures that they're always trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up.

Right?

That they're hoping that at some point they'll do something better or more meaningful with their lives.

They're just searching for a higher calling.

No, they're just herding sheep, and then God shows up and has an invitation for them.

God oftentimes, especially in the scriptures, would just simply use the people in the midst of their ordinary lives.

But it's really interesting how often we end up elevating some work above others.

Just think about your dream job for a second.

I just want to think like if you have a dream job, if it's not what your job is, think about your dream job.

I think about oh man, if I was up here today, gosh, how cool would it be to shred the electric guitar for you two?

Just a backup guitar.

So I don't even have to be on stage.

I'll just be backstage.

And just, I'm just gonna do a little where the streets have no name and just love it.

Sometimes I dream about like how cool would it be to be a fighter pilot?

Just flying through the air, just like those dog fights and top gun.

Um I said the Megan, Megan dreams most days about she's like, is there a job for cuddling kittens all day?

All right, so just a second, hold that question.

What is your dream job?

Whatever you answer that question, find find somebody around you, exchange what your dream job is.

Just take 30 seconds, and we're gonna say, just what is your dream job?

Okay, shout out a couple at me.

Backpacker.

Professional backpacker.

I think there is such a thing.

What else?

What was that?

Church technician.

All right, Blaze.

Church technician, all right.

What else you got?

No more dream jobs?

Dancing.

One more.

Pilot?

Come on, dude.

Let's go, man.

Let's fly through the skies.

So we we, you know, it's interesting because some of these dream jobs, they're not, it's a it's a good thing to like to have dreams, but what's really interesting when we square up these ideas next to our actual lives, the problem is when when Paul says things like, whatever you do, do it unto the glory of God, or work heartily for God, we have a hard time seeing what we're actually doing.

It's wholly, sacred, purposeful, and meaningful.

And it's really interesting because I pay attention to conversations I have both in the church outside of the church, but um, but even in the church among Christians, the man the a source of anxiety and struggle for so many people I talk to has to do with their work and their trajectory of their work, right?

And not just about making enough money, that's part of it, but also how they feel about what they do, right?

And so I hear in a lot of different ways, people feeling like their work is insignificant, or feeling like some, you know, that work over there matters, my work doesn't matter.

And and it even gets accentuated in the church sometimes where we feel like some work is more spiritual than other work.

I'm just an accountant, I'm no missionary, right?

And we hear these phrases from time to time, and and it does, like when I pay attention, I can see it causes this inner tension of what am I made for?

And sometimes it's this chronic feeling that I should be somewhere else doing something different with different kinds of people.

And what it does is it produces this inner restlessness.

And there's a discontent that comes with not knowing what to do with what we do.

And we hear it in different ways in the way we talk, particularly when you start using the word calling, right?

So, how many of you guys have heard phrases like this?

I don't feel called to that.

I'm still waiting on my calling.

I haven't found my calling.

I think I missed my calling.

Oh, God is calling me into ministry.

Or look, look at her.

She's got a calling on her life.

Oh, this, I'm just doing this until I figure out my calling.

How many's ever said where you've heard who's ever heard phrases like that, right?

We hear these phrases, and what's interesting is when we talk about this, notice what's true about every one of those sentences.

Calling is always somewhere else, it's always in the future, it's always something you're waiting to take.

It's not quite here, it's always around the corner.

And and so, and and and we we tend to think that it's this future idea that we are living to kind of try to take hold of.

Okay?

Sometimes we think calling has specifically to do with gifting.

And so when I preach well, you know, when I preach well, somebody at a service will, you know, here from time to time, like, dude, you found your calling.

Dude, I don't know why they talk like that, but or if I don't preach well, it's like, hey, yeah, you know, uh I wonder if God is calling you to something else.

You know what I'm saying?

So we tend to relate calling specifically to talents and gifts.

No, it's it's not that it's not that, but we have a very, very small view which leaves so much room for discontent.

That's what I want to talk about for a second.

And I listen, I get it because we do have this desire in our hearts to see our gifts and passions and personality be woven together for the common good and the glory of God.

We do we do have that.

But what if calling is more than just my unique talents and gifts?

What if there's a broader sense of understanding calling that actually frees us and liberates us in whatever season that we're in?

Okay?

So here's what happened in church history that led a little bit to the tension that we face today.

So in the third and fourth century, it was a very important time in the church.

Um what happened was Christendom and Christianity became a state-sponsored religion.

And it became an official religion of uh uh in the third and fourth century.

And because of that, there was a concentration of power in the church, and it became somewhat of a center of gravity, ushered in this really wild new season in church history, which which was there was a hierarchical way of thinking because the church was at the center, the church was coupled with governmental power.

What happened was um they came into a way of thinking that some work is holy and sacred and other work is just okay.

All right.

So there was an actual guy, his name is Eusubius.

Everybody say Eusubius.

Everybody thank God your name isn't Eusubius.

He is the bishop of Caesarea, and he actually wrote in the fourth century that Christ had set up two ways of life.

One was called the perfect life and one was called the permitted life.

It was a division of what is sacred from what is secular.

Let me put this image up on the screen.

So the idea is that some work is sacred.

The church is in the center, the church work is sacred.

Church work is the most important work, according to Eusubias.

The perfect life was for priests and monks, prayer and worship and serving in the church, missionaries, the whole thing.

But everyone else didn't have the perfect life, they have the permitted life.

So if you're a farmer, an artist, a merchant, a homemaker, it's not evil, he said, but it's also not blessed.

It's just like, yeah, you can do that.

But man, right in the center is the sweet spot.

What do you really want?

If you want to do good work, you gotta be a pastor, you gotta be a minister, right?

And so the idea was that those on the outside were busy doing the things of the earth while the clergy handled all of the things of heaven in the center.

Now, this permeated everyone's thinking for about a thousand years.

You gotta understand.

That might feel like, well, dad, that's not that's not how it works.

But listen, for a thousand years, everyone's like, okay, yeah, that's that's I guess what it comes down to.

If you want to do the work of God, you gotta go to you know, ministry school, you gotta go to seminary, you gotta, you gotta give your life to that.

And otherwise, we're just doing the commoner's work.

So everyone else just had a job.

But when the 1500s came around, after the invention of the pr the printing press, uh people started to actually read the Bible.

Just it's just a wild thought that they couldn't actually read, they didn't just have access to Bibles.

They couldn't just kind of, we have like seven of these just laying around in the house, right?

You do too, probably.

They just didn't have these.

So they started reading the Bible again.

And they would read passages like 1 Peter 2, 9.

You, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Just imagine what that was like reading that with new eyes.

You are a kingdom of priests, which means that you're all priests.

The priests aren't the ones in the church, priests are anybody who is hidden in Christ.

And this this phrase called, you're called out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of marvelous light.

It's the same word.

You were you were called by God, you were chosen.

This something new has happened in you.

And a priest is a minister, and so if we're all now priests, then we are all ministers, and a minister just means one who serves.

And so when Peter says you are a priesthood, he's saying, we are all ministers.

There's no laity in the kingdom of God.

Everybody is a minister, and that's really the core idea, what they stumbled into, and it was a revelation of God that had to upend the church and actually reform everything.

This is where the whole Reformation, Martin Luther woke up to this whole idea and said, listen, we're missing out on everything that Jesus fought and died and paid for.

We're missing out on everything that the New Testament writers believed, that the priests aren't just the ones in the church, we're all priests.

And so now, because of this, and if that's true, that means everybody is called to be in full-time ministry.

Come on.

Everybody is called to be in full-time ministry.

Now, listen, the pastor or those who are in the work of the church, they do have a specific calling.

And it's a specific kind of ministry.

But so does the nurse, so does the guy who runs the soundboard, so does the woman who runs the dental practice.

But for the first time in this particular era, it was Martin Luther, he really concluded that he's like, oh my God, the housework of a maidservant could be more pleasing to God than all of the fasting of a monk because of the faith behind it.

And that it was like a Copernican revolution.

It was just we realized, oh my God, everything we thought was at the center of our lives.

It's not true.

God is in all of it.

And so everything shifted.

And so this new picture started to emerge that all work is sacred.

Instead of the church being the center of gravity, it turns out that Christ is the center of gravity.

And listen, I'm a church guy.

I love the church.

I love the church.

I love what I do.

But it's so freeing for me to even stand up in front of you and say, listen, my work matters, but your work matters just as much.

Because God has sown all of us into this world that He made in order to reflect His glory.

If we are in Christ, then all of us, our working is not only for Him, but for His glory on earth.

And so, yes, pastors, missionaries, prophets, evangelists, we we exist.

We're given to the church for the equipping of saints into every sphere of society.

And we do need healthy functioning churches for the flourishing of the world.

But make no mistake, the church is not at the center.

Christ and his kingdom are at the center of our very existence.

And through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are all ambassadors of his kingdom in every sphere of society.

Every place the sole of your foot treads is marked by the glory of God.

Amen.

And so this way of thinking is something that they had to come out of, and we have to come out of.

Confidence.

So listen, whatever work you're doing, do it heartily as for the Lord, because He's in it all.

Now, Dallas Willard doubles down on this as well in one of his writings.

He says this He says, It is as great and difficult a spiritual calling to run the factories and the mines, the banks and the department stores, the schools and government agencies for the kingdom of God as it is to pastor a church or serve as evangelists.

The division of vocations into sacred and secular does uncalculable damage to our individual lives and the cause of Christ.

Because what happens is everybody pulls back from the accelerator a little bit.

If you do not think that your work matters and is holy and sacred, that you will not get up every morning with the dependency on God and the Holy Spirit to guide you in every step, knowing that your work is actually going to have eternal consequences with whatever you've been given to do.

If we think it's just for the people who are, quote, qualified to do the work, then we are actually minimizing our participation in the kingdom of God.

That's not how God designed it, and it's what he wants us to wake up into.

And Dallas Willard continued to say that holy people should take up the holy orders of farming and industry and law and education and banking and journalism with the same zeal that we have been given to evangelism, pastoral, and ministry work.

Abraham Corper, a theologian who also ran a country, said it like this, and this is fantastic.

He said, There is not a single square inch of which the Christ, who alone is sovereign, does not declare, that is mine.

He looks at it all and says, It's mine.

I made that.

I made you, I have given you to this work.

So, with that being said, we get to just say with joy in our heart, I am in full-time ministry.

And just whatever you've been given to do, you can just kind of fill in the blank.

I am in full-time ministry and I am a nurse.

I am in full-time ministry and I am a homeschool teacher.

I am in full-time ministry and I am an accountant.

How freeing it is.

Everyone just say, I am in full-time ministry.

I believe you.

I believe you.

I hope that you believe that.

Because there's no better way to see, to order our days than to know that every second of the day He's given us to a good work.

So if we're in fully, if we're all in full-time ministry, that means that we are all fully called by God.

You have a vocation because God has called you.

Now, that word vocation, we tend to think that the word vocation is what we decide to do with our lives.

So, you know, when we talk about what do you do for a living?

Well, I'm in this vocation, or like, what vocation do you want to go into?

And we tend to talk about it with in a sense of where do you want to take this?

Where do you want to go?

What do you intend to do with your job or your career?

But the word vocation actually comes from the Latin vocare, which means to call.

The word voc is where we get vocal, vox, right?

Vocal.

It's it's it's to call.

It doesn't mean career, it means to call.

So that means that a voic a vocation is a voice you hear before it is a goal you set.

Vocation is a voice that you hear.

Uh uh Quaker writer Parker Palmer says it like this Vocation does not come from willfulness, it comes from listening.

So, for all the things that we're trying to do with our lives, Palmer also, he he would say it like this: before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, you need to listen for it, what it intends to do with you.

Or what God intends to do with you.

So to have a calling assumes that there is a caller.

There's somebody calling.

We're in pre-service prayer, and somebody's phone was going off for like 30 minutes.

I was like, God, are you calling?

He's he he called.

To have a calling means that there is a caller.

And that caller is God.

God is already at work in your life, God is already in the fabric and the substrate of your actual life.

We spend so much time trying to get our lives into a certain direction, a tremendous amount of energy to find out what we were made for, and it's always out there, it's never quite here.

And we tend to think vocation is simply just this very unique set of special work that God has given us.

No, there is part of that.

But there are three kinds of calling that the Bible refers to.

I think this is very important for us to kind of reclaim the calling language in a biblical lens.

Author Sky Jaithani, he wrote this in a book called Futureville, when he's talking about the world of God's order.

And there's three kind of rings that he he points out that the scriptures refer to of three types of calling.

We can put that on the screen.

In the center would be what we call the highest calling, which is a calling to Christ Himself.

And then around that is a common calling, which would be the commands of scriptures for all of us.

And then the outer ring would be this is what we normally refer to when we say vocation, would be a specific calling, like what am I doing with my life?

Okay.

The problem is most of us only want to talk about what we're doing.

And when we don't know what that is, nothing else really gets at us, is satisfying.

Okay, but the reason we have to look at all of them, because it all has to do with our flourishing and our joy.

So let's look at the highest calling, Christ Himself.

Before God calls you to do anything, he calls you to himself.

And this is what in John 15, when Jesus is speaking to his disciples, he said, You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you should go and bear fruit.

And this is when Jesus would call his disciples to him, he calls them first to be with him.

Our highest calling, as you guys know, is to be with God.

Osgenes said it like this.

He said, First and foremost, we are called to someone who is God, not to something, such as motherhood, politics, or teaching, or to somewhere, such as the inner city or outer Mongolia.

Our first calling is to someone.

And everything flows out of this first calling.

If you get this one right, then the next two mostly take care of themselves.

And what I love about this is that when you look at the early church, even the Greek word that refers to the community of saints, ecclesia.

The early church, the word ecclesia actually means the called-out ones.

The ones who are called out, the ones who are called by name into Christ, to be hidden with Christ, distinct and wrapped up, tucked away and treasured.

Our first calling is to be in Him, enfolded into His goodness and His beauty and His majesty.

And you almost imagine the Trinity just kind of dancing around you.

It's your first calling.

It's to be a part of the is to be wrapped up in the love and the affection of God.

And if you if that get, if you will let that calling get to you, you can not ever find anything that you were, you'll never, even if you never got your dream job, you would still be satisfied.

Because you are hidden in Christ.

So our first calling is to God Himself.

And that's already yours.

So you're called, you're called out of one kingdom into another.

So guess what?

You are called.

You've got a calling.

Good job, guys.

You found it.

You found your calling.

And then from there, we have these common callings, and these are the commands of scriptures for all of us.

And so when we read through the scriptures and it says, love one another, forgive the one who wronged you, give to the one in need, honor your father and mother, be ready to tell somebody why you have hope.

There's hundreds of these all throughout the scripture.

And every single one of them applies to all of us in every time and place, every Christian for all of time.

Okay?

And so and because of that, I can get up here and say to you unashamedly, husbands, love your wives.

And what should not happen is after the service, I shouldn't have a husband come up to me and be like, you know what?

I don't know if I feel called to that.

Just not feeling.

I don't know if I feel called.

It's like, dude, I didn't ask you.

It's not, it didn't ask you what you feel called to.

So a common calling are things that are expected of us.

And so that's why we have these opportunities as a church, like, hey, go serve and give, and let's fill up a blessing bag.

Let's do this.

And you know, and it applies differently to all of us, but the assumption is these are not things for a few of us.

This is for all of us.

It's a common calling.

And it's a good thing.

It's a good thing to have a common calling.

You know why?

Because nobody ever feels called to take out the trash.

Like on any time we have a volunteer card, if we put who wants to take out the trash, nobody is going to be like, you know what?

God spoke to me.

This is what I'm supposed to do.

I mean, there's, there's, there's probably, that's probably happened, and I'm sure that's happened with some of you.

God's called you the lowest common denominator.

But the reason why we have to receive these callings is like this is what God, this is what the collective of Scripture expects of us, is because we're seeking to live into a way of life, into everyday faithfulness.

And so what we'll find, what we find though is that as we respond to the highest calling, as we're living in Christ and our lives are hidden with him, yes, God, thank you for calling me to you.

And then as we respond in faithfulness to the common callings, then often God releases us into specific callings, assignments, skills, tasks that he gives to us.

Um, and this is in Ephesians 2, when Paul is writing, he says, For we are his workmanship.

Again, we're we're part of, we're what God has worked on.

We're part of his work, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

And it is true that I believe for all of us, that before the foundations of the world were laid, before we were created, God was already thinking about the cool creative things that he would invite us into.

Those cool creative things, those good works, may not be what's on your list, but they're what's on his list.

Like, for instance, Moses, like, he didn't want to be the guy that went to Egypt.

He didn't get called into his gifting.

His calling had nothing to do with his gifting.

He wasn't good at speaking.

He had to recruit somebody else to speak for him.

He wasn't good, but God called him anyway.

God doesn't always call us into our greatest gifting, but he calls us into his purposes that he was thinking of beforehand for our time and for our day.

And as we're hidden in Christ, as we are faithful in the common life around us, then he releases us into assignments.

And those things have to be discerned with the Holy Spirit, affirmed in community, in communion with God.

And we see that all throughout the New Testament of people springing up and rising up.

Paul and Barnabas, they would be commissioned to go out.

We recognize this work that God is doing in your life.

We're going to send you out in blessing.

In fact, there's a story right now of a family in this church who's getting ready to ready.

Um they feel like God is calling them to mobilize their whole family to go to Japan, which is not something that was on the top of their list when you hear their story, and eventually you will hear their story.

Um, but uh in fact, they have a lot of reasons to resist that as a call of God because they've done that before.

They've done the missionary stuff before.

And now this new thing is surfacing, and they're like, oh my God, God is God is called, I think God is calling us to go serve in Japan.

And it was, it's really fun because when I look at this family, I can see with this family, they got the highest call thing in order.

They are hidden in Christ.

They don't need specific work to make them feel better about their lives.

That's settled in Christ.

They do the everyday faithfulness stuff very well.

And then in the context of all that, these new dreams and visions are starting to percolate inside of them.

And that's what happens for us.

So I lay out those kind of three rings of calling just with a couple observations here.

Um, number one, we tend to over-rely on individual specific callings to make us feel settled with where our lives are going.

But listen, it can never replace the deep meaning and satisfaction that comes from your first calling as a son and daughter of God.

It just can't.

Even if you get to your dream job, if you do not have that settled, it'll never be good enough.

It'll never there's gonna be this on ongoing restlessness, rootlessness.

And because of that, calling is not something we go out and find somewhere.

You it's something we listen for from the caller.

And that means that we can be called right here and now, not just in a future day, even if not everything in your life is settled or resolved, you can take heart that you are fully called.

What would it be like if you stopped hunting for your calling and started listening for it in the still small voice places?

What would it be like to live now, today, fully called, satisfied in God, no matter what you are doing, Monday through Friday?

How would that feel?

Because I believe it's possible in Christ.

Can you imagine?

Just imagine being so yielded to God that instead of striving for what we think our lives ought to become, we just get to let go and receive whatever whispers he actually has to bring to us today.

And now we're free to hear from him again.

We release the attachments of what we think our lives ought to become, and we receive the gentle, patient, kind voice of the Father.

Inviting us, leading us.

Doesn't that feel freeing?

Doesn't it feel freeing to know that you are already fully called, that your life already counts, that all of your work is sacred and holy, and now as you rest into that, you get to wait for the wind of the Spirit to take you wherever he wants to take you.

Because you're called, you're already called.

And it's amazing when these three things come together, how that it just there's so many stories that could be shared.

One of my favorite stories has to do with um somebody in history that many of us studied in grade school, George Washington Carver.

If you know anything about this guy's life, he was born in slavery in Missouri around the end of the Civil War.

He never knew his birthday.

His father died before he was born.

As a baby, he and his mother were kidnapped by raiders, only he was recovered.

Um, he was raised by a couple who had actually owned his mother, and so uh uh so they were very sick and too frail.

So he spent most of his childhood in the woods and in the garden asking questions about plants, and he spent a lot of time with plants because this is the life he had been given.

He ended up getting accepted to college, but they turned him away at the door when he saw he was black.

Um, but he kept going back.

He became the first black student at Iowa State University, the first black faculty member.

In night in 1896, Booker T.

Washington called him to Tuskegee, Alabama to teach farming to the children of former slaves, and he ended up staying for 47 years.

And so he he came to Christ as a boy, and listen to this he came to Christ as a boy, and every morning before dawn he walked in the woods and he would pray.

And he called his lab, the woods, God's little workshop.

He'd just go out there and have these conversations.

So he had this he was connected to the source.

He was his highest call.

God got to him at a very young age.

And so he just saw the world as God's laboratory, his workshop.

And for years and even decades, he would taught, he served poor families.

He drove a wagon out on weekends to show sharecroppers how to feed their families.

And he's living a hidden and quiet life, secretly faithful.

He got the common calling, he was just serving faithfully and what he had been given.

But what happened was over time something started to take shape in his life.

And as the South was dying on cotton, the soil was exhausted.

Um the crops couldn't produce uh what they needed to.

And and so Carver, he had he would begin to say had these revelations about uh plants and specifically peanuts, and he told the farmer, he said, he said, you know, what you want to do in the field is go plant peanuts and it'll heal the ground.

And they did, and nobody wanted peanuts though.

So he went back into the workshop, the prayer closet, the hidden life with God, and he asked God, what do we do with the peanuts?

Have you ever prayed that prayer before?

What do we do with the peanuts?

And so he told this story.

He said, This this is a story, this isn't just legend.

He's he had this conversation with God.

He said, Mr.

Creator, why did you make the universe?

You love that, Mr.

Creator.

Mr.

Creator, why did you make the universe?

God said back to him, Little man, you want to know too much.

Your mind is too small to know that.

He said, Okay, Mr.

Creator, then why did you make man?

God said back to him, You're still asking too much.

Cut down on the extent and improve the intent.

He said, Mr.

Creator, why did you make the peanut?

And God responded, now that's better.

That's more nearly your size.

So he went back and he took the peanut apart and he started to disassemble the peanut to find the oil, the protein, the starch, the sugar.

And over the next few years, he discovered around 300 uses for the peanut: milk, flour, paper, dyes, soap, plastics, cosmetics.

In 1921, he testified before convergents about the peanut.

They gave him 10 minutes.

He talked for over an hour with a standing ovation.

The con a congressman asked him where he learned this.

He said, from an old book.

They said, which book?

He said, The Bible.

And he went on and just kept inventing and inventing and inventing.

He would never have called himself into this, but here's a guy who got redeemed his story as a young boy.

He came into Christ.

As a young boy, he learned to live.

He became curious.

And as an adult, he realized, man, my specific assignment has to do with peanuts.

But it appears like he just had a lot of fun.

And I love the story because we don't always get to choose how it all unfolds.

And I'm saying there is a life available in God when we respond to Him, when we participate with Him.

But I just I speak all of this that we would be rest assured today, if nothing else, that you we would just know this, it would be settled in our hearts that you are called by God.

You're already in full time ministry.

God sees you, He loves you, He has good work prepared for you that He's been thinking about before He created the world.

You are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works.

That's not Something you have to strive to find.

It's a gift that you get to receive because there is a voice calling out to you if you're ready to receive it.

You are called by God as a son and daughter.

Amen.

So we're gonna take a moment to sing into this today, but a couple things I just want to leave with us.

You might be here in this room, and maybe the questions that you hold in this season, you just feel like maybe you feel that sense of restlessness in your own life.

You're always looking for something somewhere else out there.

And it's not to say that that's there aren't things out there, but there's a chronic state of discontent.

And I believe, as I was praying for you this week, I believe that God wants to free you to settle that in your heart.

That everything you need can be found in Christ.

Some of you here might feel like second class.

Like the life that you've been given is a second class kind of life.

It's and you're spiritually behind somehow.

You see what other people are doing.

You feel like what your life has become is spiritually behind.

I'm just telling you, that is a lie from Satan.

You are right where you need to be, and your life is hidden in Christ and God.

So let's just take a moment and sing this song together.

In this song, we receive the gift that God has good plans for us.

Can we stand together?

I know my father.

I know my father has good plans.

Do you guys believe that today?

Let's do this together.

Just I want you to consider the work that is waiting for you this week.

And again, like we talked about last week, even if you're in retirement, whatever, we think about what you have to look forward to in the task of the assignments.

Just put your hands out in front of you today.

And we're just gonna hold your work before God.

And just in a posture of surrender, we want to offer it back to God.

God, I thank you for every gift, every assignment, the labor that you've given us to do.

I thank you for those who work with their minds, those who work with people, those who work with their hands.

And today I just thank you that the Spirit of the Lord is upon us because you have anointed us for the work that you've called us to do.

I pray over every person in this room, anywhere where there's a spirit of disqualification or disapproval or not good enough or the shame of what we've been given, I thank you that that ends right now and that we declare that the work that you've given us to do is holy, it's sacred, it's set apart because our lives are hidden with you.

I thank you for freedom in this place.

Freedom from bel for believing because we believe that you are over all and above all, and you rule and reign, and this whole earth is yours, and we get to participate with you, God.

So bless the work of our hands as we move from this place as full-time ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In Jesus' name, we pray together.

And everybody said, Amen.

Come on, thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, God.

Thank you, God.

How does that feel?

So, what's really fun in a few weeks, we're actually going to do a commissioning service and actually bless all of you and anoint you all with oil for the things that God has sent to you, all right?

But today we get to go rejoicing, remembering that we are called.

So, a couple things to remember as we end the service here today.

Number one, for anybody is willing to hang out after the service and actually just give us an hour or two of your time.

We have a lot of work to prep for the Western Roundup, which is this Friday.

So if you're willing to hang up, stack chair, hang out, stack chairs, bring out some tables, that would be awesome help.

And then after a little while, we're gonna have a bunch of pizza delivered.

So if you have no lunch plans, just stick around and we'll feed you, okay?

If you're a guest, we'd love to uh to meet you in the back at the connect with us sign.

And uh and again, as we go, we're going as ministers, all of us, because that's what God's called us to do.

Love you guys.

Bless you, have an awesome afternoon.