Thing. Intentional Living is something that's not just a cute, catchy, like, series title or something like that, which today is the third in a ser in this series, the third and final in the series, I should say. But it's something that I believe, if you're paying attention, kind of in between the lines of Scripture, you see that Jesus lived his life with a lot of intentionality. That even though there were unplanned things that happened and he seemed to almost welcome the interruptions, he didn't just kind of push them away. In fact, there's several times where those around him tried to push the interruptions away.

And he says, no, I'm going to embrace that. I'm going to allow that. I'm going to bring that into my life. We, we know that he. He still, even though he welcomed those interruptions, his steps, his days, his actions were lived with an intentional focus on his goal.

His goal, of course, was his sacrificial death on our behalf, on behalf of the need that we had that we couldn't fulfill, that only he could. And so, as I look at how do we apply that to our life? How do we apply that to the congregation of believers? How do we live that out? I recognize that there's a model and an example that Jesus set for us and that we can follow that example and live according to the pattern that he set before us.

So there's going to be kind of three things today that we're going to look at. There's going to be the idea that we share our witness with others, our witness of who Christ is and what Christ has done in our lives, and we share that with others intentionally. We have to do that with intentionality. It doesn't just happen, usually by accident. We also have to look at the idea that there's some people that might not have actually says, I'm going to follow Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.

They might say, well, I've been kind of along this religious pathway for a while. I've attended church, or I've grown up knowing the Scriptures, or my grandmother knew the scriptures and took me to church or whatever it might be. But they haven't actually given their heart and life over to Jesus Christ. And that you have to have an intentional moment in your life where you set aside to do that. And finally, there might be those who are called to serve Christ in what we call vocational ministry, a calling that God puts on your life in a specific way, to serve him in a specific way.

So that's what we're going to look at today, we're going to start with a scripture from, from Romans chapter 10, and we're going to start down in verse 13. Now, last week we were a couple chapters ahead of this in Romans 12. Today we're in Romans chapter 10. And a guy named Paul, he grew up, he was known as Saul of Tarsus. And then he had a radical moment where he was traveling to do something really bad that he thought was really good.

He thought he was doing the right thing, and it turns out he's doing the wrong thing. Have you ever been there? You think you're on the right path, and then Jesus kind of smacks you and says, hey, stop it. You know, like, don't do that thing. Well, Saul of Tarsus had that radical moment.

We call it the Damascus Road experience. He's on the road to Damascus and he had an experience. It's not that creative of a name, but he had the Damascus Road experience. He's blinded for three days. He fasts, doesn't eat or drink anything for three days, and he just spends the time in prayer.

Might be a good remoment or a good moment to remind us that. Did I say remoment? Good reminder. A good moment to remind us that. I told you this morning, I'm foggy today.

Okay, we're going to get through this. Though it might be a good moment to remind us that sometimes just a short minute, like little prayer isn't what is called for in the moment. The obstacle that you're up against, the moment in your life that you're facing might require more than just a little bedtime prayer or a good morning, God, how are you prayer. You understand what I'm saying? Like, like the, the thing that you're up against might require you to actually book some time and say, I'm going to spend some time praying.

Now, Saul of Tarsus later becomes this guy that we call the Apostle Paul. He had not only a conversion in who he, how he orientated his life around Jesus, oriented. I don't know. I'm going to say a lot of weird words today. It seems like already I just tell you that he oriented his life around Jesus and, and so that was a major thing.

But he also gets a name change, an identity change, where he became known by an entirely different name and that categorized his life in service to Jesus Christ. In other words, he could look back at that moment, even though that's not when his name changed, but it is when his MO changed, like how he operated changed. And so this guy that we know, by the way. I said he was praying for three days. Like, then a guy that really didn't want to do this job, God called a guy named Ananas and he says, ananas.

He's like, what? That was startling, you know, like, what? Where is that God? Yeah. I want you to go find this guy and pray for him.

He's like, okay, I can do that. Yeah, that's fine. He's like, it's Saul of Tarsus. He's like, oh, not that guy. That guy's locking up people like me.

He's trying to persecute us, maybe even kill us. I don't want to go after and go pray for that guy. And God says to me, he says, listen, you don't know what I've been doing. For three days, that man's been praying, and I have heard his prayers. Amen.

And he says, I've heard his prayers, and I've been showing him just all the ways that he's going to suffer for me. I know on a day when I might say that God might be calling some of you to serve Christ in a specific way, you don't want to hear that that call might involve suffering, but it might. It might. And we have to be willing to do that. Because Jesus spoke words of things like, those who want to come after me and follow me must take up their cross every day.

That's not a light thing. That's not a simple thing. So Saul of Tarsus, who later becomes Paul the Apostle. He, this man named Ananias, eventually agrees to do what God called him to do. And the Bible's full of reluctant servants of God, right?

Like Moses and Jonah. Some of these people are like, God, I don't want to do that thing you're calling me to do. And yet God says, go ahead and do it anyway. And so finally they do. And God does big and miraculous things through them.

Ananias goes, lays hands on Saul. He receives his sight. He goes, and he's baptized, and he eats. And then he immediately begins preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen.

So Paul here is the one that's writing this book to the people of the church of Rome. Many he's familiar with, many that he's never met. But he still knows their story because he's ministered to some of the people that. That live there now and that are part of this church. And one of the things that he says to them is, is that everyone.

We're starting in chapter 10, verse 13. Everyone who calls on the name of The Lord shall be saved. Folks, I could preach an entire message on that and keep you longer, like until your tummy start rumbling for lunch. Okay? But that's not the only point because we got to get through a couple things today.

These next couple of verses are some of my favorites. In fact, these next couple verses are one of the things that God used in my life personally to move me from a place where I was serving as an associate pastor at a church to a place where God said, I want you to preach the Word. And at that point, I hadn't. Up to that point, I hadn't felt like that was my thing. I was teaching in a lot of classes on Wednesday nights and on Sundays and things like that.

But I wasn't the guy up front preaching. And God using these verses confirmed that call in me. He'd already been putting it on my heart, but he spoke these verses to me. Folks, you can read the Bible and at one point it'll mean maybe nothing to you, maybe it won't mean very much. But then God drew my attention to this at one point and he says, this is for you today.

Listen to what he says. Paul says, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That's simple enough, right? The grace of God for salvation is for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord. Praise God for that.

Jesus spoke those words, John 3:16. You know, that, that. That God sent his Son so that no one should perish, but all might be able to come to everlasting life is for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord. But how are they to call on one that they have not believed in? This is just a simple logic progression here.

He's working backwards from it to, to find the root cause of this. He says, how can someone even call on somebody that they've not believed in? How are they to believe in someone they've never heard of? You know, there was a time in the United States of America where you would be hard pressed if you spent a week going around interviewing people, man on the street kind of interviews, do you know who Jesus Christ is? Do you know who Jesus is?

Have you ever heard about him? And you would be hard pressed to find somebody to find anybody who didn't at least know who Jesus Christ was. Today I can't say the same thing. Today it would not be very hard at all to go throughout the streets and towns in America and find people who are like. I mean, I've heard the name when somebody, like, hit their hand with a hammer.

Or something, you know, like. But I don't know what it meant. I just thought it was a cuss word or something. They don't actually know who Jesus Christ is these days. And he says, how are they to believe in one that they have not heard of?

And how are they to hear what without someone preaching to them? And how are those people supposed to preach unless they are sent? Let's pray. Lord, today I believe you're calling us. I believe you're calling us not just to believe in you for salvation, although, Lord, we thank you for that.

Lord, I don't believe you're calling us today just to faithfully follow the life and pattern and example that Christ has given to us. I don't believe you're just calling us to walk in the, the newness of life, the forgiveness of sins, and the salvation that we can hold onto for all of eternity. But Lord, I believe you're calling us to serve you, each and every one of us, in a new and deeper way. Lord, I believe you're calling us to our neighbors, our friends and our family and our relatives, to people that we know and people that we don't know alike. Lord, show us today that each one of us in our hearts might know that your Holy Spirit has spoken to us.

Show us what our path is that you want us to walk down. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. If you start reading in the book of Acts after, in Acts, chapter 2, Jesus had promised something that would come to pass, and it does. The Holy Spirit of God shows up to a whole group of believers.

There's 120 people in one room and he shows up there. They've been praying for about 10 days now. 10 days of being with a whole bunch of people that maybe you're cool with, but you're not, like the best of friends with. It's a long time. I've been on youth retreats that lasted three days.

And some of us were ready to fist fight each other. And these were our best friends. Like, well, you're not used to being around the same people that much. Ten days is a long time. But there are 10 days fasting.

Have you ever gone without one meal and you kind of get a little angry, like, we call it hangry. You're hungry and angry at the same time. Can you imagine 10 days of fasting and praying and. And yet they were all, the Bible says, in one accord. That's not the Honda, you know, that's like they're together, you know, they're in togetherness.

And in this togetherness, they agreed in the same thing, they agreed that God was about to do something and they couldn't possibly know what it was. But they were seeking the face and hand of God in these 10 days. And at the end of that, they didn't know what time it would be or what it would look like. But the Holy Spirit shows up and he just in. We call it indwells in them.

He abides in them. He lives in them. As I mentioned earlier when we were praying, we, the body of believers are the temple or the residing place of the Holy Spirit of God. And so the Holy Spirit came down in their midst. Now, this body of believers, starting with 120 of them, is the temple of God.

And. And they start speaking because the Spirit gave them this ability to begin communicating the good of Jesus Christ in different languages that they had never learned before. I've tried to learn another language. I've tried to learn Spanish, and I'm not great at that. Also, sometimes I speak like I'm Russian.

Like, I'm a Russian American immigrant. My daughter used to think when I would do that, that I was actually speaking Russian. I'm like, no, it's. It's English. I'm just acting like, never mind.

You know, I used to work with a Russian guy, and I just kind of modeled it after the way he talked, and it was great. I love that guy. Well, so it's like, I'm not good with other languages. I can't just start speaking another language. But the Holy Spirit gave them ability to speak in other languages that the people who were visiting Jerusalem understood it was their native languages.

And they say, wait a minute, we're hearing things. New things about God in our own language. This is great. Now, after this time, by the way, 3,000 people on that day said, I want to follow this guy. I want to follow Jesus like he, He, He.

He's the way, the truth and the life. I'm going to give my life to him and allow him to be my Lord and Savior. So they. They begin following Jesus Christ. Now what happens after that?

Jesus had given his disciples what we call the Great Commission. And in this Great Commission in Matthew, what is it? 20, verse 28, 29. Somewhere in there, he says. He says, I want you, as you're going about, to go into all the world and preach the good news, starting in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth.

I added that word, starting. I don't mean. He didn't say it as if you start Here. And as soon as you've accomplished it here, then you move to here. What he meant is the gospel is going to radiate out from Jerusalem starting on that day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came down in their midst and empowers them.

He says it's going to radiate out from there. Jerusalem, the region of Judea that surrounds it, and then Samaria, which was like the people that they didn't like, it was their kind of half foreign neighbors that they just weren't friends with, you know, that they really had some beef with. He says it's going to go into Samaria and then it's just going to go from there to the ends of the earth, like literally everywhere. Now when Jesus said that, I don't know if they understood exactly what he meant. And when he said that, they didn't really think about it that much, it seems like until it began happening.

Now it's interesting that the 12 people that Jesus spoke that to his 12 apostles were not the ones through whom the spread of the gospel through those regions really happened with. Like, it wasn't through them that that spread really happened. Sure, we have records of Paul traveling all over as a missionary. And yeah, I believe that the gospel spread, but it seems like almost every city that he went to throughout the Roman Empire, what he found were some believers. And he started going to those Christian believers who were living there, and he would speak to them and teach them more about Jesus Christ and then their numbers would grow.

Now, there are times where he did not find any Christian believers. So he spoke to either, you know, Roman people that were kind of of a Hellenistic or Greek mentality that weren't Jewish. And sometimes he spoke to the Jewish believers, but they usually ran him out of town because they didn't what he was saying. Like, we've had some pastors that get treated pretty bad by their churches, but most of them don't get run out of town, you know, like right away, like Paul did. He was pretty intense guy, you know, he was really intense.

Well, they, they, they, the, the church initially spread because the lay people like, like the, the, the regular everyday believers that weren't in, they weren't apostles, they weren't pastors, they weren't bishops and overseers. These were the folks that you just showed up to church every week and said, you know what? Like, if I move, wherever I move to, I'm gonna, I'm gonna reach my neighbors for Jesus Christ. And you know what ended up happening in Acts chapter seven, there's this thing that takes place. There's this guy named Stephen.

And they really didn't like Stephen because he was so full of the power of the Holy Spirit that every time he preached, the Jewish people began understanding through his preaching that Jesus was their expected Messiah. And they began following the word of God by serving Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And so the Jewish leaders said, we've got to do something with this Stephen guy. And so they put him on trial. And he gives this long, long rambling story about their whole history as Jews, as Israelites.

And then finally he's like, and then. And then Jesus. Yeah, you killed him. Like, you killed him like you killed all the other prophets. When will you guys ever stop killing the prophets of God?

And they're like, ah, we're done with you. And they stone Stephen. They kill him there. On the day that Stephen was martyred, he's the first Christian who dies for his faith. He's a martyr.

On the day that he's martyred, it says a great persecution broke out against the church. And the Christians were scattered. People picked up and moved. They picked up and left. People that were living in Jerusalem and Judea, they left.

And they went all over the Roman Empire, and they would find other Jews, and they would move into those communities where other Jews lived. And what they would do is they would share their faith with them. They'd say, hey, have you heard about Jesus? And they're like, no, we haven't. They would say, well, you know how you and I share the hope that God is going to send his Messiah?

And they said, yes. Said, can we tell you that he's already been here? Can I introduce you to him? And they said, yeah, I'd love that. And so they would share the hope of the Messiah with their fellow brethren.

And these groups of Jews would become believers in Christ. And then they would be talking with the people they'd meet in the marketplace, and they would be maybe non Jewish people, like Greek folks. And they would speak to them and they would say, do you know that there's hope beyond this life? And they would say, man, there's sometimes where it just feels like there's nothing in this life. Like everything I chase after leaves me feeling more and more empty and hopeless.

And they would share with them there's hope in Christ. And so the faith in Christ started to spread throughout the whole Roman Empire. Not with the work of bishops and elders and deacons and overseers and apostles, although they had their part to play. It started happening when common laity Lay folks, lay people in the church just shared their witness wherever they went. In case you didn't know it, I'm about to lay something on you.

You all have a job to do. I'm your pastor. I love you guys. I'm not the one. I mean, I have my own responsibility as a Christian, as an individual believer in Christ.

I'm not trying to, like, duck that responsibility, but what I'm saying is it's not my job to spread the gospel to our whole community. It's our job. And you have your own part to play in that. One of the things that we have is A. And I told you earlier, there would be, like, another QR code.

This is where you get your phone out. Right now, I want to see phones in the air. If you've got a smartphone, let's get it going here. All right. Now, I'm not going to have you turn the flashlight.

I don't see near enough movement. I know you guys have them. I see you posting on Facebook. Okay, like, let's get it going here. Thanks, Eric.

You got the light on. I appreciate it. Like, it's not a concert, though. We don't need to. What I want you to do is get your camera app and there's going to be a slide, like, maybe now on the screen.

There it is. So you can even put it on the video. You know, like, we can put it. There we go. Good.

So what you're going to do is just follow these simple directions. I know if you're watching this later on a video, you can't open your camera and take a picture of the thing that's on your screen. We'll put a link in the description on the video for it, too. We put these on YouTube every week. If you can follow directions, we're just going to leave that up there for a while, like, while I'm talking, and you're just going to work on it.

If you can't figure it out, have somebody beside you help you. And if that doesn't work, well, that's what the connect cards are for. Just say, like, bless. Just write the word bless. Write your name, phone number, email, whatever it is that we need to get a hold of you.

And we're going to get you signed up for this. Now I'm going to tell you what you're signing up for. It won't cost you anything. It won't hurt you one bit. What you're going to do is.

And by the way, like, I'll give you a couple quick directions if you need to. You can pinch and zoom with your fingers on your camera to zoom in on it and get a little closer to where that thing is on an iPhone. I know this. A little yellow box will pull up and you click on that yellow link and then you go from there and you fill out what you want to do. So, and if you're closer to the back and want to use the screen on the back, there's one back there as well.

So there's that availability to you. Now, what this is, it's called Bless Every Home. A few of you are already signed up for this, but what it does is every day it gives you. Either you can download their free app or you can just get reminders by email. And it will give you a list of your neighbors, because you put in your address and it'll give you a list of your neighbors that are like the closest 40 homes around you.

Most of the time, it's pretty up to date. Sometimes somebody moves and it doesn't update very quickly, but it'll give you a list of them. And every day it'll remind you of five of them that you can pray for. And you just pray for your neighbors by name. And then what you can do after that is you can.

You can then go and you can, if you happen to, like, do something with one of those neighbors, sharing your faith with them, you can mark it in a different way that shows that you shared the gospel with one of them. And then there's another way you can do it where if you do more, that if you begin discipling them, taking care of them as a disciple of Christ, then you can mark that and show that you share their faith. If they become a Christian, a believer in this process, you can mark it that way. And what it is, is what you're actually doing is not only signing up for this, but you're joining in with this local church, and you're what's going to be called a light. You're signing up to be a light.

You're already the light of the world. Jesus says if you believe in Christ as your savior, but this is going to give you that opportunity to be a light with this local church. And what it'll do is every time you pray for somebody, share with them, do something along those lines.

It becomes another stat that shows that our church is doing this. There's one more thing that I want to tell you about that can happen. You see one of the best ways that you can connect people with this local church and maybe meet your New Best friends, I don't know, is to click on there as you're signing up. I believe there's an opportunity for you to click to receive what's called new movers. When somebody moves in from more than 20 miles away and they.

And they're close to you, it can automatically tell you, hey, this is a new person that moves in nearby where you live. And what you get to do is maybe come up with, like, take the little invitation cards we have, maybe you could bake them some cookies or just whatever you want to do that you can give some kind of a little gift to them, and you can hand it to them and. And just knock on their door, leave it there, say, hey, you know, I heard you moved here recently. If there's anything that I can help you with, like, if you need insurance, you know, whatever it is, you need to find out who does air conditioning repairs. Just by the way.

If you don't know some of that stuff, I'd be happy to help you. Just text me like, they asked for an air conditioning guy. I don't know one. I've got people like, I can send you the recommendation and you can look like the hero. You know what I'm saying?

You're like, yeah, use this company. And they don't have to know. You know, it's fine. But you can be a help to them, but also be a connection. Point to them and invite them to come with you to church.

Invite them to where you can share the gospel with them. Now, there's steps along the way, too, and we'll be talking about these over a little while, because I love the organization that creates this. This group called Bless Every Home. And Bless has a few things. It's actually an acronym.

It begins with prayer. Every day you begin by praying for your neighbors. The next word, L, is listen. As you talk with somebody, you listen to them. Yesterday we pulled home for a few minutes.

I was supposed to leave within an hour, and I had about 45 minutes of things I needed to do. But my neighbor was home. She was across the street. She works six days a week, and she's always, you know, gone. But she was home.

She had her dog out there, and she's taking care of her plants. And she said, hey, how's it going? And I just went over to talk with her. And as I'm talking, I'm just listening. She's doing most of the talking.

She's talking about how much she's working. She's talking about how her husband's getting a Little bit sick. She's talking about how her mom had been in the hospital recently, but she's home. But she needs a lot of care, and her and her siblings are taking care of her. We talked about all these things, and most of it was just me listening.

I didn't offer solutions. I'm just there to listen. And if there's a way that I can help her, I will. And then there's this next step. Now, this is the one that takes a little bit more work on our part.

Some of us don't like the idea of, say, opening up your house and inviting somebody in for a meal. So maybe you would offer to take them out. But the next one is something we do hopefully at least two, maybe three times a day. Hopefully not more than five. Eat.

If you eat more than five times a day, fine. But I just maybe on one of those weird diets where it's like, no, I just eat, like, 17 tiny meals. I'm like, I think that's just called snacking. But anyway, have you ever met somebody with one of those diets were like, I'm supposed to eat six times a day. I'm like, I just think that's called, you don't quit.

You know, you're just constantly eating anyway. But there's. There's the eat thing. It's not just. It's not just like, hey, we've all got to eat.

Let's do it at the same time in the same place. It's sharing fellowship with them. It's sharing a meal with them. You might say, well, can I take you to dinner? We have to.

Our house has, like, no dining space in it. There's. There's a little tiny table, and we put three of us at it. That's it. You know, it's.

It's hard to get anybody in there. If somebody else wants to eat in our house, we got to put them on the three stools, you know, at the little counter overlooking the kitchen. And that just feels rude to make somebody sit on a stool, you know, to eat. But anyway, it's rough. But, you know, every now and then we'll do it.

But it's easier to say, hey, let me take you out to dinner. By the way, if you take somebody out to dinner on a Sunday, please be really nice to your servers and leave a big tip, okay? Christians are notorious for being the worst clients. Don't be those. Right?

Amen. All right, that's just a side note. I know you guys wouldn't be that way, but I've heard some people are. The next step is one of the S's, and it's serve. Serving your neighbors.

How can you help them? How can you walk alongside of them at something they're going through in life? And then the last thing is story. Sharing your story with them, sharing your story of how you came to Christ or how Christ has changed your life. In fact, if you don't know how to share your faith with someone else, the easiest way, if you want a real simple way, you can do it in less than a minute.

In fact, that might be the best way. You can just simply formulate it this way. And I would encourage you. I'm not saying stand in front of a mirror and practice it, but it might be good to write it down and say it a few times. You might simply do, hey, before I knew Jesus Christ, this was what my life was like.

And you just simply describe it. Since I've known Jesus Christ, here's how my life has changed. Before I knew Christ, blank. Since I've known Christ, blank. You have to fill in those blanks because your story is unique and your story is different.

And God is going to use your story to reach people no matter where they're at in life. Your story is unique to you, and God can uniquely use you to reach other people. Amen. But another thing that I think our church needs to be intentional about is to create what we might call a culture of calling. In other words, I believe that there are people here today, in this church, upstairs and downstairs, young and old, that God is going to call or is calling right now to serve him in a unique and special way.

And so what we want to do is kind of focus our church ministries on a culture where we recognize that calling, one of the ways we do that, and we haven't offered it in a little while, but one of the ways that we do that is having what we call a SHAPE course, one more acronym. This is the last one. I think it's spiritual gifts, heart abilities, personality and experiences. And I'm not going to get into all of that because time's ticking away really, really quickly here. But shape is where you discover your unique kingdom, purpose.

And if we understand the body of Christ like the Bible describes it, as each part of the body being maybe a little bit different, some of them a little more like, glamorous or useful than others, but every part being necessary for the body to function. On the human body, that's how it works. And in the church body, that's how it works as well. Each One of us has a role within the church, not necessarily within the walls of this building, because you are the church, not this building is the church. And within the church, each one of us has a function.

Each one of us has something we do. And without that, the whole thing isn't functioning well. And as you are living out the function that God has gifted you with or given to you, you need to be utilizing that and putting it to work. In addition to that, I believe that the scripture tells us that God, through his Holy Spirit, has given us certain gifts to be employed in that work and in that ministry. And so one of the things that we do with a Shape class is there's two ways that we do it.

One is what I call shape. One day, and it's a couple hours long, we meet together on an afternoon, maybe a Sunday afternoon. We could schedule it on a different time. And you come in with a few other folks and we'll just kind of go through a few things. And it kind of whets your appetite and gets you opened up to this idea that you have a kingdom purpose that God has uniquely, you know, kind of crafted you with and given to you to fulfill within his kingdom.

And. And then the other thing that we do is we do a longer version of it where it's like, you know, six, like six classes, six weeks long. And we take an introductory week and then kind of a week on each one of these lessons or each one of these words and have a lesson on each one. And so if you'd be interested in a Shape one day, write Shape on one of the connection cards. So the first option is write Bless.

If you couldn't get the technology to work, the next option is to write. To write Shape on there. But the last point, the final point on this, is that you might be called to specific, what we call vocational ministry, that God is calling people that are already believers in Christ. He's calling people that are already working, serving him within the church. But he might be saying, I have a different specific role for you.

And I'll tell you what. Across the Florida District Church of the Nazarene, you know what's interesting to me? I see more people that are yalls age group than like the age group that's younger than me. I see more people Yalls age group, that's the average age across here that are maybe like kind of. You say, well, I'm retired.

I'm at a stage in life where I don't want to take on a new thing. And yet that's the group that God's been calling across the Nazarene churches in Florida, it seems, and saying, I want you to serve me as a minister of the gospel, as a pastor, the people that are going through our courses of study. My mother is one of them. She's upstairs with the kids. She's in her 70s.

And she said, you know, God's calling me to do this. Now, she's talked about that for years, but she just recently said, God's called me to go ahead and get pastoral credentials. And it's like, wow, okay. Like. And I started.

I didn't try to talk her out of it. I just said, do you know how much work that is right now? Like, she's like, yeah, I've already looked into it. She's telling me stuff I didn't know about the process. I'm like, okay, you're ready for this.

Let's go. You're not too old. If God's calling you, he's calling you. The worst thing you can ever do is to hear the voice of God calling you to do something. And you say, no, that's not me.

Moses tried, didn't work. You know what he did? Like, all those miracles, all those plagues, leading the people out of Egypt through the dry bed of the Red Sea. As he crossed through, like, all these things that Moses like, amazing. And he was 80 years old.

And he says, not me. God, not me. I'm not that guy. You know that, right, God? God said, yes, you are.

You know what? Like every objection Moses had, God smacked it down and proved him wrong. I'd say it's better to just go ahead and agree with God right away than to argue with him for a while. Amen. If God is calling you, there's three ways that I believe that he confirms that call.

He'll be calling you, and he'll put it in your heart. He'll put it in your mind. But I believe there's three ways that he'll confirm that. And it might not take all three, but it's very helpful or useful. One is scripture.

That was my story. Through scripture, God called me. In fact, there's a verse in Psalm 84, 10 where the guy writing this, David, who was a king, he said, God, it's better for me if I spend one day in your house in your courts, than a thousand days in the palaces of kings. I'd rather spend one day in your courts than a thousand days elsewhere. In fact, he says, I'd rather be a doorstop in your temple than to Be in the palaces of kings.

Like, I'd rather just hold the door open so that people can come into the house of God. And we think sometimes that there's jobs within the church, volunteer roles that are nothing simple, like, below you, maybe, like, I don't want to do that. I want to do something a little better. I know you guys aren't like that, but there are people that feel that way. They're like, I want to do something.

You know, where people see me doing it. I want to do something where I see the benefit or the value of it. David said, I want to be a doorstop. We literally have wooden and rubber things that do that in our buildings today. And David said, I'd rather be as useful as a rubber doorstop if it means that I get to be in the house of the Lord and serving Christ that way.

Now, God used that psalm to me and spoke to me that way and said, that is what my calling for you is to serve you. God was saying to me, my calling for you, Nick, is to serve God in God's house. That was how my calling was initiated through that psalm. It was confirmed later through other scriptures, and then it was confirmed through other people. So scriptures and then people.

Is the second thing that God will use to confirm that call somebody saying to you, you know what I see in you is that God has a purpose for you, a unique purpose in your life. Do you know about that? Have you ever noticed that sometimes it just takes that person saying that, and you're like, yeah, there's something that's been rattling in my chest that feels like God calling to me, but I didn't know what to do with it. Folks, if you see something in someone else, if you see the calling of God on their lives and you think maybe they just aren't sure of it yet, you're not out of line to point it out, to say, have you known that God's calling you? The third thing is circumstances.

God will use circumstances that change in your life. The pastor, who was my mentor, had some circumstances change in his job after the other things that happened, the scripture, the confirmations of other people. But then it took the circumstances changing, and he said it was like. And I forget what kind it is. But there's certain birds that when it's time for their little ones to fly the nest, what they'll do is they'll start bringing thorns into the nest and making it a little too uncomfortable, a little pokey to say, it's time for you to get out of the Nest and fly.

God had to make his nest a little pokey, a little thorny, before he said, okay, I understand it now, God, fine, I'll do it. That's not a bad thing. God will use scripture, people and circumstances to confirm the call that he's had on your life. You don't have to have it all mapped out and know what it looks like. You just have to be willing to say, yes, Lord, I'll do whatever it is that you're calling me to do.

But let's start back at the beginning and look at verse 13. And I'm wrapping up with this. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. See, God offers. Now listen to this.

Every one of us, listen. God gives his salvation freely to everyone, but you have to receive that. You see, his salvation goes out. But it's not just something that a blanket application over all of us. Unless you've actually received that God's salvation isn't something that just covers you just by the simple fact that you're in this building or you're around Christians or you've set up, said prayers and read your scripture.

You see, you actually have to receive Jesus. In the beginning of the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 12, it says, to all who receive Jesus, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. You see, you have to actually receive Jesus Christ. You have to call him your Lord and Savior. One of the terms the Scriptures puts on this is called being born again.

That's in John chapter 3, where Jesus is talking with a really religious guy that's doing all the right stuff named Nicodemus. But Nicodemus hadn't been born anew, born again. And Jesus explains that to him. He told some of his followers in Luke, chapter 13, verse 3. Some of Jesus followers were worried about what the fate of what had happened to some people, some people that had died by some tragedies.

And they said, what about those people? And Jesus said, oh, do you think that happened because they were sinners? No, that's not why that happened. But unless you are born again, you'll have a similar fate. You'll come to destruction.

Jesus wasn't what we might call a hellfire and brimstone preacher. He wasn't always just railing about ending up in hell, but he didn't avoid it either. You see, he did talk that destruction, eternal destruction, is a real thing, and that there will be people who are separated eternally from Christ. But it's real simple being born again, being Born, made new by Jesus Christ. You have to receive that gift of salvation.

And until you do, that, salvation doesn't apply to you. Jesus made that very real. And so the first thing is you must hear the gospel. The only way you can hear the gospel is if somebody's preaching it. It doesn't have to be like a guy or a gal that's preaching from a church pulpit, like anyone can preach and declare the gospel, okay?

But you have to hear the gospel. And you can't hear the gospel unless somebody shares it with you. And nobody's going to share it unless it's put upon their hearts to do that. Jesus Christ is calling each and every one of us to share the gospel because there's people that need that salvation. There's people perhaps here today that you're here.

But you need to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. The Bible tells us that today is the day of salvation. So, my friends, I want to ask you this. If today is the day of salvation, you have never received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. What would it take for you to come across that line, that objection you might have had that reason you didn't do it before and say, I'm going to step over that and I'm going to follow Christ, starting here and now.

I'm going to receive that new life in Christ.

Whatever objections you might have, I got to tell you there's an answer to them. There's a way that I could try to argue you out of those objections. I don't want to do that, though. What I do want to do is I want to tell you that the hope that Jesus Christ offers you both today and in eternity is so much bigger than whatever it is that you've been, whatever objections you've had that have kept you from receiving that. See, today is the day that you ought to respond to Christ and say, lord, I don't remember a day or a time where I ever invited you to make me new again.

Sometimes we say, where you invited Christ into your heart. Sometimes we call it a few different things. But whatever it is, you must. You must accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. See, life is different after that.

And you can be one of those that says, before Christ, these were the things that my life was all about. But after I received Christ and was born anew, I was born again. He gave me new life. This is what my life has been like ever since then. I got to tell you, if you're walking in faith as a Christian and yet you feel like that change isn't happening enough.

I ask you, what has God called you to get rid of in your life? What areas of sin? I heard a preacher saying this this week that I was listening to. He said, have you noticed that Christians never. They just struggle a lot?

Oh, I'm really struggling with this thing. I'm really struggling with that thing. Nobody ever admits that they're sinning. Nobody ever says, oh, I have this sin in my life. I have this area of sin that I've got going on.

Folks, until you repent of your sin and allow Christ to cleanse you and make your heart new, your life won't change. You have to be born again. And once you're born again, watch out for what God's calling you to.