I'm Confused About My Calling

a text, usually a text in the Bible. But this whole series came to me through a text on my phone and somebody texted me, but I didn't have their number in my contacts, but they had texted me before and their name was in the text. So you know, Steve Jobs is so smart, even from beyond the grave. He made a suggestion on my iPhone and he said maybe,

and then it said it could be this person. And when I saw it on my phone, I realized that that would make an amazing way to spend several weeks in the Word of God talking about those times where we don't know if it's God or not, and so we're trying to lead our families some of us, or we're trying to get our education, or we're trying to decide about jobs or dates, or trying to decide about moving to a new house or new apartment, or just trying to figure out what it is that we were

put here on earth for. But the series is called Maybe God, Maybe God. We worship a God who can be best explained as mystery, and yet we live in a culture that worships certainty. And so I want to talk about that for several weeks with you. And I'm so glad you're here. Touch somebody and say he's so happy you're here. That preacher, That preacher is happy you're here.

That's true. I'm so glad you're here. And what I need you to do right now is give your attention just to this text in First Samuel, chapter three, where we will encounter a young man who's encountering God. And I pray that we will encounter God in the process today. First Samuel three, verse one. The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days, the word of the Lord was rare. There were not many visions. One night, Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely

see was lying down in his usual place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out. Touch somebody say, there's still time, There's still time. I know you might have got off track in your life, but there's still time. I know there might be some things out of order in your house, but there's still time. I know you might have wasted some years chasing your own ways, but God brought you here because there's still time. God left you here because there's still time. If you're still breathing,

there's still time. I got a friend named Perry Noble. His favorite quote is, if you're not dead, God's not done. And I just believe that. I believe it. So the light had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God, which symbolized the presence of God was, And then the Lord called Samuel, and Samuel answered, here I am. And he ran to Eli and said, here I am. You called me, but Eli said, I didn't call go back to sleep, man, wake me up in the middle

of the night. I didn't call you. Go back and lie down. So he went and lay down again. The Lord called Samuel, and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, here, I am. This is really strange, right like, because you expect when God calls it'll sound

so deep. So baritone Samuel apparently it sounded. It sounded so much like what he was used to be around that he ran to the place where he normally went and he was like, here, I am, you called me, my son, Eli said, I did not call, go back and lie down, but you need an ambient, a weighted blanket, some milk, a cookie. Now, Samuel did not yet know the Lord. The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. A third time, the Lord called Samuel, and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, here,

I am, you call me. I know you're messing with me. Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel go and lie down. If he calls, you say speak Lord, for your servant is listening. The title of this message is something that I have heard people say to me of all ages, of all ethnicities, of all economic status positions. And I want you to look at the screen for the title of my message. It goes like this, I'm confused about my calling. I'm

confused about my calling. I love God and I love my family and I want to make a difference. But look at somebody next to you and say you look confused. Tell them I am, I'm confused about my call. Lord have your way, speak your word. We're listening in Jesus' name. Amen, Now be seated. You are forgiven. If when I say

calling you roll your eyes a little bit. It is one of these terms that is so popular in culture that it almost means nothing anymore, and it can be frustrating the older you get when people talk about lofty ideals like finding your calling. You need to find your calling, and you know, well, for most of us, that's way outside of the realm of our everyday life where we're

trying to pay bills. It's like, you know, you need to find your calling, and you're like, well, I'm doing good to find my keys in the morning, and you

want to talk about finding your calling. And as much as I understand that, I also understand that there's a reason that the majority of questions that I have been asked as a pastor in these thirteen years going on fourteen years, the reason for it is that there is something inside of you that wants to find the thing that you were made to do, and you will never

be satisfied with anything else. And no matter how much sex you have, money you make, friends you meet, no matter how big the house is that you build, no matter how many cars you part in the driveway, there will always be something unsatisfied in you until you find

that thing that we call a calling. And yet, and yet, so much damage has been done in popular culture by the concept of calling that it actually makes us discontent with our lives because rather than understand the real nature of a calling, we have a concept of a calling, and often we spend our lives wishing that we were doing something that God did not tell us to do. So to break this first sermon down today, and there will be several in this series, I'm praying that you

come to all of them. And I'm praying if you can't come to all of them, you'll watch them all because they're all online for free. And I can't figure out a reason in the world why you couldn't spend forty minutes with me on YouTube each week, even if you have to do it while you're walking the dog, even if you have to do it while you're falling asleep, I'll put you to sleep. I don't mind. Whatever I can get. I'll help you run on the treadmill. Just

whatever you have to do to get these messages. The Bible says in verse one that in those days, while Samuell, the twelve year old who was apprenticing in the tabernacle because his mother Hannah, prayed that she could have a son, and she had trouble conceiving. And when she finally had the son, she dedicated him to the Lord. And she dropped him off at age four and only saw him once a year, and she put him under Eli, who

wasn't doing a very good job. He was letting his sons run around in the tabernacle and have sex with women at the entrance to the tabernacle, and he knew about it, but he wouldn't do anything about it. And he was letting his sons beat people up who had brought their sacrifice to the temple, and they brought their sacrifice to God, but the priests took it for themselves.

Hofney and Phineas Eli's sons, would send their messenger out to the tent and say, hey, Hoffney said, you got to give him the fat portion, And the people who came would be like, well, that's for the Lord. They can get the portion after it burns off. That's the priest portion. But they had gotten confused about what it meant to honor God, and they had started honoring themselves and their opinions and their desires, and they started treating

God as common. And so the Bible says something interesting in verse one. It says, in those days, with all of that going on, the word of the Lord was rare because they treated the Lord as common. The word of the Lord was rare. Because we live in a day where it is so easy to get information but so difficult to get truth. I figured this verse would apply to us. Would you agree with me that we are drowning in information, drowning in opinion, drowning in agenda,

drowning in projections, but starving for truth. You know I'm right about it. It's such a crazy time. You don't know who to trust anymore. You don't know if it's real, you don't know if it's fake, you don't know if it's inflated. You don't know if it's a statistic. And let me give you a statistic. Eighty three percent of statistics are made up that's a statistic. I made it up. It's a time where truth is hard to find. And it doesn't mean that there wasn't access to the Bible.

God knows we have access to the Word of God. You could pull out your phone right now and a British person will read you the Bible on the Bible app That made me think of something real funny. One time Graham asked me do British people find American accents soothing? Probably not. But here's the thing about it. It's not access to the Word of God. It's our attitude to the Word of God. It's our attitude. It's why some people can come into church and look narcoleptic in church.

That's why some people can come into church and leave during the invitation, because God forbid it takes you seven minutes to get the cracker barrel. It's why some people can click around to different sermons and be like, Ah, I don't know Fredi's not on today. I'm gonna go over here to this one and that one. And that's

what seeing. When the Word of God becomes common to us, we will have access to the Word of God, but it will not have impact on our life and So the first thing I wanted to mention is the culture. The culture in Eli's time was a culture of neglect, a culture where the value of who God was and what he said was negotiable. Therefore there was an absence of that special presence of God. The word of the Lord was rare because the Lord of the Word had

become common. And I just want to say to you today that many of our cultural concepts of calling are really just self help, individualistic, ambition oriented delusions dressed up in Christian cliches. And because you got a trophy when you were seven does not mean you get to play

Major League Baseball. And the culture of our day is kind of like, instead of worshiping God, we worship our idea of God's will, And rather than being in relationship with God, we want God to be a resource who is more like Siri than he is like a savior.

I don't know if you come back next week the way I'm starting to discern him, but we need to get something straight right off the bat that until I treasure the voice of God, value the voice of God, hearken to the voice of God, make time for the voice of God, consecrate myself I can't get it by skimming. I can't get it by just you know, running around to this person and that person. It is the revealed will of God that we're after. It is the revealed will of God. Now, when I was in my twenties,

I did all this teaching and preaching. And now you know, now that I'm wiser, I turned forty next year, you'll better start working on my gift now, because it's a big one. It's kind of cringey for me to look back on the way I spoke about calling in my twenties that probably left people feeling at the very least confused at word, frustrated, and maybe even full of resentment because the way it happened in my life is different for all of us. Here's Samuel, who is receiving a

revelation of God. And in my life, I never heard anything audible that God said to me. I never, you know, the Lord never said, Ardich Steve, what God called you by your last nammey for someone I don't know, but he said. He never said, you know, preach to me out loud. There were desires, there were opportunities. I noticed some effectiveness. It's the weirdest thing. When I first got up to pray for Pastor Mickey, who asked me to

pray at a Lions Club meeting. I noticed that people seem to be blessed as I prayed, and they connected him. And it took Pastor Mickey to explain to me that that was the hand of God on my life. I didn't know that. If he hadn't been there to guide me, I would have maybe thought I was just a charismatic speaker. But he helped me to see that there was something supernatural involved. And I was sixteen years old, and I had someone who had been around long enough to see

some things to tell me it was special. Otherwise I wouldn't have known him. Now here's what I did with that knowledge. I preached in my twenties that just like God called me to preach, God has called each Christian to do something. You agree with that. But here's the part that I think was incomplete. While I'd be up there saying to people, you need to find your calling. You need to find your calling. You need to find your calling. You need to find your calling. You need

to find your calling. You find your calling. You need to find your calling. You need to find your calling. You need to find your calling. You need to find your calling. You need to find a calling, because he gets annoying after a while. Right, It's like I'm just trying to like I need a job. Man, I don't know about a calling. I've seen a raise right now? Is that it makes it sound as if it's something

that you can just get and just know. And yet did you notice in the passage that even Samuel, who was the link between the period of the Judges and the monarchy of Israel a thousand years before Jesus, that even Samuel, who none of his words fell to the ground, even Samuel didn't get it right the first time. I don't know why, but that encourages me just reading this little story, to know that there's someone that God used to do something great, and he called him and he

chose him. But even this great prophet didn't get it right the first time. I want to set you free today from the feeling that you have to find your calling. That's a cultural concept, it's not a biblical one. You don't have to find your calling. In fact, if the is correct, if Samuel is an illustration, then I don't have to find my calling because if I will serve the purpose of the season that I'm in in my

life right now, watch this, get ready to shout. My calling will find me in that good news, Christian soldiers, aren't you too glad to know that? When Samuel heard a voice and he didn't even know whose voice it was. And here's the thing about it, I want to talk about the culture, and then I want to talk about the contact, the contact, because when he first heard the voice,

it sounded like something he had heard before. Have you ever noticed is hard to know the difference between when you're speaking to you and when God is speaking to you. And watch out for the Christians who are running around so sure that it's God speaking to them. Those are the weird ones. Those are the crazy ones. I mean,

I'm serious. You gotta watch out for him. And they're here at Elevation, just like they're at every church, and they'll find you in the bathroom and they'll have a word from the Lord for you, and they don't even know you. And it's weird because it's the bathroom. Can I wash my hands? If God spoke to you, he'll do it in the lobby. Now, let me finish using

the bathroom. I'm serious because I'm a preacher and people always think I want to be spiritual, and people will stop me in the bathroom sometimes at a restaurant and give me a word from the Lord. But if it was really the Lord, he would have told you it's weird to talk to people in the bathroom and wait till a man gets outside, because there is such a thing as germs, and God doesn't cancel out germs. I

don't want your prophetic word. Well, I'm trying to so, but because he gets weird, because he gets weird, we still have to realize that the only way that the will of God, or the word of God or the voice of God can be recognized. That's what the Bible said that Eli who was old, who couldn't see physically.

I've been on this thing lightly that we really need people in our life who are older than us, who have been along the journey, and to respect the price that they paid, and to not just think that because they don't go on SoundCloud or because they don't have a lot of Instagram followers, that they have nothing to teach us. I'm really seeing the value and people who they may not have the physical vision that they used to have, but they can discern spiritual things. And Eli

wasn't even a perfect priest. In fact, God was in the process of moving him out of the way. And even in that transition, because the whole passage is about transition. It's Samuel transitioning from a boy to a man, from boys to men. I was just thinking, you know, it's hard to say goodbye. But when Eli is transitioning out, and when Samuel is transitioning up, and he's ultimately stepping into the thing God created him for. God deals with Samuel,

but he does it through Eli. And whatever God is going to speak in your life is going to come in the context of relationships. And I chose the word contact to describe it because whoever you put around you the most will start to affect the voice inside of you that speaks to you. And have you ever noticed that God's voice sometimes in your life sounds like your wife.

Sometimes for me, it sounds like my kids. Sometimes in my life I've noticed that if I am not selective about my contacts, I will start hearing I don't mean like out loud voices. I don't want you to send me off after I've preached today or anything like that. I mean the voice in my mind. A lot of times when I was going through a counseling session to try to understand myself better, the one thing that the

therapist would keep saying, is whose voice is that? You know these things you say to yourself, You go like, uh, you know, I'm so stupid and you never get anything right, and well, of course you screwed it up, you screw everything up, you know all that. And she keeps saying, whose voice is that? Whose voice is that? And I didn't know if she was just trying to get me to say, you know, it was my dad, you know, oh, like the point of all therapy, my diapers were too tight.

I got it. But what I realized is that most of us who are not clinically insane don't actually hear voices. We process thoughts, right, so we say the voice of God? How does the voice of God come into your life? Through thoughts? Through thoughts? And that's why Samuel was confused, right because he heard something, so he went where he knew to go. And I want to point out something about this. He did the right thing, He did the right thing. He ran noticed the Bible said that when

he heard his name called Samuel. First of all, it didn't sound it didn't sound strange to him. It sounded like what he was used to. So he ran because that's what he did, because he had the right passion. But he ran to the wrong person. Some of you right now, you had the right passion, but you're running to the wrong person or the wrong place. Now, this is not only true in the case of Samuel. It was true of Moses. God called him to deliver his

people from the Egyptians. Moses had the right passion, but where he messed up. Listen to this, U see when he killed the Egyptian it was the right passion, but it was misplaced. He tried to do it his way. He didn't get it right the first time. And some of the things that you've gotten wrong in your life, some of the mistakes that you've made, it was God's up. But it was eli that you ran to. You ran to the thing that God was trying to remove out of your life because that's what you were used to.

You ran to the thing that you were familiar with because it's all your mind could understand. And so God gave you a gift, but you used that gift for you for a little while until you found out. Unless I offer the gift back to the giver, it's going to come back empty. But God brought you here today to let you know. That was my voice calling you. That was me that gave you that talent. That was me that made you good at that. That was me that opened the door for you. That was me that

gave you that responsibility. That was me that gave you health. That was me that gave you strength. That was Me that gave you that connection. It was him the whole time. It was It was the Lord that called Samuel, but it was Eli that Samuel ran to. What are you running to? If you run, if you're running to something that is not your purpose, you feel it. You feel

it in several ways. But one of the things I want to mention is I'm trying to surround myself in this stage of my life with people who bring out the God in me. And that's just me. Now. I don't mean I'm going to be mean to people who don't know the Lord, or I'm gonna go out and

live in a monastery or something like that. But you know, there are some there are some texts that I don't return in this stage of my life because I feel like I'm in a season where I'm trying to do important things and my calling is valuable, and so my contacts are very important because certain stuff is contagious, and I know there are certain people. When I get around them, I feel something rising me that lets me know I can overcome. And I need them around me. I need

them to rub off on me. I need them to speaking to my life. I need them to encourage me. I don't need people who are laying back on the last thing God did in this season of my life. I need people to push me forward. Yes I do, Yes, I do. I gotta be careful reading the comments on my Instagram in this season because whatever I may contact with I catch and see. I need the word of the Lord. I need vision, I need hope, I need purpose,

I need security. And so he runs to Eli, but Eli tells him is God you need to speak to and the right contact in your life will always point you back to the only one who has real power. Thank you God for this word. I feel your spirit on this one. This is gonna help you because the concept of calling that most of us have is that you're going to go on a forty day fast in the Holy Land, and God's gonna speak to you when you walk where Jesus walked and the Sea of Galilee.

But the Lord is not gonna speak to you on the Sea of Galilee from a voice on the water. He's gonna speak to you. And I know you don't want to hear it because it's sexy to thing that someday there's gonna be a voice that speaks from heaven. It's not gonna be like that. It's gonna sound like Eli. It's gonna sound like Eli. And it is through Eli that God calls Samuel Eli. This isn't Billy Graham. This is the dude who blew it. And this is how bad he blew it. Watch what ultimately happens when Samuel

laughter three times? Everybody say three times? How many times do I have to tell you? One time, Holly, she loses her temper with our kids a lot. Y'all pray for her. It's kiddy. It's a very patient mom. But one time she was so mad at Elijah. He was only about or She said, how many times do I have to tell you? You You? Got this real fear look in his eyes, He goes three times. Look at the verse eight again a third time. How many are glad that God has called waiting that God will call you again?

Ask Jonah. Jonah wasn't even a talented preacher. He didn't have funny stories, he didn't have good charisma, he didn't even like people. But God used him because when God calls you, he will call back. You know how there are some people when you call them, you have to call them, and so you're secretly hoping you get their voicemail because you really don't want to talk to them anyway. Some of you think God is like that, like he really wants someone else and he's really glad that he

doesn't have to deal with you. But God wants you. God wants you. God shows you. God put the genetics in you, the DNA in you, the passion in you, the opportunit unity is for you. What God has for you, it is for you. That's why you don't have to be jealous, insecure, bitter, resentful. That's why you don't have to get back. That's why you don't have to take revenge, because what God has for you is for you. Y'all awake,

Somebody shout here I am. And that was really the answer, because it's not only the culture that confuses us in our calling. It's not only our contacts sometimes, but it's the conflict of calling. The conflict of calling is great on an internal and an external level. Now what Samuel did next, What a beautiful little story right to show us that God repeats things one way I know he's speaking. You ever notice this when God is trying to get your attention. It's kind of like when you're shopping for

a certain car and you start seeing them everywhere. When God wants to get a message across to you, he'll he'll put you in the market for it, and you never even looked at anybody else's beats. But now you're like, well, what's that one? How's that one different than that one? And this one and the other one? Because I'm in the market for God. When you get in the market for God, you start noticing that He's He's been speaking all along, just like just like there was there was confirmation.

I didn't have time to put this word in the sermon. It starts with the letter see, so it could be a bonus point confirmation God. God will speak something over here,

over here, over here, and you'll start noticing it. You'll start noticing little things, and then it'll you hear it in the sermon, and then you hear it in a movie, and then you hear it in a song, and then you hear it you see it on somebody's the back of their window, and then you hear it through your your husband, and then you hear it through and you just see it and just hear it, and you start seeing it and you start and then you have to discern,

which is to separate. That's what Eli did. He discerned the Hebrew word is being. He discerned, he separated, He made a distinction. He had a discernment to know. This is the Lord calling the boy. So he said, when it happens again, and this is the word of the Lord for you when it happens again. When it happens again, if it happens again, just say speak Lord. Your servant is listening, and I want to show you something that the Lord. Just show me. His greatest revelation happened in rest.

Eli didn't say, Oh, that may be God. You better run out and catch him before he leaves. Well, if God spoke to you, better chase him down. No, if it was God's speaking, he'll come back. All you got to do is be in position for it. That's all you've got to do. You don't have to find it, it'll find you. Trust me. God is not playing hide and seek in the Tabernacle. God is not running around the tent. Ha haha. If I hide behind this table

of showbred, Samuel will never find me back here. God's not hiding behind the labor you know, He's not hiding. And even though God is always moving, he's never hiding. That's what the Tabernacle was was a portable structure, and they set it up in the wilderness because they never knew when God was going to say stop, and when God was going to stay go. Why Because God does not want you to depend on his will. He wants you to depend on him. There's a difference. One is God,

just show me what to do. That way I won't need you. The other one is God, I want you wherever you lead me, wherever you take me, whatever it means, whatever it costs, and whatever it looks like. But here's the conflict. Because Samuel goes in and he lays down Bible says he didn't know the Lord yet he knew. He knew how to bake the bread in the tabernacle, that was his job. He knew how to open the doors so people could come worship. He knew how to follow Eli around and get me this and get me that.

But there's a big difference between the rituals of religion and a relationship with God. And if you're going through the motions, like you know, singing songs, not really thinking about the words, just kind of singing them, or just kind of like hearing little forgettable things that I say in my sermon that you know, you won't even remember what it was about fifteen minutes after I'm done. It's possible that you don't know the Lord yet. I don't

mean you're not a Christian, not necessarily. I don't mean you don't believe in God. Don't mean not necessarily. But to know Him is to know his voice. And when you know him like that, you can hear things that are hard to hear. But you can know that even when he says things that are hard for you to hear, he says them from a spirit of love, grace purpose. One of my friends is a real overtext. I can't keep up with him, and I love him, but my

thumb's hurt and I can't do it. And I don't voice text because it's annoying because it corrects the wrong words the wrong way, and you can get in trouble that way and say something you didn't mean to say, end up firing somebody you meant to hire. But it changes. It doesn't know because your voice anyway. One time he texted me, he said, how come our conversation is all gray on iPhone? When they text you, it's gray, when

you text is blue. When he said that, I wondered if sometimes my relationship with God is all gray to where he is speaking and he is prompting and he is provoking. But God can speak, speak speak. Three times he did it. God didn't say anything different the third time except this when he said, speak Lord, your servant is listening, and he laid down in his place. I got to hit that real quick. I know we're running out of time, but it says Samuel went and laid

down in his place. That's first nine. Put it up. Samuel went and lay down in his place, in his place, in his place. You will realize God's purpose when you get in your place, Touch somebody next to you, and say get in your place, because if God is dropping off the mail but you're not home, you won't get it, and you'll think he didn't send it, and you'll think he didn't speak. But I learned something with my friend. It was it was not just the conflict of the calling.

It was the color. It was all gray. But the breakthrough is in the blue. It's not just when God speaks. It's when you get in your place and say, God, here I am the real me, the honest me, the open me, the ready me, the humble me, the broken down me, the me that is ready to do your will. Because I've done my will and I saw how that worked out, and I'm ready to do your will. That's what Isaiah said. He said, I'm an unclean man with unclean lips. But if you'll take that coal and touch

my lips, I'll speak for you. Because Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. So here I am. I'll go. Moses stood at a bush. He turned aside, took off his shoes and said, God, I'm slow of speech, I'm not eloquent, and you saw the things I did that put me in this predicament. But if it's you calling here, I am somebody shout here. I am Jeremiah. I'm too young for this, and your people are stubborn and you know they're not gonna listen. But if it's you calling

me here, I am somebody shout here. I am. And the reason I'm confused about my calling is because I don't just have one. This is what I didn't know in my twenties because I felt like God called me to preach you. I felt like God called you to do something, put you somewhere. I mean, maybe it wasn't something big spectacular. Maybe you're not gonna do a halftime show at the super Bowl with it, but God called you to do something. I just saw your Patriots gear

made me think of the super Bowl. God bless you man. Congratulations on that. I hope you're happy. Now. How many is it gonna take for you guys to shut up about it? But there's a there's a blessing in it. There's a blessing in it, even if it's a small thing. And you say, Okay, God called me to do this. But then what happens is, look, I was called to preach, right, so I start preaching. I start going on preaching. I'm preaching everywhere, preaching everywhere they asked me to come preaching.

I'm preaching at the lock in I appreach. So I preached some one time, so late at the night. It was three am, and I had this sermon illustration where I would take a mirror and I'd break the mirror, and I preach Genesis one twenty six about the image

of God. And Holly can tell you we knew where the mirrors were in every walmart in the state of South Carolina, because every time we get to a new little town to preach the fifteen kids, I'd go in and get a mirror and then I'd break it with a hammer, and I say, this is what send us to you, you know, put the condemnation on the young people. Just put it on them. Are breaking mirrors. And one boy went to the emergency room because the glass flew

up and hit him in the eye. And I had to call his parents and tell him not to sue me. I'm a man of God and I got a ministry, and if you assume me, God's gonna curse you and make you. But I didn't say that, but I was running around preaching. Right, But then I married Holly and I realized I'm called to be her husband too. Come on, it's the conflict of calling. It's complicated. You can make it sound sup. Well, find your calling which one? Because then I was called to be a preacher and a husband,

and sometimes they needed different techniques. What if I walked home, I said, Holly, give him a seal of praise. It's different callings. That's three people, just I guess it just does. And then by the time I'm getting these callings, you know, I got how many? You got at least two callings in your life, at least two things that you're responsible for, and they're in conflict. Sometimes Here she comes pregnant four years into marriage. Here she turns up pregnant. Now I'm

called to be a parent. Now I'm called to you feel like you're not just putting on different hats, but you actually have like different heads. I read that in that Sitser book, The Will of God is a way of life. He said. I felt like I didn't just have different hats, I had different heads. And this is the conflict of calling. But the answer is allays availability, presence access. When he said speak Lord, your servant is listening.

It created access not only for God's work to come to him, but for God's work to come through him. And what God said was difficult. He said, I'm transitioning. Not only am I transitioning you from an apprentice to a priest, from a priest to a prophet, but I'm transitioning Eli and his Son's out of the earth so that my purpose can be fulfilled. I'm transitioning. I'm transitioning, and you're gonna have to go through a difficult transition

right now. But by the time we get to First Samuel four, verse one, the Bible says that Samuelil's word came to all Israel. I was curious why I didn't

say God's word through Samuel. But by this point in First Samuel four, because Samuel said, here I am speak Lord, we have now gone from the word of the Lord was rare to the word of Samuel came to all Israel because he had gotten to a point where he heard God's voice on the level that when he spoke, what he spoke came directly from the throne of God. God wants to get us to the place where we are not running around all the time talking about what

we're gonna do one day. Some of you are using the concept of a calling as a crutch to not fully embrace the season of life that you're in, and that is not the will of God for you. And you may be called to be a mom one day, but if you're not a mom right now, can you say, here I am to this season. And you may be called to own your own business one day, but can I just say that in the meantime, the only thing that God has ever wanted from you was all of you.

The only thing that God has ever asked of you is here I am. It's what Jeremiah said, It's what Moses said, It's what Isaiah said, it's what Samuel said. And when he made himself available, the word of God became abundant. I want you to stand to your feet, because God has been speaking your whole life. He's speaking through hard things. He's been speaking through painful things. He's been speaking through pleasure, passion, he's been speaking through rejection,

he's been speaking through restlessness. It wasn't that God wasn't speaking, is that the people had lost their ability to listen. And so God said to Samuel, before you can speak for me, I need you to learn to listen. This is what God wants to find tune in our lives over the next few weeks. This is what God wants to do in your heart over the next few weeks, because honestly, some of you are still running to Eli

when it's really God. Some of you are running trying to find something out there when God is trying to speak to you in your place. That's what got me this time, because I didn't preach that last night, but when I was speaking to you, God was speaking to me, and I try to listen, and he said, tell him stay in your place. Samuel didn't wake up that morning looking for a calling. And maybe that's the problem with us, Maybe that we've made this thing about calling and what

God has for my life. What if what God has called you to first and foremost is himself. Wouldn't that set you free? That the will of God is not which job, The will of God is not which school you put your kids in. My God. I was talking to Buck the other day. One thing I love about Monk's Corner better than Charlotte. There was two schools you could go to. There was just two. It was the public one and the one that everybody that smoked weed at the public one got sent to the Christian school.

But listen to me. We've made the will of God a resource. It's not a resource. It's a relationship. It's a relationship. It's a relationship. So I want us to go through this next several weeks not looking for clarity, certainty, but confidence to know that if I will make myself available to this calling in this moment, his speak, he will speak. Question is will you respond? What I've learned to do now is not necessarily say this is God or this isn't God. I got this new thing. It

may be God. I don't know. Only way for me to find out, The only way I can experience the breakthrough is in the blue. So speak, Lord, I'm listening. Say that to your life, say that to your pain, Say that to what you think was your mistake. You know what your mistake may be, God, he may. I'm gonna show you that next week. That's my sermon. Next week. I am going to show you next week how your mistakes are miracles in disguise, in disguise, the presence of

the Lord is in this place. Would you lift your hands. God is here. Father. I thank you for the word that came forth today. We receive it. Somebody say I receive it. Quit sitting there with your lips just puckered up, just stressed out, open your mouth and say, I receive it. Lord. Everything that you're doing in my life, everything that you're calling me to be, all the things that you're doing that aren't really about me. Lord, I don't want to be self centered and just self consumed. I thank you

that the wind of your spirit is blowing. So I set my sales on this new series. God, I'm not asking you just to speak to me. I'm asking you to open my eyes to see you in my ears, to hear you. Open the eyes of my heart, open my understanding, open my will to your will, and your will be done in my life. Thank you for your presence, Thank you for your purpose, Thank you for your provision. Lift your hands high as you can say, speak Lord, say it out loud, to speak Lord. I'm listening. I'm

gonna listen to my life. This week, I'm gonna listen to I'm gonna listen to the still small voice this week. Too much noise, too much noise. Word of the Lord is rare when the Lord of the word becomes common. I'm gonna look for you this week. I'm gonna find you. I'm gonna seek you, seeking you fine. Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of you that this

ministry is possible. You can click the link in the description to give now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You can share it with your friends. You can click the share button, take a screenshot and share it on your social stories and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God bless you.