Well, good morning. Happy Father's Day to you guys. My son reminded me when he said, Happy Father's Day, Dad, you've been a father for 55 years. And I said, whoa, that's a long time. I still don't get it. But welcome to you, Pauldin, and those of you that are in Baghdad this morning, we're glad you're with us. And happy Father's Day to you guys, too. You know, I was thinking of Father's Day. I have a four -year -old great -granddaughter. She's a sweetheart, and she calls
her dad. Daddy. She calls her grandfather Papa, and she calls me Old Papa. And that's my little granddaughter there. She's a sweetheart. And so the message is coming to you from Old Papa this morning. You know, John talks about family, and I feel like I'm still a part of the Heights family. And so thank you for having me come up here from 115 degrees. to spend some time with you this morning. So thank you for having me. We've been in a study of the book of Galatians.
We've been in Galatians and Todd did a great job of just opening things up last week. And boy, you talk about Paul being confrontational. He kind of whacked him upside the head, didn't he? With the church of Galatia for buying into some wrong teaching. And so Paul got pretty straight up with them and pretty authentic to correct
them. But it seems like the passage that I'm in this morning in Galatians chapter 1, verses 11 through 24, it seems like he backs down a little bit just to make sure that they understand that he's a very creditable apostle. So he decides that it'd probably be good for him to just go through his calling and how God has processed him so that his credibility would increase with these folks because he had a bad reputation,
as you know. But God changed all that when he was confronted on the road to Damascus, right? And so Paul writes this, and he's talking about his calling. And John wanted me to talk about his calling, and so I dug into this a little bit. And so I want to share with you a little bit, but I wanted to give you, first of all, the definition that I feel like defines what God's calling is. It's God's defined purpose for your life. It's God's defined purpose for
your life. You know, calling has been kind of misconstrued, I think, in the church over the years. It seems like the only people you hear talking about calling are ministers and missionaries, right? Well, that's crazy. Every one of you are called for a purpose in your life. God created each one of you in a special, unique way, and every one of you have a calling in your life.
And your calling is just as important as my calling or anybody else's calling because that's how God called you, and that's special, and you need to understand that. So Paul begins by giving us some hints as to what a called person looks like when we start in verses chapter 1, verses 11 and 12. And here's what he says. He says, dear brothers and sisters, I want you to understand that the gospel message I preached received by
my message from no human reasoning. I received my message from no human source and no one taught me. Instead, I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ. He makes it very clear that every calling should start with Jesus. Every calling should start with God. When we start with other people, other issues, Let me explain that a little bit. How many of you have ever gone online and looked up comparisons of car insurance? Anybody done that? Don't do that ever
again. One, two days, I had 47 robocalls. 47. I still get 20 a day, people wanting to sell me car insurance. And it's just driven me absolutely bonkers. And so I decided I'm going to block all these guys. And so I blocked everything not in my contact list. And then I realized that I may be missing a few phone calls. And so sure enough, in the middle of all that, I had two
phone calls that I missed. And I regret that because each of them were two wives who just lost their husbands and wanted me to do their funeral. And I thought, how? I felt so stupid. But sometimes that's the way we are. You know, I call them spam calls, robocalls, whatever you want to call them. There's all kinds of things in our world today that are trying to get us and change the purpose of our life, to confuse
us. And we sometimes, in doing that, we end up blocking out the most important call in our life, and that's the call of God in our own lives. And so we don't hear from God like we need to hear because there's too many spam calls, if you will, in our life. So Paul wanted to make sure that where we start is always sitting down face to face and trying to figure out with Jesus, what is my calling and purpose in life? And so
that's where he started. Now he moves on and he says something else because he realized that part of our calling is defining our purpose. That's a part of our definition. He talks about it in verses 15 and 16. He says, but even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him to reveal his son to me so that I would proclaim the good news about Jesus to the Gentiles. What was Paul's
calling in his life? God was very specific and said, Paul, I want you to go to the Gentiles and share the gospel. Now, if he didn't do that, 99 % of you wouldn't even be sitting here, right? God gave him this great honor and privilege and calling in his life. And so he followed through on that very uniquely to who Paul was. And he made a difference in many, many people's lives and still here today. You have a unique purpose as well. Have you ever thought about Psalm 139,
verse 16? He said, you saw me before I was born. Every day of my life is recorded in your book. God had a plan for your life the minute you were conceived. God had a purpose for your life just as much as God had a purpose for Paul in his life. And your calling is very unique to who you are and how God's created you and how he's gifted you. Every one of us have a calling in our life. We need to take that calling seriously. Because we've always seemed to relegate it to
the minister and the missionary. Your calling is just as important as a minister or a missionary. Whether you're a teacher or a student or a mom or a dad, whatever it is, your calling is specific to you, how God has created you. And so Paul was so obviously gifted in his own life and God called him and defined his purpose. Thirdly, We see in this particular passage that basically God defines our calling based upon my uniquenesses,
which is what I've just covered. But in Psalm 139, verses 13 and 14, he said, you made all the delicate inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex. Your workmanship is marvelous. How well I know it. David writes this psalm to remind us all that every one of you are uniquely created by God. You're all special. According to scripture in Ephesians, he says you are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus.
You're a special, special person uniquely made by God. And he's called you with a specific calling and purpose in your life. And so if you're meandering right now in who you are and where you're at, hopefully this message will help solidify you to understand that you have a purpose, a special purpose, unique purpose in your life, and God's using you, hopefully, to bear fruit because of that. Well, fourth, we see here that sometimes there's often a gap that is used to prepare for
our calling. Sometimes we get the message. about something, about God wants us to do something, but sometimes there's a gap in between. The reason why I say that, because in Galatians chapter 1, verses 16 through 20, Paul says this. He said, when this happened, when he had this transformation on the road to Damascus, he tells these people, he said, when this happened, he said, I did not rush out and consult with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to consult with those
who apostles before I was. Instead, I went away into Arabia, and later I returned to Damascus, and then three years later, I went to Jerusalem to get to know Peter. He went into a sabbatical for three years just to be reprogramming his whole heart and life. After all, he was killing Christians, and now he had changed so dramatically, he needed time to really spend that time with
intimacy with God. Have you ever had that happen in your life where sometimes somebody, you felt like God was prompting you to do something, but it just seemed like there was delays. There was just a time gap. I remember when I was struggling in my first church and there was so much negativity and criticism and backbiting and gossip in the church and I was wounded deeply by it. And so I had to really sit down and think, do I really
want to stay a pastor? And so there was a time where I resigned from the church and I decided, do I want to really pursue going back into ministry again? Or do I just need to go find a secular job and do something different? And so I prayed about that. But for six months to eight months, I was looking and putting my name out to various churches to see if they were looking for a pastor and nobody wanted me. And so it was very, very
discouraging to me. But God was preparing me and making sure that my call was so solid that I was going to stick with it. And by the end of that period of time, God spoke to me and said, I want to make your highway in the desert, Tom. So I ended up in Phoenix, Arizona, starting a church. That was 42 years ago. And I'm grateful for that. But there was a time lapse between my calling and what God really wanted me to do.
And sometimes those are times where God's just preparing you, just like he was preparing Paul. And so if you've been feeling like God's been prompting you to do something, but it just hasn't come to fruition yet, it hasn't grown, hang in there. Because if you heard from God, he's got a plan for your life and he will follow through on it. Here's the fifth thing that I noticed about Paul. When we function in our calling,
there's fruit produced. If you're functioning in your calling, you can't help but produce fruit. You really can't. And so in Galatians chapter one, verse 22, he finishes this little passage and he says, after that visit, I went north into the provinces of Syria and Cilicia. And still the churches in Christ that are in Judea didn't know me personally. All they know was that people were saying, the one who used to persecute us is now preaching the very faith he tried to destroy.
And they praise God because of me. You see, Paul, because of the change in his life and hearing his calling, God was producing so much fruit in his life. So when you're in your calling, you're a fruit producer. I just read a book recently called, Aging Faithfully. And it was a great, great book. And in that book, she was talking about when you're in your latter days as a retiree, she said it's interesting because most of your life you've been trying to be productive, right?
You're trying to produce something. It's all about bottom lines. It's all about making things happen. And she said you need to shift your focus from productivity when you're a retiree to fruit.
And it's an interesting concept because what she's saying is that when you start, when you end your particular vocation, oftentimes you go into cruise control and she's saying, no, no, no, that's the time where you really go inward and you really understand the fruit of the Spirit and that becomes the manifestation of your life and now you're productive again. So I'll stop right there because I'll get going too much and
I might get off on a tangent here. But how do you know if you're functioning in your calling? How do you know that? Well, Paul gave us some clues here, but I have a few other ideas here. Number one is you have the privilege of functioning in your giftedness. It's so much fun when you're operating in your giftedness. Have you noticed that? It's just a delight. It's exciting. It's
fun to be in your giftedness. I'm hoping I'm a gifted communicator to some degree, and it brings me delight just to spend time with you this morning. It's fun. It's exciting. I love operating in my giftedness. It's great to be able to focus on the positive and not all the negative stuff that goes on in my life. So it gives you the privilege of functioning in your
giftedness. In Acts chapter 13, verse 12, it says, when the governor saw what had happened, and this is when Peter or Paul was preaching, He said he became a believer for he was astonished at the teaching about the Lord. See, Paul's giftedness was shining all over Asia Minor. His giftedness of church planting and being a pastor and missionary, it was coming out in Paul and he was just enjoying it immensely. But secondly, it was so compelling
for Paul. It says in Acts chapter 20, verses 22 and 24, he said, And now I am bound by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. I don't know what awaits me except that the Holy Spirit tells me in the city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead. But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus, the work of telling others the good news about the wonderful grace of God.
So what this point is, is that you can know you're in your giftedness when you feel like you have great determination and conviction to hang in there no matter what the circumstances are. Paul knew that everywhere he went, he was going to find somebody pushing back. Not only by his reputation, but by his new reputation of really changing the world for Jesus. I remember Many times in ministry over my lifetime, over 50 years of ministry full -time, how many times I wanted to quit.
People were driving me crazy. There were situations where the church had issues, and it just got wearying after a while. And there were days where I thought, you know what? God, I just don't want to keep going. But something in my spirit was binding me. I felt captured by this calling in my life, and it kept me in the game. And when you're operating in your calling, it's not like the grass is always greener on the other side. You're there for the duration. You're there until
God says you can quit. And Paul was so compelled and so constrained and so convicted that it didn't matter what obstacles were in his life, he was going to fulfill that calling that God had in his life. Thirdly, and I've already said this, but you have sense of being bound by your calling. And sometimes that being bound gets frustrating. A little illustration about... a fish in a fishbowl, if you can bear with me, but let's pretend Nemo's
there. And you found Nemo, but Nemo's been swimming around in his fishbowl for quite a while, and he's looking at this world out there, and he's thinking, man, I got to get out of here. I can't do this anymore. I just want to flip out of this fishbowl, and I want to be free. So old Nemo flips himself out of the fishbowl and he starts flopping around on the floor and all of a sudden he realizes, I can't breathe. And see, that's
what happens to us. Sometimes when we quit too soon and we want to get out of the fishbowl and we think that that's going to be a better place for me, when God says, uh -uh, I got you right where I want you. I got you right in that fishbowl, right where you belong. And you can swim all the way around in the fishbowl all you want to. You have all the freedom to do that. But I'm holding you captive because I've called you to be a fish. So if you're feeling fishy this morning,
bear with me. Number four is this. You have a sense of contentment. Remember what Paul said in Philippians? Paul said, I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am in. And boy, he had some rough ones. When you're in your calling, there's a contentment, there's a satisfaction. There's a kind of a restful feeling that's in your life and saying, yeah, it feels
good. And even though there's opposition, even though there's struggles and so forth, I'm not going to jump out of the fishbowl and try to do something else before God tells me. So there's this feeling of tentment. And then finally, you see this fruitfulness. Philippians 1, verse 22 was just a verse that came to my mind. It says, if I live, I can be more fruitful for Christ. And he was in that battle of saying, you know, for me to live is Christ, but to die is to gain.
I'd rather die, but I know that as long as I'm alive, I want to be fruitful. And what's really fun is when you're operating in your calling, God reveals to you various times in your life of the fruit that's existing because you've been living your calling out, living your purpose. There's fruit there. It's been fun for me. The older I get, then people come back into your life that you maybe invested in 20, 30, 40 years
ago. And I've had phone calls or people just falling into my life lately and just saying, you know what? You've meant so much to me in my life. I'm thinking, I didn't even know I touched that person. But when you're in your calling, you realize that there is fruit being manifested out there. And it's just a great feeling to know that that's happening. And sometimes God rewards us with those kind of phone calls. And sometimes we're going to have to wait till we get to glory.
And he says, well done, thou good and faithful servant. So you have fruitfulness when you're in your calling. So the next question that I came up with as I was preparing this message, well, how do you determine your calling? If you're kind of in that place in your life right now where you're saying, you know what, I'm not sure what my calling is. I'm not sure what my next step should be. Well, let me give you some ideas. Number one is I would firstly ask God to reveal
it to you. Have some time out. Get away. Take some time in your life to just get away and just rethink and listen to what God has to say and just... Ask God to reveal it to you. God, what is it you want me to do? Where is it you want me to go? What's next for me, God? And be a good listener. Secondly, seek counsel with godly people. There are people out there that sometimes know you well and love you and have a godly heart. They can look at you and say, you know what?
I believe that this is what God's calling you to do. Now you put those together from the word of God and God revealing it to you and now it begins to percolate in your life and you begin to say, well, maybe I need to consider that. Maybe I should look at that. Obviously embracing your giftedness. What are your giftedness? Might be good for you to go through growth track and figure out what maybe your gifts are if you're not sure what your gifts are. But there's great
tools out there as well. Diagnostic tools like strength finders and disc tests and personality gifts and gifts to disc test. All those kind of combine into ways that we can help understand who we are and what God's called us to do and to be. And I would challenge you to think about that. And then obviously there's times where there's actually direct revelation from God.
There are times in my life where God has actually spoken in that still small voice, just like he did with Elijah when he was on the mountaintop trying to figure out what's next for his life. But if we don't slow down long enough to hear what God has to say, we're never going to know. And so a lot of it is that life gets in the way. There's too many spam calls if we go back to our illustration. Everybody else has a wonderful plan for our life, don't they? Culture does.
The TV does. Everybody has a wonderful plan for our lives. But if we don't stop long enough, God sometimes just wants to whisper and say, look, this is what I've called you to do. I remember when God spoke to me very clearly. I want you to make your highway in the desert. I want you to be a pastor. That was a scary day, believe me. But God spoke to me so clearly, it was just
undeniable that God revealed that to me. I'll never forget the day when that happened and I... I never wanted to be a pastor to begin with. And I said, God, why are you doing this to me? And I made a U -turn. I was driving and I came home and I told my wife, I said, honey, I guess I know where we're at right now. She said, what? I said, God wants me to be a pastor. She said, are you kidding? I said, I don't want to be a pastor's wife. Yeah, they're the unsung heroes,
by the way. But that was a direct revelation from God. I couldn't deny it. That was God's voice speaking to me. And it's fun, but I was able to, when I was complaining to God, that's when he spoke to me because when, you know, I get into these arguments with God. I don't know if you do, but I get into these things where I get so upset with God some days. And I was upset that day because, man, I'd gotten beat up in the church and I was trying to survive
on being a carpenter, which I was lousy at. And I said, God, what's the deal? And he said, you know, if you just shut up for a minute, I'll tell you. You know, and there's a lot of us are like that. If we just shut up for a minute and listen to what God has to say, we might find some very compelling information in our lives. He wants to speak to us through the word of God and through other people and through a still
small voice. And I wrote this down because I remember when Samuel was being called by God. Do you remember that story? And he was going to anoint Samuel to be a prophet. And he was speaking and Samuel heard this voice. And what was the first thing out of his mouth? It says, speak, Lord, for what? I am listening. We are lousy listeners in our culture. So listen to
what God is trying to say. Now, when I opened this message up, I asked God if God was maybe calling you to something, and you've had him blocked, okay? And so I had these thoughts in closing and I want to share these things with you. Maybe you've been serving your calling and that maybe God is calling you to something else. Why do I say that? Here's the reason. When I retired, quote retired, at 70 years old, I'm
going to be 77 in a couple weeks. And when I first retired, I really struggle a little bit with my identity. Anybody relate to that, using our retirees? Because you've spent your entire life in your vocation, which you have always considered it to be your calling, right? And
now my calling's over. Now what do I do? Well, unfortunately, a lot of retirees kind of put their lives on cruise control, and you just kind of go through life, the rest of your life, in your fourth quarter, I would call it, of your life. And you're just kind of enjoying life together, but the fruit's not there. Maybe the satisfaction
isn't there. The joy isn't there. And I'm going to get on a little soapbox here because I feel like that I'm still in one of the most productive and fruitful times in my life because I was able to shift from essentially being, quote, a pastor to now a disciple maker. And I've been disciple -making all my life. And you know what's really sad? There was a survey done by Back to the Bible
not too long ago by Arnie Cole. And he served hundreds of people who they quoted were mature Christian believers, many of them older, many of them retired. They all had all of the earmarks of being a mature Christian. They had a prayer life. They were into the Word of God. They were active in their church and so on and so forth. But then he asked the question, how many of you are investing right now in somebody's life? Disciple
making. 80 % said nothing, zero. And I feel like if you're a retiree, you can be in the most fruitful time of your life right now. I want to challenge you. Reinvent yourself. No, you're not what you were. But you have more wisdom, more maturity. You're the very people that God needs to be using to pour into people's lives, amen? Now, I'm challenging you on that. I could go on another hour on that whole topic itself. But here's the second thought I had in closing. God never calls someone to
something without equipping him. If you're feeling called right now and you say, not me, Lord, I can't do that. Remember Moses? You know, he didn't want to go back and leave the people to the promised land. God, I can't even talk. How am I supposed to? God, you know, don't you remember I killed a couple Egyptians? I'm not a very popular guy in Egypt right now. And God just basically said, suck it up. I'll give you Aaron, right? I'll give you a staff, right? What about Joshua? Can
you imagine the poor guy? He inherited that whole mess. A couple million Jews trying to cross the land and they were stiff -necked and a problem all along the way for Moses. And that's why God said to Joshua, he said, Joshua, listen, man, be strong, be courageous. Go for it because every step you take, you're gonna bear fruit. You're gonna see victory in your life. God never calls somebody that he doesn't equip. And if you're feeling inadequate, God's the God of your inadequacy.
Third, don't confuse your calling by being driven. You know, sometimes it bothers me when I see people that are just go, go, go, and they are type A personalities and they've got to get it all, get her done, get her done, get her done. And I'm thinking, what is your motivation? Is it insecurity? Is it control? Or is it God compelling you from the inside out that you are called to do this? So don't confuse being driven with being called. And finally, no matter what, We have
one calling we can't resist. We can't let go of this. I've served several hundred churches when I was consulting with churches all over the West Coast. And every one of them had the Great Commission in their bylaws and their constitution. But I always ask you a question, but how many people are really being discipled? How many people are taking one step closer to the Lord? How is this church really living out disciple making? And I'm so thrilled when I hear what Heis is
doing right now. But the point is, I don't care who you are. Your calling is not to be argued. We are called to go and make disciples. And if nothing else in your life today, You are called to do that. Don't rationalize that, but accept it because God made that one really clear for us. And so I really challenge you to do that. Well, old Papa is done this morning. I want to challenge you this morning. Let me pray. God. You are an amazing God and you want to speak
to us. You want that relationship with us. You love us so much that you created us uniquely in a way that each one can be living life with purpose. God, if there's a person here right now that's just struggling with that right now, God, I pray that they would take some time to just dive into it. Get it squared away so that they have direction in their life for their future
and each day. God, I pray for that person that maybe has been challenged today and you're trying to block that call because you don't feel adequate or you don't feel ready or prepared for that. But God, I pray that you would break through all the spam. I pray that they would take that call. Because you never know how exciting the fruit that will come from that in the days that are ahead. So God, thank you for giving me the opportunity to share this morning. And I just
love these folks so much. And so I pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.