Your Development and Your Calling

Dr. Tony Evans: What in your life do you feel God wants done that only God can do? If your answer to that question is nothing, you'll never see what He can do. When you hit your calling, God will be your sufficiency in it.
Guest (Male): This is the Alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Christians typically believe God's calling for our lives will fit with our gifts and talents. But today Dr. Evans points out that it also forces us to depend on God's sufficiency rather than our own. Let's join him as he uncovers an example from the life of Moses.
Dr. Tony Evans: Unfortunately, many people start with the story as it is explained in Exodus chapter three without understanding the background that led to Exodus chapter three. You see, God wants to lead you to your calling, to your divine purpose for being, to your customized reason for His kingdom that He has you here. He wants to lead you to that. But in leading it to you, He has to also prepare you for it. There is a developmental process that must occur so that when you hit your calling, you are ready for it and it is ready for you. We find Moses pasturing the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law. Let me tell you what taking care of sheep will do if you used to be a king's son. It will humble you. Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blaze of fire from the midst of the bush. And he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. If you are looking for your calling, here is what you want to look for. You want to look for God showing up in an extraordinary way, even if it is in an ordinary environment. He is taking care of sheep. This is an ordinary job. Fires are all the time in the wilderness. He sees an ordinary fire, except one thing. This fire keeps burning and the leaves stay green. So he knows something is odd here. This is not normal. Whenever you are at the mountain of God in His presence, and God shows up in some extraordinary way, even if it is in an ordinary situation, you need to do what Moses did in verse three. "I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up." Moses said, "I will turn aside and look." Verse four: "When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look," that is key. Not until he turned aside to look. He could have said, "Oh, that is interesting," and kept going. He would have never gotten any more information. He would have never gotten any more information. But because he turned aside to investigate, to find out what was going on, to check it out, he gets more information that leads him towards calling. He says in verse four when he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush. When something is unusually happening, check it out because when he checks it out, guess what he hears? "Moses, Moses." God knew his name. God knew his name, and guess what? He knows yours. He could have only heard his name called by checking out the fire, the flame, by investigating this unusual thing that had occurred. And he heard his name called because, remember the definition of calling? It is personalized. It has your name on it. He says, "Here I am." And then He gives him that classic verse, verse five. "Do not come near here. Don't come any closer. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." Now wait a minute, I thought we were in the wilderness? Yep, until God showed up, then it is changed. Everything changes when God shows up, even the wilderness, even taking care of sheep, even that old job that don't make no sense that you have been in there for a long time, haven't gotten promoted, haven't gotten recognized, haven't gotten nothing. When God shows up, it is holy ground. He says, "Now I want you to do three things," or I want you to do one thing but its implication is threefold. First of all, I want you to remove your shoes. To remove your shoes in the Middle East was a sign of respect. Then God says it, verse six. He now gets to hear his calling because he was obedient to the voice of the Lord. "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Good idea. And the Lord said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters. I am aware of their suffering, so I have come down to deliver them and to bring them up to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites. And now behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me. Furthermore, I have seen the oppression which the Egyptians are oppressing them." Now wait a minute, didn't people been crying a long time? They were having trouble way back there forty years ago. Yeah, but they weren't crying to Me. Forty years ago, they were not ready to be delivered and you were not ready to be their deliverer. It was not time. Your calling and their kingdom need had not juxtapositioned itself yet. Therefore, verse ten, "Come and I will send you to Pharaoh so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt." Now remember, that is what he thought he was going to do forty years ago. God didn't change the call; He changed the time. You may feel like God has always wanted you to do something and you are doing the opposite from the something you thought He wanted you to do. Unless He changes your want, you keep hold of that thing because it may simply be a matter of time. He says, "Now I am ready to send you to Egypt." But Moses says to God, now here is where it gets interesting, in verse eleven. "Who am I?" That can't be you talking, Moses. No. "Who am I?" which is translated to mean, "You expect me to do that?" Now you know why he spent forty years in the wilderness. He had had so much education, he had become so mighty in words, so mighty in deeds, that he had become self-sufficient. He could take care of it himself. He could do it all by himself. He had the wherewithal, he had the money, he had the background, he had the history, he had the culture, he had the family name. He had all this stuff. "I'm going to take care of it myself." Oh, you are? Well, I'm going to put you in a situation where we are going to reduce you. He is a broken man now. Brokenness is when God strips you of your self-sufficiency. It is where your confidence in you independently of God, I mean your confidence in you, nothing wrong with confidence that is rooted in God, but your confidence that is independent of God is reduced. And there is not a man I know or a woman I know who has been greatly used by God who hasn't been stripped first. Every major person in the Bible whose life is unveiled before us had a stripping process. And that stripping stuff is not fun. You know, you strip shellac off of furniture and stuff, you sand that baby down. That sanding stuff is not fun. But that is the only way you can get a new coat on there that will stay and stick. He says, "Who am I?" "That I should go to Pharaoh," now he used to be Pharaoh's son, "that I should bring the sons out of Egypt." In other words, now this job is too big for him. Remember what I gave the definition? Your calling will be always too big for you. You have to raise the question, "How am I going to do this?" If you can do it and not raise that question, either you don't know your calling or you haven't seen all of it or you are just so self-sufficient you think you are God. He says, "I can't do this. This job is too big." Sheep have humbled him. But now God answers, verse twelve. Oh, you can't do it, Moses? Okay, well let me help you. "I will go with you." So you don't have to do it. I will take care of it. You just be a conduit for Me to do it. "And this shall be the sign to you that I have sent when you have brought the people out of the land of Egypt, you shall worship Me in this mountain." You will know it is real because I am going to lead you right back here. What in your life do you feel God wants done that only God can do? If you don't have anything like that in your life, you will never see what God can do because everything you have will always be too small. It will never demand anything of God that is beyond your natural resources. Everybody says they have faith, but they generally have faith in what they can do in case God messes up. If God messes up, I have to have my Plan B. That is why He puts us in crisis to strip us of Plan B. I don't know if you have ever been in a B-less plane, but a B-less plane is not a pretty place to be because that means if A don't work, everything crashes.
Guest (Male): When Dr. Evans returns in a moment, he’ll share a universal truth about our individual calling. First, though, I’d like to tell you about the excellent Called for a Purpose devotional book that goes along with today’s message. These daily readings build on what we’ve been learning, that God has an agenda not just for the world, but for each and every one of us, custom-designed to give us the deep sense of satisfaction that comes from making a real difference. Best of all, for only a few more days now, we’re bundling this devotional along with all 12 full-length audio lessons from Tony’s current two-volume series by the same name, Called for a Purpose. You can get the devotional and the audio series on CD, USB flash drive, or digital download as our gift when you assist Tony’s ministry with a donation to help us keep this program on the air. All the details are waiting for you online when you visit tonyevans.org. Or if it’s more convenient, call us anytime of the day or night at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our team members help with your request. It’s beyond a Sunday sermon, a chance to really dig into the Bible and the kingdom in a new way, anytime and anyway because it’s all online. The Tony Evans Training Center: in-depth courses on all kinds of topics, cultural transformation, intro to expository preaching, Jude, John, Hebrews, Old Testament, New Testament, and so much more. These aren’t sermons, they’re teaching courses to help you engage, understand Scripture, and not just to hear about but to explore the kingdom of God on your own. Find out more at tonyevanstraining.org. Well, let's get back to our lesson today as Dr. Evans shares a fundamental truth God reveals to us in Exodus 3:13.
Dr. Tony Evans: Then Moses said to God, "Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel and I shall say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you.' Now they may say to me, 'What is His name?' and what shall I say to them?" Now that may not sound like much, but that is a doozy. He says, "Now I'm going to tell these folk who ran me off forty years ago, 'God told me to come here and set you folk free.' God, do you know how they are going to look at me? I'm going to look like a pure-D fool. They are going to be like, 'What you been doing for the last forty years?' 'I've been taking care of sheep.' 'Yeah, and God told you what? Uh-huh, right, yeah. Okay, what is His name?'" Now, the word name has to do with authority. By what authority? Who died and made you boss? Who do you think you are? And this is where you have the great rendition in the Bible. And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel if they want to know who I am, you tell them I AM," personal pronoun present tense, "WHO I AM," personal pronoun present tense. I am defined only by Me. I am the eternally existing self-generated one. I AM. That is why they got ticked off at Jesus in John because they asked Jesus, "Who do you think you are?" And then Jesus hit them with this one, "Before Abraham was, I AM." Oh no you didn't. No, no you didn't. You didn't go there. You didn't. And they understood what He meant. They said, "You calling yourself God?" Now, correct language would have said, "Before Abraham was, I was." But He didn't say that. He said, "Before Abraham was, I AM." They understood He was using God's name about Himself. I AM. God says, "I AM THAT I AM. I am defined by Me. Therefore, I AM all you need for this job." When you hit your calling, God will be your sufficiency in it. But He has to develop you and prepare you for that by letting you become devoid of self-sufficiency. And Moses would need a lot. Notice He says in verse six, He says, "I am the God of Abraham," so I am the God of your past. Verse seven, "I have surely seen the afflictions of My people. I am aware of their suffering," I'm the God of your present. Notice verse eight, "So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians to bring them out of the land to a good and spacious land flowing with milk and honey." I'm the God of your future. I'm going to take you to your future. I AM past, present, and future. I AM in all. Well, so you go and get the people together and you get ready. Drop down to chapter four verse ten. Then Moses said to the Lord, verse ten, "Please Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since Thou hast spoken to Thy servant, for I am slow of speech and of tongue." You are a liar. He lied through his teeth. Remember, he is mighty in words. The problem was he was so mighty that he didn't need God. He's out there with sheep. They don't know what he's talking about. So over time, he has lost confidence in his natural ability. Somebody ought to see something here. He is no longer sufficient to do it himself. He says, "How am I going to speak? I can't talk." The Lord has to ask him a question. Verse eleven: "Who made your mouth?" Verse twelve: "Now you just go, I, even I, will be with your mouth and I will teach you what to say." When you hit your calling, you will discover God's sufficiency and your self-confidence, legitimate self-confidence, will be connected with God-confidence. You will be able to be confident you can do it because you will know God called you to it, but He must also sustain you in it. In other words, "God, if You don't go, I'm not going because I'm not about to do this independently of You." Everybody here who is seeking their calling, who has not discovered it yet or who needs further clarification, needs to ask God one thing. Show me a burning bush. Take an ordinary and create something extraordinary, and I will turn aside to look so that I can hear You call my name. God gives Moses a number of lessons, object lessons. We don't have time to go into them. But the one that is most noted is he has got a shepherd's crook, a stick with a hook on the top. He says, "What is that in your hand, Moses?" He says, "Well, nothing, it is just a staff." "Throw it down." Boom. He throws it down. It becomes what? A snake. Moses takes off. You know why he takes off? One, it is a poisonous snake. He's gone. Then God is going to say, "Now pick it up," but then he's going to throw in one, "by the tail." Isn't it like God to ask you to do something dumb like that? Do something weird like that? You don't do weird things like that unless God tells you. In other words, I want you to take the risk of trusting Me because trusting God sometimes is risky. It's risky because you don't know what He's going to do. You don't know what He's going to do. Now if God would just tell us what He's going to do first, then we could decide whether we are going to trust Him. Right? But no, He's not into that. He told Abraham, "Abraham, leave Ur of the Chaldees." "Where am I going?" "To a place I'll show you." "Can I get a little bit more information than that? I don't know whether I am going to like that town." "No, you go to a place I will show you." Because without faith, it is impossible to please God. They that come to God must first believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them who diligently seek Him. There is no way around it. "Pick it up, Moses." He picks it up, and the Bible says it becomes the staff again. Okay, big deal. Stick, snake, stick. Okay, you are good at magic, God. What is the point? You take that staff and you lead Israel out of Egypt. You fulfill your calling. Well, you know the story. Israel fussing, Pharaoh's coming, Red Sea in front of them. "Moses, stop doing all this talking. Hold out the staff." The waters part because the staff is no longer known as the staff of Moses. It is now called the staff of God. When he threw it down, which is what God is going to ask everybody to do at some point in life, when you throw it down and God tells you to pick it back up, it may look the same and it may feel the same, but it's not going to be the same because God will have done something to that staff. And now the staff that only led sheep could now part waters, could now lead generations of people, could now hit a rock and water come out the rock. This ain't no ordinary stick. This is the stick that has been touched by God.
Guest (Male): Dr. Tony Evans, reminding us that God's sufficiency is more than enough for anything He's called us to be or do. And he'll return with a closing thought in just a moment. Now, as I mentioned earlier, the entire two-volume, 12-lesson Called for a Purpose sermon series is available for playback and review anytime you'd like when you request the CDs, USB flash drive, or digital downloads for yourself. This collection includes bonus material we haven't had time to present here on the broadcast. And through tomorrow, when you make a donation to help support Tony's work, we'll say thanks by sending you the entire Called for a Purpose audio collection along with Dr. Evans' companion Called for a Purpose devotional. Make the arrangements today by visiting tonyevans.org or reach out to one of our helpful team members by phone. They're available 24/7 to help with your resource request. Just call 1-800-800-3222. That's 1-800-800-3222. Or again, visit us online at tonyevans.org. Well, Dr. Evans has been teaching about discovering your place and calling in God's divine plan, and that ultimately starts with an epic event summarized in just a few words in this key verse found in the book of John.
Dr. Tony Evans: The greatest verse in the Bible is, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life." Everlasting life is yours right now the moment you start trusting Jesus Christ as your personal sin-bearer. When you trust Him for your salvation, He gives you the gift of eternal life.
Guest (Male): To learn more or to get some free follow-up resources, visit tonyevans.org and follow the link that says "Jesus". Again, that is tonyevans.org. When the circumstances of life become overwhelming, it can get hard to focus on the future. But tomorrow Dr. Evans talks about how you can successfully keep looking ahead no matter how dark things seem to get. Right now, though, he is back with this final thought.
Dr. Tony Evans: So let me ask you a closing question: what is that in your hand that demands being thrown down? So that when God lets you pick it back up, you can do something with it. He needed to be developed over time. You say, "But suppose I blew it twenty-five years ago?" Join Moses. He blew it forty years ago. "Suppose I'm with sheep? My life's going nowhere." Then you know all you need? A burning bush. Because that is when you hear God call your name. Amen.