Your Worship and Your Calling

You will know you're called when out of a lifestyle of worship, the light bulb comes on and you say, whoa, that's what I'm supposed to be doing. Dr. Tony Evans says worship can connect you with your calling. When the Holy Spirit hits you with your calling, you will know it, even if you can't articulate it, but you know that's what you are supposed to be doing with your life.

Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans. Author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. Worship is designed to be something we give to God, but Dr. Evans says we receive from it too, including insight into God's purpose for our life. Let's join him in Acts chapter 13 as he explains.

If you are pursuing your calling, then you want to hear him when he calls. There are three concepts in this passage that were involved in this calling of Paul and Barnabas to the work that God had for them to do. Acts chapter 13, if you'll open your Bibles, the first four verses helps us to prepare to hear God. It says, now there was an Antioch in the church, prophets and teachers. He named some, Barnabas, he was the son of encouragement, the great encourager. There was Simeon called Niger.

Niger means black. Simeon was a man of African descent in the Antioch church. There was Lucius the Sirene.

That's North Africa, also a black nation at this time. There was Manion, who had been brought up from Herod the Tetrite. So he was from the royal community.

He was one of Herod's persons. And then there was Saul. They all made up the church of Antioch. Now, before we go too far, it's important for us to know that you had different races, different creeds, different colors. You had different classes who all made up the one church. In other words, at the church of Antioch, there was room for everybody.

No matter what your background was, what your history was, there was room for all. Why were all these people coming to the church at Antioch? Because that was the place where they could hear God speak. We know that because we're told in verse 1, there was there prophets and teachers. Now, a prophet was a proclaimer of the Word of God with an emphasis on applying God's truth to the lives of the people.

A teacher was a pedagogue that is someone who was concerned with instruction and making sure the Word of God was understood. The church at Antioch was made up of leaders who communicated God's truth in a relevant way to the congregation, and so they wanted to come and hear God's truth proclaimed because they knew that anything God called them to do would always be in line with God's Word. And so it is in the context of the church, of corporate worship, that this calling is going to occur that we're going to read about in just a few moments. The beautiful thing about the Word of God is that one sermon can be applied 3,000 different ways because of the work of the Holy Spirit.

Now, do not get me wrong. I am not suggesting that you find it in the church as opposed to in your own private worship. There are two extremes. One extreme is individualism, where you make decisions apart from the church, but the other extreme is institutionalism, where you make decisions in the church that disregards the individual.

There's room for both. Your own private worship should always fold into the corporate worship. God may speak directly from His Word, or He may speak through a prophet or teacher that is a proclaimer of God's truth, but either way, God will make it clear to you and your heart His calling on your life. The purpose of the church, however, helps to validate that call, like witnesses that sign a will validating that what is in the will is accurate. When you come to hear the Word of God, you must come saying, Lord, I want to hear the Word of God, but I want you to talk to me. Have you ever come to church and the sermon had your name on it? Like nobody else was there.

That's because the Holy Spirit takes the truth that's preached generically and applies it. And I'm a fan of, when I get a chance, of police shows, and the sergeant would call the officers into a room, and he would give them their instructions for the day. Now, they had their general instructions, but then he would say, this group, are you going to be over here? This group is going to be over there.

The sergeant would apply it to where their particular station would be for that given day or that given week. When we come together to gather, Jesus Christ is here, and he knows what everybody's station is. He knows where he wants you.

He knows where he wants me. But there must be a heart that is in tune with the corporate body of believers, because as you recall in our series on 1st John, God won't do to you if he can't do through you. Those people who are part of his church are on an inside track. Now, you can stay home and look at television and be a listener only, but there are certain things that God will not do for you apart from being part of his club, his group, his ekklesia, the church.

And so there's a context here in which this event occurs. Let's look at what they were doing in church. We know they were listening to God's Word because they were prophets and teachers. Look at verse 2.

And while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, don't miss that, while they were ministering to the Lord. Do you know you come to church to minister to God? Do you know that when you come to church, God is the audience? It's not the pastor, not the choir. The Lord is the audience, and we're ministering unto him. When men come home from work, they like to be ministered to. It makes men feel good when they come in and they smell the food cooking, and the wife says, your favorite dinner is about to be served, oh great one.

It makes a man feel good when he comes in and one of the kids, daddy, here's your newspaper. Somebody else, here's your slippers. Now, I know I'm talking about heaven, but stay with me. To be ministered to is to be served. Please notice this church did not have a mechanical program.

It wasn't driven by computers and business meetings. They have their place. But these people knew when to get where they wanted to go, the Spirit was going to have to be moving. And there's a great danger that you could program God right out of your life and right out of your church, because there's no room in the schedule for a fresh wind to blow through. It says they ministered to the Lord, that is, worship, prayer, praise, and service, because they needed direction and they needed guidance, they needed help, so they needed to hear from the Lord. It is the role of the Holy Spirit—we're going to talk about that in a moment—to communicate with God's people, but they did it in a context of worship. Worship is like an antenna. We don't need them today in this day of cables, but you remember the rabbit-ear antennas.

You had to move that thing until you connected with the signal that got you a clear picture. Worship is positioning yourself or the antenna of the Spirit to be able to link in to the Holy Spirit's signal. So important was this matter that they were meeting about, it says they fasted. Fasting is giving up food to heighten your spiritual sensitivity.

You fast because it's serious. So these people, in a context of worship, minister to the Lord, they serve the Lord, they worship the Lord, they praise the Lord, they even fasted because of the seriousness of the issue, and if you're searching for your calling, that's a serious issue. They wanted God. Now, the problem is, we don't minister to the Lord often this way because we don't really look for the Lord's guidance this way. We're self-sufficient. We're like men who don't want to pull over and ask directions.

Any of y'all married to a man like that? It's a man thing, okay? We don't want you to give us directions, nor do we want you to tell us where to go to get directions. Now, never mind, everybody lost for years, but it's a pride thing. Well, in the words of a famous song, these saints weren't too proud to beg. They were not too proud to enter into God's presence and to say, we need a honing device to hook into you because we want to know what your program is for us, and we'll see that in a moment. So they were listening to the Word of God and the Spirit said, because they were listening to prophets and teachers, and they heard the Spirit call their name or apply it to individual lives.

The Holy Spirit does this still today. He talks to you, but He talks at a deeper level than what you're hearing with your ears. He's speaking to your spirit. That's why it's often referred to as a still small voice.

It's often referred to as a still small voice because of where it is being heard the loudest, and where it's being heard the loudest is deep down. The Holy Spirit still speaks today, therefore if you want to hear Him tell you what your calling is, because He said, I have a calling for two individuals, Saul and Barnabas. I have a work for them to do. Your calling always involves a work and it's your work, nobody else's. So it was the Word of God, the prophets and the teachers, combined with the Holy Spirit that led to a clear calling of these men.

So He says in verse three, then when they had fasted and prayed, they laid their hands on them and sent them their way. Here we have guidance. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to be your guidance counselor. Dr. Evans will have a practical illustration of this kind of guidance in just a moment, so be sure to stay with us. First, I'd like to tell you about the perfect book that goes along with today's message.

It's called Discover Your Destiny, Let God Use You Like He Made You. This book from Dr. Evans builds on what we've been learning, that God has an agenda not just to 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. You'll learn how to find your one of a kind special assignment from God and discover how the Lord will give you everything you need to carry it out. Best of all, for a limited time, we're bundling this book along with two volumes containing all 12 full-length audio lessons from Tony's Current Message series, Called for a Purpose. You can get the Destiny book and the Called for a Purpose audio series on CD or digital download as our gift when you make a donation to help us keep this program on the air. We depend completely on your support, and this is one way we can show our appreciation for your faithfulness to the ministry of Dr. Evans. All the details are waiting for you online at tonyevans.org or give us a call at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our team members assist with your resource request.

I'll have that information for you again after part two of today's message and this. Men are wired for impact at home and in their communities. In the game of life, you either make the play yourself or you stand on the sidelines and watch the play being made.

The choice is yours, but too many have chosen to sit it out. In Tony Evans' long-awaited sequel, Kingdom Men Rising, he calls on men to rise up in the places they're needed most. Get on the field, listen intently to God, engage in his plans. It takes both focus and faith to embody your true potential. And this isn't something that's out of reach, it's right there.

You can almost touch it. It's available to you if you'll rise and become the influencer God has designed you to be. Kingdom Men, it's time to position yourself to leave a lasting legacy.

Find out more at tonyevans.org. Also makes a great gift for brother, husband, son, uncle, pastor, and more. When my kids were small, we'd come over to the church and they would want to drive the car. So when they were small and not old enough to drive, I'd bring them over here late Saturday night when nobody was here. I'd sit one of my kids on my lap and I'd tell them, let's go drive.

They'd sit on my lap and they'd be driving and having a good old time. But now, while they were holding on the wheel, I was running the show. I wasn't crazy.

I wasn't crazy. My foot was on the brake and the accelerator. And no matter where they had their hands, I had my two fingers at the bottom of that wheel controlling how I was controlling how far they could turn it and how far they couldn't turn it. They would put their foot on the accelerator, but I would have mine on the brake. They weren't going too fast.

Not with me in the car. In other words, they had positioned themselves, but I was still controlling where we were going. You get in God's lap, you position yourself right, and He'll steer it so that you wind up going where He wants you to go, even though you think you in the driver's seat. A lot of us think we're in the driver's seat, but if we're in His lap, see, a lot of us don't even want Him in the car. No wonder we didn't run over so many folk in our lifetime or been run over ourselves going from this to that to this to that, marrying the wrong people, taking the wrong jobs, moving to the wrong places.

Why? We're doing that because we are operating so independently of God we're not sitting on His lap. The second half of verse 2 says, the Holy Spirit said. To put it another way, folks, the Holy Spirit talks. There are two extremes in Christianity. One extreme is a view of the Bible that says the Bible is so sufficient it's all you need.

Simply read it and you'll be okay. That is incorrect, not because the Bible is not sufficient, but the Bible does not apply everything it teaches. In other words, the Bible does not tell you how to take a truth and execute it in a given situation you're facing, or else this book would be as big as this building, because we're all in different scenarios. You can find principles in the Bible, you can find precepts in the Bible. What you can't find in the Bible is all of the applications of it. And so in that way, in an application way, the Bible is not sufficient. It's sufficient in precepts and principles.

It's not sufficient to tell you whether you ought to be working here, to tell you whether you ought to be marrying somebody over there. So one extreme is a view of the Bible that does not recognize, it does not apply itself to every situation. You need more help than just reading the book. But then there is another extreme. And the other extreme is the view of the Holy Spirit that doesn't need the Bible.

You just wait to be zapped by the Spirit. Many of us, when we were in college, went to the guidance counselor, or maybe high school, and we wanted the guidance counselor to help us. We didn't want the guidance counselor to put us in school. We were already in school.

We went to the guidance counselor for two things, to help us with our career path and to help us to choose the classes that would be appropriate for where we wanted to go. We didn't have enough information. It didn't mean that we didn't have the list of classes.

It means we didn't know how to apply the list to our track. So we needed what? We needed guidance. Well, what the guidance counselor was to your career, the Holy Ghost is to your ministry. He is the ministry guidance counselor. His job is to illuminate you to turn on the light bulb. You will know you're called when out of a lifestyle of worship, the light bulb comes on and you say, whoa, that's what I'm supposed to be doing.

It is where He illuminates, because when the Holy Spirit speaks, He speaks to the Spirit. Now, it may come through the is, but it may come directly to the Spirit, but it comes deep. Do you ever know something you can't explain, but you know you know what you're talking about? In fact, you get frustrated because you can't explain it, but you know you know what you're talking about. When the Holy Spirit hits you with your calling, you will know it, even if you can't articulate it. In fact, you may not even know where to go to apply it, but you know that's it.

That's what you are supposed to be doing with your life. And so it is the job of the Holy Spirit then to illuminate us. In fact, the Bible says what the Word of God does when it's illuminated by the Spirit, it separates the soul and the Spirit. Now, the soul is your personality, the Spirit is the God life within you, and the Holy Spirit goes so deep with the truth of God that He can separate what's you and what's God. Because they were intimate with God, His voice was clear. The Spirit still speaks today, and He still uses the prophets and the teachers, that is, the proclaimers of the Word of God, to take the generic truth that's taught and apply it individually to you and your pursuit of your own calling. So it goes on and says, the Holy Spirit said, set apart from me Barnabas and Saul for the work which I have what?

Which I have what? The work which I have called them to do. God has a work that He has called you to do, and please notice how specific it was, set apart Saul and Barnabas, that He had a work for them to do by name.

Your work has your name on it, and it's only your work. The Bible says, work out your own salvation in fear and trembling. The psalmist says in Psalm 139, I am fearfully and wonderfully made, I am unique.

Stop trying to be something other than what God made you, and listen to this, stop trying to do stuff you were never made to do. That's operating outside of your calling. And a lot of people are operating outside of their calling, and that is because they're not hearing God's voice. You ought to know the Bible so that the Holy Spirit has something to apply. It's like when we were in school and we'd say before a test, Lord, bring back to me those things which I have studied. So there was a knowledge of the playbook, but the specific application to the specific situation is the Holy Spirit job. It says the Holy Spirit spoke and called them. God has a calling with your name written on it.

I don't know what it is, I can't tell you what it is. Your calling will always ignite a fire. Your calling will always facilitate your gifts, your ability or potential ability, your passion. It will start a fire in you when you hear it, when you see it, when you think about it, something burns.

It's a fire. And you do it if you weren't paid to do it, because you love doing it so much. It will also take into account your experiences. God has not let your experiences, good, bad, or ugly, be wasted. But your pain, those negative things that you want to know why God didn't stop that from happening to you, was because he had use for it later on. He had a reason for not blocking it. When you get to heaven and God shows you a videotape of your life, He's not only gonna show you what happened, He's gonna show you what could have happened.

And that tape is gonna be a lot longer than the what happened tape. God didn't save us from so much stuff, but why did He let the stuff come through that came through? Because He had use of it. That's why you can give thanks in everything. You don't give thanks for everything, you give thanks in everything.

Because you know it had to pass through His fingers first. If you're wanting to be able to give thanks to God and everything, but have never committed your life to Him, stay with us. Dr. Evans will come back in a moment to explain how you can do that. First, I want to let you know that today's lesson, Your Worship and Your Calling, is part of Tony's Encouraging Message series, Called for a Purpose. As I mentioned earlier, this entire collection is available for you to own on digital files for playback on your audio device, or in a two volume 12 lesson CD set.

As usual, the set contains a lot of bonus material we won't have time to present here on the broadcast. And for a limited time, 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 a bonus, a copy of Tony's popular book, Discover Your Destiny, Let God Use You Like He Made You. Make the arrangements today by visiting us at 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 visit us online at tonyevans.org. God not only wants you to follow His plan for your life, He wants you to be excited about it. Tomorrow, Dr. Evans will explain how to ignite your passion for God so His priorities become your vision.

Right now, though, he's back with this closing invitation for you. If you've never accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you can do that right now. Simply go to Him and acknowledge that you're a sinner in need of a Savior and that you're transferring your trust to Him alone because of His death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. In fact, I'm going to say a little prayer, and you can repeat it after me. You just have to mean it for yourself. Heavenly Father, I know I'm a sinner and that I can't save myself.

I believe Jesus Christ, Your Son, died on the cross in my place for my sin, and I now am trusting Him alone to forgive me and to give me the gift of eternal life that He promised to give to anyone who came to Him for it. Thank you for saving me and helping me from this day forward to live a life pleasing to you. Congratulations. Welcome to the family. God bless you. The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.