God is calling you UP! – Jim Lambert

Call You Up

Here at New Day it’s very important to us that the congregation doesn’t put the people that stand on this stage up on a pedestal. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ. We are all sons and daughters of God. We have different gifts and personalities, but the same Holy Spirit lives in you as in Justin, Ryan, or me. Each of us is to use the gifts we’ve been given to encourage the body.

If this is your first time hear, one of the things you will hear a lot is that we call people up we don’t call people out.

Pastor Justin and I met each other when I was about 24. At 24 years old I thought I had it pretty well together. I started a career, I was married, I was the most on fire guy in my church, and I was pursuing going into ministry. Then I met Justin. Justin prayed three times a day without fail. He’ll never tell you for sure but I think he has most of the New Testament memorized. He is a student of the Bible like no one I have ever known. He is the master of spiritual disciplines. He excelled to the top of the ministry platform. He is able to converse simply to a child and make them feel important, but he also has the ability to converse and counsel the elite. These things caused me to have great respect for Justin, but this guy was totally out of my league.

I share this with you to explain what began to happen to me about 7 years ago. It was a party after church and I happened to be sitting at a table by myself. Justin came and sat down next to me. I don’t remember the all the details of the conversation, but I was discouraged and frustrated with where I was at in my walk with God. You know how it is when you begin to evaluate your relationship with God based upon your performance and you can’t seem to measure up.

Instead of getting up early to pray – you are having to get up to go to work. Instead of spending time with God in the evening, you’re making dinner, doing the dishes, and helping your kids with homework. You don’t think your growing at all and I remember telling Justin how frustrated I was because I didn’t think I had any faith, especially when I compared myself to someone like him.

He began to share with me how much of an example of faith and consistency I was to him. How I was an example and a light in the darkness at work; how I was an example of faith and a leader to my family, and how he admired me for it. This was a guy who I saw as a spiritual giant in my eyes. I expected to hear what I needed to do or how I was not measuring up, or how I just needed to pray more or confess God’s word more, how that if I ever wanted God to use me I would have to get my act together. I walked out of the conversation so encouraged and full of life ready to continue, ready to keep going, ready to contend for the faith, because he spoke life over me.

One of the reasons I am here today not only as a pastor at New Day but also a friend to the Kane’s is because Justin has continually called me and my family up to believe what God says about us and to believe in the callings God has for us.

Before New Day even started my wife and I were conversing with each other and she said, I don’t care where Justin and Sarah goes were going with because that’s the kind of Pastor we want for our kids. We don’t want our kids to be church kids.

That’s what calling people is all about. Each one of us called to build each other up, to encourage one another, and wreak havoc on the kingdom of hell. So today I just want to share with you three things about God calling you up.

1. God is Good and He only thinks good things about you.

I live in a house with 4 girls: my wife and 3 daughters so I am on a constant mission to speak life to them. Telling them how beautiful they are, how wonderful they are, how special they are to me, how proud of them I am not because of just the things they do but because of who they are. Sometimes they embrace it and sometimes I’m just their dad or their husband.

Luke 11:9-13 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11 If a son asks for [a]bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

Psalm 139:1-3 Lord, you know everything there is to know about me. 2 You perceive every movement of my heart and soul, and you understand my every thought before it even enters my mind. 3–4 You are so intimately aware of me, Lord.  You read my heart like an open book and you know all the words I’m about to speak before I even start a sentence!  You know every step I will take before my journey even begins.

Psalm 139:17-18 Every single moment you are thinking of me! How precious and wonderful to consider that you cherish me constantly in your every thought! O God, your desires toward me are more than the grains of sand on every shore! When I awake each morning, you’re still with me

Psalm 40:5 O Lord, our God, no one can compare with you. Such wonderful works and miracles are all found with you! And you think of us all the time  with your countless expressions of love—  far exceeding our expectations

2. The New Man becomes our reality when we embrace it by faith.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Ephesians 4:22-24 that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, 23 and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness

Most of my Christian life, I have lived pretty performance oriented. I would base God’s pleasure in me on how much I had prayed, witnessed, or read my Bible.

Sometimes the question has come to my mind “will this really work?”
Ex walking in front of the house

Don’t give up on God’s Word – God has been in the business of calling people up for a long time. I can’t speak
Gideon – mighty man of valor, I’m the weakest
Abraham – father of many nations, I don’t have any kids
Saul – changed to Paul

Romans 4:13-17 For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, 15 because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression.
16 Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that theing promise might be [d]sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all 17 (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; 18 who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken

Testimonies inside this room, Jess, Wendy, Joe, Tim

Phil 1:6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ

Psalm 138:8 The Lord will [a]perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever;

3. God wants to partner with you to expand His Kingdom.

One of my greatest joys is to see people step out in sharing the Gospel. I love watching people as they hear God’s voice for the first time, or they experience His power flowing through them, or they pray for someone or minister to someone.

I’ve watched as some of you have been gaining a “God-Fidence” in who you are as His son or daughter begin to step out.
• Rachel prayed for someone in a store the other day grew out her leg
• Mike shared recently how he came across a guy as he was running who he’d never seen before and prayed for this total stranger.

Two hindrances to power evangelism – are thinking you are not qualified and comparing yourself to other people.

God uses regular people in ordinary places to do extraordinary things.

Matthew 28:17-18 When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.
18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go [a]therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” [b]Amen.

Mark 6:15-18 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will follow those who [a]believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; 18 they[b] will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

1. The story of Rose Dawkins
2. Ethiopian missionary
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