Equipped for the Calling

Introduction

Good morning, everyone. I am thrilled to be with you on this Pentecost Sunday. Pentecost is one of my favorite topis as it chronicles a significant time in man’s relationship with God, a deeply meaningful and intimate move in our relatioship as well as a critical aspect of empowerment to step into the Great Commission. That is what we are going to discuss today, but first, let’s approach the Throne of Glore together, sall we?!?!

God Has a Plan

The first thing that I want to point out is that this is not something that happened haphazzardly. Check out Acts 1:4-8 with me.

Acts 1:4–8 NLT

Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking him, “Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?” He replied, “The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

So you can see that God had a plan. I want to share with you that God always has a plan for us. I don’t know why that would catch any of us by surprise. Jeremiah 29:11 reads

Jeremiah 29:11 NLT

For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

So there you have it, God always has a plan, and not just a plan, but a good plan that calls us to a future purpose and gives us hope.

Let me share with you a bit about my calling to ministry. When I was young, I always dreamed of being in the military. That was my plan all through high school. I joined the military on the delayed entry program when I was barely 17 years old, just starting my senior year of high school.

One day, several of my friends were over at my house sitting in the living room and chatting when my mom came in and said “You boys are starting your senior year. By now, you should be thinking about your future. What are your dreams and pursuits?” One by one, my friends shared some of what they were going to do in life. When it got to me, my mom said “I know that you are going to join the military”. I responded “Yes, but I can’t help but think that God is going to use me in some sort of ministry at some point”.

My mom nearly fell out of her chair, and I remember even being shocked by my response. I think about that moment often because it seemingly came from nowhere. I was raised in church and my family, though far from perfect, was very much Christian, but I was very much worldly as a teenager. So my response really did catch me off guard. Looking back, I think it was simply God instilling within me that He had a plan just as Jesus did with the disciples.

God Fulfills His Plan

So, after Jesus said these things to the disciples, he was taken up before their very eys. Fast forward to Acts 2:1-4 which reads

Acts 2:1–4 NLT

On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.

So not only did God have a plan, but we can count Him as faithful to see it to fruition. Hebrews 10:23 reads

Hebrews 10:23 NLT

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.

Just as God was faithful to fulfill what Jesus promised to His disciples, my experience is the same. I joined the military and served proudly, though my Christian walk was certainly less than honorable. I did all of the things that a young soldier is often associated with, I shall not go into detail.

Along the way, a friend introduced me to a very decent young lady that would become my wife. We married and soon afterward, I left the military and we pursuid many dreams to build a life together. However, every attempt I made fell apart. I wanted to be a state trooper, and it fell apart. I wanted to be a computer programmer, and it fell apart. I went to school to be an industrial electrician, and the program fell apart. Every pursuit fell apart.

Compounding failures can start to weigh on a person after awhile. It get’s into your head and heart, and the devil uses it to wreak havok on your morale. You start questioning your value as a human being. I even started believing that God must have abandoned me altogether, and that I was simply lost and worthless. I slipped into a pretty deep depression. One day, a very dark day for me, I was sitting alone in a room just filled with pity and grief, when my wife came in to ask what she could do to make things better. I thank God that my parents, though imperfect in many weays, were faithful to Proverbs 22:6 which reads to

Proverbs 22:6 NLT

Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.

because my response to my wife was, “There is nothing that you can do. I need to get back to Jesus”. I was resolute to do so, and we made a plan to go to church that coming Sunday. I had heard from a friend that there was a new church outside of town, so we decided to go there.

Sunday came and we headed to church. When we arrived, there was a generator outside the front door running. When we got inside, I knew why. The building was literally a shell. The generator was rnning a small string of lights. The building was basically a 4,000 sq ft pole barn with metal siding built around a poured concrete slab. It was a very simple structure.

I sat down in one of the folding chairs that was set up and heard a sermon that stirred me to rededication. Afterward, the pastor came up and invited us to join his family and some of the church members to lunch. We accepted and when we got to the restaurant, he sat me next to him. We chatted as we ate and during our conversation he said “So, you rededicated your life today. Are you thinking that you want to make this your church home”? I said “Yes, I think so”. He then said, “Darren told me you were coming today. He also said that you went to school to be an electrician”. I said, “Yeah, that’s right”. He then went on to say, “Well you have some skills that I think could help out a lot. You saw that we are using a generator to light the chapel. We need to run wiring and put in a service. Do you think you would be willing to help with that”? He added “I don’t want you to do it. I want to learn how to do it, so could you teach me”. I said, “Sure! I would love to do that with you”.

So, over the course of the course of the next couple of months, I would meet him there a couple of days a week after work and would teach him about the electrical trades, and during our time together he would talk to me about his sermons on Sunday and Wedneday nights. When we had all of the wiring ran and fixtures, switches, and receptacles in, we put in the service and brought electricity into the building. We stood back that afternoon satisfied with what we had done when he said “Do you know anything about drywall”? I said, “Yes, I sure do”. So, over the next few months, I taught him to hang and mud drywall, and he would talk to me about his sermons and what he was preparing for. When we were completely finished, we stood back satisfied with what we had accomplished, and he asked “Do you want help prime and paint”, to which I responded, “Absolutely”.

When all of the priming and painting had been completed, we then trimmed the building out. The we ordered some heavy equipment and I cut out the parking lot and laid gravel. We continued to work on the church until it was completely finished. A little over a year had gone by. We stood at the doorway of the chapel and I recall him saying how good a work we had done together on the building and grounds. I remember saying that I was kind of sad it was over, and that I was going to miss working with him on it when he said “Well, let’s work on something else together. I want you to be my youth pastor”. I said “Do you really think that I am ready for something like that”? He said “I have discipled you for a solid year. You’re ready”!

So not only did God have a plan, but in this moment He began its fulfillment. The amazing thing to me in this is that I saw my pursuit to become an industrial electrician as a failure, but God used it to bring me back to His plan for my life. God never wastes anything! But He was not done here!

God Equips Us for the Calling

When God calls us to something, He also equips us to fulfill that calling. Jesus had the disciples wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit to fall upon them. It waas more than fellowship; it was an empowering ability. The tongues of flames empowered them to speak in ways that spread the gospel to all people of every language. The bible says that the crowd came together in bewliderment, because each person heard their own language. That is miraculous! But why would be surprised byit? After all, Psalm 77:14 refers to God as the “God of miracles”. Moreover, the Old Testament gives countless witness to His power and glory. Equip-ping me for my walk has been no different.

During this entire time of me working to build the church with the senior pastor, I had a regular job working at Ford Motor Company building car parts. During this period of my life, I had a group of guys that I would work out with. We would lift weights, play raquetball, go for runs. Time and circumstances change things, but during this time of my life I was very fit and committed to fitness.

One day, we were playing raquetball and I hit the wall in an awkward position. Something felt off, but there was no immediate pain. I grabbed my things, went home, showered and went to bed. When I woke up, I couldn’t move. I had severe back pain. My wife took me to the ER, and we discovered that hitting the wall in the way that I did severely herniated two disks in my back. This was not a small thing that eventually would go away. I ended up being off work for nearly a year. During that time, most days, all I could do was lay in bed with severe pain when I moved. Months went by and my body was gaining weight while my bank account was losing its heft. We fell into financial duress, and to make bad news worse, our Ford plant announced that it was closing. So even if I were somehow able to go back to work, I would soon have nothing to go back to.

My best friend also worked at Ford and he found a job with The Salvation Army as its Camp Facilities Manager in Indiana. He called my one day and said, “Pete, the Indiana Division is hiring a Youth Program Specialist at DHQ in Indianapolis. I think you should apply”. He gave me the link and I did. Other than a meeting with the DYS, nothing really materialized from it. One day, I was laying in bed when my wife got home and I was laying there just stairing at a map of Northern California. My wife asked what I was doing, and I answered that I really didn’t know. I said I jsut feel like God is drawing us to something and would open an opportunity for ministry in that area. She pretty much dismissed it because we didn’t know anyone there. We had a life in southern Indiana. Nothing about northern California made sense to either of us.

A couple of Sundays later, I forced myself out of bed and we went to church. After all, I was the youth pastor and it had been awhile sinse we had gone. People understood but I still felt bad like I was neglecting my responsibilities. During the sermon, I felt God tugging on my heart calling me to a deeper ministry. I had felt it for awhile but couldn’t do anything about it in the state that I was in. Nevertheless, the guilt of not answering the call was relentless and growing.

At the end of the sermon, I hobbled up to the mercy seat and laid on the ground flat on my stomach. While I was there, I prayed to God and said “Lord, I know that you are calling us to something more significant. But God, you know what I am dealing with. The pain is unbearble. How can I possibly answer a deeper call when I can barely go to the bathroom without help? If you are truly expecting me to go depper in ministry right now, then you are going to have to fix my body so that I can.

I laid there a few more minutes just being emotional and talking to God. When I finished, I got up and my pain was completely gone. I stood there in awe. I kind of hopped back and forth from foot to foot, testing it a little more harshly each time. There was no pain. I started walking around, and then jogging, and then jumping. The pain was gone! With tears streaming down my face, I said “God, you tell me where and I will go”.

Life got back to normal and I went back to work. A few months went by and I received a call one evening from a number I didn’t recognize. When I answered the phone, the gentleman introduced himself as the Salvation Army corps officer in Eureka, California, exactly where I had been looking on the map when I was bedridden.

He said that they were looking for a youth worker and that he was just about to make a call to offer it to one of the candidates when something in his soul led him to do one final search, and he came across my resume. Friends, two weeks later my wife and I were in a uHaul heading to northern California. When God calls you, He equips and empowers you.

Concluding Thoughts

Why am I telling you my story on this Pentecost Sunday? It’s because God calls us all to the work. Now, you not only have the account of Pentecost in Acts 2 to be encouraged by, but you also have the account of my own calling and the miraculous way in which God empowered me to enter into it.

You see, Acts Pentecost is not only about flaiming tongues empowering simple men of God to do His very important work. It is also about you and me entering into that work. The same Holy Spirit that filled and enabled them fills and enables us. So be encouraged that the God of the bible remains in the miracle business, that He still calls us to His purpose, that He still joins us in the mission, and that He still empowers us to meet the task. May you be blessed by my testimony, and touched by the hand of the Almighty!