Speed Dial

ATTENTION

Several men are in the locker room of a private club after exercising. Suddenly a cell phone on one of the benches rings. A man picks it up and the following conversation ensues:

"Hello?"

"Honey, It's me."

"Sugar!"

"Are you at the club?"

"Yes."

"Great! I'm at the mall 2 blocks from where you are. I saw a beautiful mink coat. It is absolutely gorgeous! Can I buy it?"

"What's the price?"

"Only $1,500."

"Well, okay, go ahead and get it, if you like it that much."

"Ahhh, and I also stopped by the Mercedes dealership and saw the 2002 models. I saw one I really liked. I spoke with the salesman and he gave me a really good price ... and since we need to exchange the BMW that we bought last year..."

"What price did he quote you?"

"Only $60,000!"

"Okay, but for that price I want it with all the options."

"Great! Before we hang up, something else..."

"What?"

"It might seem like a lot, but I was reconciling your bank account and...well, I stopped by to see the real estate agent this morning and I saw the house we had looked at last year. It's on sale! Remember? The one with a pool, English garden, acre of park area, beachfront property..."

"How much are they asking?"

"Only $450,000... a magnificent price, and I see that we have that much in the bank to cover..."

"Well, then go ahead and buy it, but just bid $420,000, OK?"

"Okay, sweetie. Thanks! I'll see you later!! I love you!!!"

"Bye."

The man hangs up, closes the phone's flap and asks aloud, "Does anyone know to whom this phone belongs?"

Hey, those cell phones can really get you into trouble, but I guess they’re here to stay. You noticed how we hate them when others are talking in the middle of a restaurant or are cutting us off in traffic while talking, but when we are doing it, we think nothing of it. They’re so nice; they’re so convenient. One thing I really like about them is that they have a feature called “speed dial.” Once you’ve entered your favorite numbers in the phone, you can assign them to a number, then when you want to dial up that person, all you have to do is touch that number and press “talk.” For instance, on my cell phone, if I push “2" and “talk”, I call my daughter in Arkansas. If I push 3 or 4 I can call my wife on her cell or at the house; 5 or 6 will get me mom and dad; 7 dials the church, and so on. Speed dial is for the people you call most often, and are usually the ones you have the most confidence in and in whom you most rely.

Now, I know this is far-fetched, and would never happen, but, if God had a cell-phone, who do you think He would have on speed dial? Who does He call when He wants something done? Who does He call when He wants to reach the town of Wilson, or reach out to Hispanics? Who does He call when He sees 3year-olds who need a teacher? Who does He call when He sees new believers who need to be discipled, or seekers who need to hear the Gospel? Who’s on God’s speed dial?

I believe the answer is very simple: God calls those who have willing hearts. God calls those who won’t say no, even when they’re tired; God calls those who won’t say no, even when they’re broke; God calls those who won’t say no, even when they’re disappointed, or when they know they’ll be persecuted. God calls those with willing hearts.

NEED

Now most of you might agree with all this in theory, but, in practice, it is pretty foreign. Let’s face it: It’s a lot easier to talk about being willing than it is to actually be willing. I’ve experienced this first hand. For a number of years, I was not called to preach. God had to really deal with me to get me to even surrender to be in ministry, but I never under any circumstances wanted to lead a church. Even after I came here and was in ministry, I still was very resistant to the idea of being the pastor and if you’d have asked me about that, I would have probably told you, “God’s not called me to do that,” and I was being honest when I said that. I really could not discern any call from God to “preach.” The thing that I couldn’t see, however, was that I wasn’t being called to preach because I wasn’t willing to preach.

But something started to change. I began attending seminary in 1997 and in the spring of 1998, I took a class on preaching and God really began to deal with me. I started to want to do it. I can’t explain it, my heart just started to change. But I still had a problem: I still didn’t sense that God was calling me. All the while, however, my resistance was turning into desire. I began to wish that God would call me to preach. Finally, I was attending a music conference in South Carolina. That night, Jim Cymbala preached and it was really a holy time. God dealt with me and I went forward during the invitation. While I was standing there, I still remember that it was as if the Holy Spirit was saying, “This is it. If you wanted a call, I’m giving it to you. You know you want to do it. Now do it.”

Here’s the point: That happened because my heart changed and I became willing to do what God wanted me to do. And here’s what I’m here to tell you: God calls those whose hearts have become willing to do what He wants them to do! Only willing hearts are on His Speed Dial. So if that’s true the question we have to answer is this: How can you and I develop willing heart.

BACKGROUND

Well, the answer to that question can be found in many places in scripture, but I want us to go to a particular story this morning and for the next couple of weeks. It’s the story of the last judge of Israel: the boy prophet, Samuel. You find his story in the book that bears his name, 1 Samuel. In the first three chapters of this book, you can find three principles that will help you cultivate a willing heart. The first one is this: Your heart can become willing if you

DIV 1: FOLLOW THE RIGHT EXAMPLE

EXPLANATION

It began with Hannah. She was Samuel’s mother. She grieved daily because she had no children. Nothing silenced the cry of her soul. Her stable home couldn’t do it; her many friends couldn’t do it; even her husband’s love couldn’t do it. You remember how she went to the temple to ask God to give her a son and she was so distraught that Eli, the priest, thought that she was drunk. She wasn’t. She was praying. You see her prayer in 1 Sam. 1:11

Then she made a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head.”

Well, God was very gracious to Hannah. He gave her a son. Now, if that had been you and me, we’d have probably been tempted to make excuses or try to bargain our way out of our deal, but not Hannah. When the time came for her to keep her word, she says in 1:26

And she said, “O my lord! As your soul lives, my lord, I am the woman who stood by you here, praying to the Lord. 27 For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition which I asked of Him. 28 Therefore I also have lent him to the Lord; as long as he lives he shall be lent to the Lord.” So they worshiped the Lord there.

Now, I am sure that was hard for Hannah to do. This was the child that she had so looked forward to having, and she was giving him up. I’m sure that it was a heart-wrenching thing to see her little son in the arms of someone else as she turned around and started for home. The only consolation she had was that she knew she’d get to see him occasionally. The Bible says as much in 2:18-19:

But Samuel ministered before the Lord, even as a child, wearing a linen ephod. 19 Moreover his mother used to make him a little robe, and bring it to him year by year when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.

Have you ever wondered what Hannah must have said to her son on those yearly visits? I’m sure Samuel must have had the typical questions why other kids were able to live with their parents while he had to live at the temple. Don’t you know that answering those questions must have been hard? And yet, Hannah went through all of this because she took God seriously. He had answered a prayer and He had a call on her life and on the life of her son, and even though it was painful, she was willing to do it! And in the middle of all this, something was happening in Samuel’s heart. He was learning what it meant to let go of everything to follow God, and that is why when God calls him, he is able to say, as he does in 3:10: “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.” Somehow he had watched his mother be willing to follow God and it had rubbed off on him. All those conversations they had when Hannah was putting his new robe on him had borne fruit, until now, he was willing to follow.

Can I just tell you something you probably already know? None of us were born with a willing heart! Jeremiah tells us that the human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Paul says in the New Testament, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” If you just hang around and wait to develop a willing heart, it just will not happen. Willing hearts result from the influences that mold our decisions. So, who is influencing you? Whose example are you following? Who in your life asks you the hard questions?

ILLUSTRATION:

In his book Let Your Life Speak, Parker Palmer, a Quaker, tells the story of how God used Palmer's friends to shape his vocational path in a significant way. Palmer had been offered the opportunity to become the president of a small educational institution. He was certain the job was for him, but he honored the tradition of the Quaker community, which is to call on a dozen trusted friends to engage in a "clearness committee," a process in which "the group refrains from giving you advice but spends three hours asking you honest, open questions to help you discover your own inner truth." Palmer writes that the initial questions were all very easy, until someone simply asked, "What would you like most about being a president?" He writes:

The simplicity of that question loosed me from my head and lowered me into my heart. I remember pondering for at least a full minute before I could respond. Then, very softly and tentatively, I started to speak: "Well, I would not like having to give up my writing and my teaching…. I would not like the politics of the presidency, never knowing who your real friends are…. I would not like having to glad-hand people I do not respect simply because they have money…. I would not…"

Gently but firmly, the person who had posed the question interrupted me: "May I remind you that I asked what you would most like?"

I responded impatiently, "Yes, yes, I'm working my way toward an answer." Then I resumed my sullen but honest litany. …

Once again the questioner called me back to the original question. But this time I felt compelled to give the only honest answer I possessed, an answer that came from the very bottom of my barrel, an answer that appalled even me as I spoke it.

"Well," I said, in the smallest voice I possess, "I guess what I'd like most is getting my picture in the paper with the word president under it."

I was sitting with seasoned Quakers who knew that though my answer was laughable, my mortal soul was clearly at stake! They did not laugh at all but went into a long and serious silence—a silence in which I could only sweat and inwardly groan.

Finally my questioner broke the silence with a question that cracked all of us up—and cracked me open: "Parker," he said, "can you think of an easier way to get your picture in the paper?"

O, listen, Christian, everyone of us needs a “clearness” committee. We need the Hannah’s in our life that set good examples and asks hard questions, and those people need to be the right people

APPLICATION

So, who is that for you? More than likely, God’s not going to write out His specific will for you on cloud number three just to the left of the sun. Now He’s done things like that on a few occasions, but its pretty rare. The chances are that He is going to use the influence and example of other believers to channel us in the right direction. Which just means that you and I are going to have to be very intentional about whom we allow to influence us.

So, who is your mentor? Who is the believer that you are developing a relationship with and who is helping you to develop a willing heart of service to God? If you don’t have one, why don’t you have one?

You may say, “Well, that’s a good question, Rusty? How do I develop a relationship that kind of Christian friend?”

Well, in the first place, you’ve got to know what kind of person you’re looking for. After all, if you take advice from a loser, you’ll become a loser, right. So you’ve must choose this person carefully.

That person must first be man or woman who genuinely walks with God. They need to have the spiritual habits that develop godly character. They should have a daily quiet time and know what it means to pray and really get hold of God.

And they must be a person who consistently serves God. They must be a person who doesn’t just sit on the sidelines and act spiritual. No, they must really be spiritual. They must serve God. How are you going to learn anything about the call of God from someone who hasn’t answered the call themselves.

And once you’ve identified the kind of person you’re looking for, you really need to pray for God to bring that person into your life. And the chances are, that person is already there, so you need to pray that God will open your eyes to see the person who can help you develop a willing heart.

And once you’ve prayed, and God’s put that person in your life, you’ve got to go and ask for the time. I’ll just tell you right now. The people whom you need in your life are already going to be busy. If they were not busy, you wouldn’t need to be around them. The very fact that they’ve answered the call of God probably means they’re extremely busy, but even though that’s true, you must ask for their help. Hey, they may not be able to mentor you, but you’ll never know till you ask, right? Here’s the deal: Willing hearts are the result of the influencers who mold our decisions. Who is that in your life?

But as great as mentors are, they aren’t enough. They alone can’t develop within you a willing heart to serve. They alone will not place you on “speed dial.” No, you can develop a willing heart not only if you follow the right example, but also if you

DIV. 2 NURTURE THE RIGHT RELATIONSHIP

EXAMPLE:

Now you’ll have to admit that, even though Samuel learned from the example of his mother, he had other influences on his life that weren’t so great. We talked about them a little bit last week. On the one hand, the sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas, were snakes-belly scoundrels! They were worse than the worst charlatan televangelists, merchandising the holiness of God with a brazenness that would make Elmer Gantry blush! If you’d have been choosing your child’s friends, Hopni and Phineas have been absolutely off limits.

Their father wasn’t much better. While we don’t know of anything specific that Eli did that was dishonest, when God pronounces judgment on Eli, He says that while Eli’s sons made themselves vile, Eli, “did not restrain them.” Eli, my friends, was a bad parent, yet, he was the only father Samuel really had on a daily basis. If Eli had produced Hophni and Phineas, what kind of hope was there for Samuel?

Yet, somehow Samuel fought through all of that. He served faithfully. He stayed close to God, in fact the bible says that he slept in the temple. What’s more, he began to develop this dynamic and close relationship with God. 3:19 says that “He grew and the Lord was with Him.” Even though the times were bad; even though the priests were corrupt; even though Eli was a terrible father, Samuel grew and the Lord was with him. Somehow he was able, in the middle of distressing circumstances, to nurture a close relationship with God and, I believe that is why God called him.

It always works that way: God calls those who serve him best and you serve Him best when you know Him best. I believe Samuel developed a willing heart because, somehow, even in the middle of terrible influences, he was nurturing a love for God.

ILLUSTRATION

You see, there are many people who are not into what we would call some deep, dark, gross sin, but they have stone, cold hearts that will never hear the call of God because they are not nurturing a relationship with Him.

Tim Keller writes this definition of sin:

"Sin isn't only doing bad things, it is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything, even a very good thing, more than on God.

He writes in his bestseller, The reason for God:

If you center your life and identity on your spouse or partner, you will be emotionally dependent, jealous, and controlling. The other person's problems will be overwhelming to you.

If you center your life and identity on your family and children, you will try to live your life through your children until they resent you or have no self of their own. At worst, you may abuse them when they displease you.

If you center your life and identity on your work and career, you will be a driven workaholic and a boring, shallow person. At worst you will lose family and friends and, if your career goes poorly, develop deep depression.

If you center your life and identity on money and possessions, you'll be eaten up by worry or jealousy about money. You'll be willing to do unethical things to maintain your lifestyle, which will eventually blow up your life.

If you center your life and identity on pleasure, gratification, and comfort, you will find yourself getting addicted to something. You will become chained to the "escape strategies" by which you avoid the hardness of life.

If you center your life and identity on relationships and approval, you will be constantly overly hurt by criticism and thus always losing friends. You will fear confronting others and therefore will be a useless friend.

If you center your life and identity on a "noble cause," you will divide the world into "good" and "bad" and demonize your opponents. Ironically, you will be controlled by your enemies. Without them, you have no purpose.

If you center your life and identity on religion and morality, you will, if you are living up to your moral standards, be proud, self-righteous, and cruel. If you don't live up to your moral standards, your guilt will be utterly devastating.

You see, willing hearts are forged in the heat of deep relationships with Jesus Christ. The reason many Christians don’t answer the call of God is because they’re so busy wrapping their hearts around the idols of this world.

APPLICATION

So, what is your heart wrapped around? How can a believer develop the kind of relationship with Him that will bring willingness to our heart? Well in the first place, you, like Samuel, will have to actively resist the influences around you. We live in a world that is full of insidious influences that constantly pull us away from our focus on Christ. The Christian who seeks to keep Christ in the center of His life will constantly encounter resistance from the world. You will not drift into a significant relationship with Christ. It will take an intentional focus. You must actively resist the influences around you.

But you must also faithfully stay close to God. Samuel did that. He stayed in the temple, in Jehovah’s presence. And there, in the presence of God, he patiently grew. He didn’t go out and demand a calling, he just put himself in the position to receive one. He stayed close to God.

Is that you? Are you close to the Lord, too? Is your heart wrapped around Him? If it is, I say to you be patient with what He’s doing in your life. If you will stay in His presence, He will bring you to the place that you need to be with Him.

Someone wrote:

Oh, the bitter shame and sorrow

That a time could ever be

When I let the Saviour’s pity

Plead in vain; and proudly answered,

“All of self, and none of Thee!”

Yet He found me; I beheld Him

Bleeding on the accursed tree;

Heard Him pray “Forgive them, Father!”

And my wistful heart said faintly,

“Some of self, and some of Thee.”

Day by day, His tender mercy,

Healing, helping, full and free;

Brought me lower, while I whispered,

“None of self and all of Thee.”

VISUALIZATION

Can I show you how this worked in my life? When God was trying to call me back into ministry, I remember going through this process. I was a believer, but I was out of the will of God. After several years, I had gotten to the place that I was quite unwilling to do what God wanted me to do. I had a plan for my own life, and, while I didn’t know for certain what God wanted me to do, I was pretty sure of what I was determined not to do. Willingness did not define my life.

But as I told you many times, God began to deal with my heart. Now, He didn’t at first start calling me back to full time ministry. Though that possibility always lurked in the background, I wasn’t ready to hear it. What God began to do was to create a hunger in my heart to be as close to Him as I used to be. Can I just stop right here and tell you that if you ever develop a very close relationship with God, it will ruin you. It’s like eating Edy’s Ice Cream. Once you’ve had it, everything else is just frozen milk!

God began to create a strong desire for that intimacy with Him that I used to have. And, of course, the only way to have that intimacy with Him is to surrender to Him . . . to become willing to allow Him to have His way in your heart. Finally, I knew I had to do something. The more I drew close to God, the more I became aware that He was calling me to do something.

Finally, I sought some help. I went to my pastor at that time, Wendel Walley. Wendel is a great man of God who really loves the Lord. I remember asking him to go to lunch with me one day. I had decided to just let it all hang out. I wanted to tell him all the things I’d been doing since leaving the ministry and about how cold my heart was, hoping that maybe he’d say, “Well, you just need to give up the thoughts of ever being in the ministry and just settle for being a good layman.” By the way, it would have served his self-interest to have told me that, since I was leading the music in his church. But that’s not what he said! He told me much the same thing that Eli told Samuel: When God calls you, you must say, “Speak, Lord for your servant is listening.”

That’s what I did, and that’s why I’m here. I want you to know that God calls those with willing hearts, and it could be that what you need to ask God for this morning is not what He wants you to do, but how you can develop a willing heart!