Hi, this is Dave Olson. I'm the senior leader of
Heartland Church located in Ankeny, IA.
I hope the following message challenges, encourages, and
ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us.
Hey, I'm not Pastor Dave, I'm Pastor Adam, I'm your executive
pastor. So glad to be here today to be
able to minister. The Lord's put a specific word
on my heart for the church in this season, you know, praying
and and thinking about where we're at in our season as a
church. And you know, given that Pastor
Dave even ministered, I believe it was last week on times and
seasons. There's just a specific word
that God wanted to bring out today.
He's been preparing me for about a month and Pastor knew it was
coming. I knew it was coming and here we
go. Are you all ready?
I love to open the word, love to get in, let God do what he wants
to do. So we're going to do that this
morning. Let me pray.
Heavenly Father, I just thank you that you are faithful and
you're good. You're having a good day, Lord.
Your word says that to those who
believe out of their bellies will flow rivers of living
water. And so right now I release your
Kingdom in this place. And to everyone who hears this
message, I release your Kingdom in Jesus name.
Have your way. Amen.
This morning, I want to minister to you a message that I call
called to ministry. And as I get started this
morning, I'm reminded of Moses in the Old Testament.
And Moses is a guy who had a, you know, a divine heritage, you
know, from God and, and at one point starts to step into that
and set people free. And then, and then he gets
afraid and he runs out into the desert and, and then he gets
married and he, he, he finds him himself out with the sheep in
the wilderness. And one day he's just doing the
do. He's doing what he did every
day. And all of a sudden he looks up
and he sees this Bush that's on fire.
And he, he decides that, you know, like any of us, what, what
is that? So he decides to draw near to
the fire, and as he draws near to the fire, the Lord speaks to
him out of the fire. In my heart for today's message
is that you would at this moment just decide to draw near to the
fire of God, that He could speak to you out of the fire.
You know, one day there's another story in the Old
Testament about Elijah. He was a prophet of God, a man
of God. And and there was another guy
named Elisha and Elisha's out in his field.
One day he's out there and he's got oxen and he's got a plow and
he's plowing along. He's doing his everyday calling
what he's called to do. And all of a sudden, what
appears to be in the Scriptures feeling out of nowhere, Elisha,
this prophet of God, this man of God, walks on to his land, walks
over him, takes the mantle which was like a cloak, takes that off
of himself and puts it on Elisha and then walks away.
And in that context, and in that day, that was a very special
thing known to the Hebrew people, known to that people
that I am being called to follow.
And he runs to Elijah and he says, Elijah, Elijah, let me go
back and tell my parents. Let me, let me tell my parents
what's happened and I will come and follow you.
And Elijah knowing the cost of what he just asked of this.
Man. Says go and do it.
For what have I done to you? What have I done to you?
It says. And so he goes, and he he takes
his plow and he breaks up his plow, slaughters the oxen,
lights the plow on fire, he burns the plow, and he
sacrifices the oxen. And his family celebrates
together this moment and this momentous, awesome, holy
occasion of him accepting the call to follow into ministry.
Today I'm going to open up the Scriptures and we're going to
enter into Ephesians chapter 4. Because perhaps God in his
divine nature, just like Elijah just came across Elisha on that
day, just like Jesus showed up in a fire in a Bush when Moses
was least expecting it, maybe God brought you here today and
under the sound of my voice to light a fire for your own
ministry call from God. Ephesians chapter 4 it got quiet
in here verse one it says this therefore IA prisoner for the
Lord beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling for you
have been called by God. Paul is writing to the church at
the the town of Ephesus and, you know, just like he could be
writing to us today. And he's saying to all the
believers that are there, those who have already believed on the
Lord Jesus Christ that that he came, he died for their sins.
And they've placed their faith in him and they're expecting
Jesus to come back one day to to judge the living and the dead.
They know that he's alive, he's in heaven and he's coming back.
And he's writing to this church, this group of people that meet
regularly together for worship and learning and mission.
He's writing to them and he's saying to.
To all the believers. Lead a life worthy of your
calling, for you have been called by God.
My first point for today is this.
Believer. You have been called to ministry
by God. Every believer in Jesus Christ
has a calling from God, a divine, unique, special purpose
for existing. Fact.
Every person ever created. God has known them.
I always say there's no accidental children.
There are accidental parents. Maybe some of you have been.
That. There's no accidental children,
though God knows them all by name.
He sets them in families, the Scripture tells us, and He's
given each one of you a unique and special calling, a ministry.
I'm going to read down in verse 11 and we'll read farther.
Now. These are the gifts Christ gave
to the church, the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and
the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip
God's people. How many of you would say I'm
God's people? That's me.
I'm God's people. Good to meet you.
Awesome. To equip God's people to do his
work and to build up the church, the body of Christ.
This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith
and the knowledge of God's Son that we will be mature in the
Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.
What he's saying here is that every believer in Jesus, every
person has a unique purpose for existence.
So find and fulfill your ministry.
Find and fulfill your calling from God.
Back up to verse one. Lead a life worthy of your
calling. Your calling, your calling,
don't you think? How many of you guys work at a
job where every year you have something called an annual
performance review? Anybody.
Pretty common in a lot of businesses.
You know, you go in at the end of the year and the boss says,
well, you were supposed to do this, you're supposed to do
this. And on a scale of zero to 10,
you know, you knocked it out of the park.
I'm sure you all get that all the time.
You're you were an 11 out of 10. And so we're going to give you a
bonus this year, right? It's a performance review
because you did your job. Wouldn't it be?
Odd. If you, if you were, let's say
that your job is a barista, OK, And your, your job is to make
espresso drinks. And you, you know, that's what
you're hired to do. And you've worked making
espresso drinks for six months. And then one day you decide, you
know what? My friend makes pizzas at their
job and I want to make pizzas. And so you go into the coffee
shop where you work and you decide to pick up the stuff, the
all the all the different things for pizzas.
You pick up flour and yeast and all all the fixes for pizzas.
And you go in there to the coffee shop and you're making
pizzas. Your boss walks in.
How do you think your boss would react?
What are you doing? You're not called to work here
to make pizzas, you're called to.
Work here to make espresso. Drinks but my friend makes
pizzas and I want to be like. My friend I haven't hired.
You to be like your friend I've hired you to be.
You make espresso drinks. Jesus is saying lead a life
worthy of your calling. Don't look around the body of
Christ and all the other Saints and say well.
I wish. That I could do that or you
know, because they pray for people like that, I'm going to
pray for people like that or because they do that, I'm going
to do that. No, no, no, you have a unique
calling from God. Lead a life worthy of your
calling when you get to your final review in heaven and you
sit with the Lord. You want to hear well.
Done good. Well done.
Right, my servant. Well done.
You don't want to hear you made pizzas for 20 years.
You struggled to make pizzas for 20 years.
But I called you to be a barista.
Romans chapter 12 gives us some different gifts that God gives
to different people in the church.
He gives the gifts of prophecy to certain people and not
others. He gives the gift of serving to
other to people. He gives a gift of leadership to
certain people. He.
Wires all of us different and
when we get. To heaven.
God's not going to say why couldn't you be more like so and
so? No.
He's going to. He's going to look.
At you and say. I gave you these gifts.
This was your calling. How'd you do being you?
We need to rejoice and being who God has called us to be.
Every believer has a ministry from God.
Find and fulfill yours. Talking to you about Call the
ministry. Point #2 Every.
Believer is called to be a disciple.
Matthew chapter 28 says to go and make disciples of all
nations, teaching them, teaching them well.
If the original. Apostles went and made disciples
down through the ranks of the. Generations.
We are those. Disciples.
And what are we called to do? Become disciples and make
disciples. Well, what is a disciple if I'm
called? To be a disciple.
What is a disciple? A disciple is a learner.
The Lord, literally. Said he literally said go and
make learners. Of all nations teaching them to.
Observe. And to do all that I've
commanded you to do, you're called to ministry.
You're called to a specific. Ministry from God and you are
called to be a learner in first. Timothy.
Right.
Or Paul writes. To Timothy, he says to.
Go after training in godliness training in.
Righteousness. We.
As the people of God and living in our current culture, we have
a training culture. We have a training culture.
I mean, people spend a lot of time training their bodies.
They trained their bodies. You know, when they're, when
they're in their teens, they're training their bodies.
They need to get muscles for the first time.
And then when they're in their 20s, you know, they're like.
I have to look. Good.
And I have to have the right picture.
On social media so that. Hopefully I can find that
special someone even though I don't want them to be attracted
to my body. I'm going to.
Make my body the focus. Word.
In your 30s, maybe you can marry and you, you have some Ninos and
Ninas running around and, and these kids and you're like, I
don't have time to work out as much as I did.
And in your 40s, you're like starting to feel things in your
body a little bit. Different and so.
You're like, I remember what it was like when I was 20.
I could run miles and I could lift this.
And so you go try it and God reminds you that your body is 40
and you start to get little aches and little pains.
And at 50 you rebel. You're like, oh, I rebel against
it all. I will train my body and I will,
I will train my body to eat right.
And I will eat the healthy, the most natural, the best.
Or I will do the keto diets, or I will do the vegan diets, or I
will do the no diet, fasting and prayer and fasting and prayer.
And there's something that will work for me.
And we spend this environment training and training and we get
60s. Well, not me yet, but you get
60s and 70s and you're like, you're if if you're on Facebook,
you're like, you see this ad come to you.
And it's for the. Chair workout Anybody see the
chair workout? Yes, definitely.
And they saw that they saw the person.
You don't. You don't have.
To go to the gym. You don't have to run for miles,
you know, you don't have to eat all this stuff.
All you have to do is get a chair and you just get on the
chair and you just do these things and you'll look like this
and they show you this. Picture.
Of a old man face and a young man body.
It's like connected with AI. Anybody ever seen that?
And you're like, believe me, all you have to do is use this chair
and you'll become all brand new. And we spend millions of dollars
as people training our bodies. We do.
We're a training generation and then we, we right now our whole
culture is a therapeutic generation.
Culture we. We are.
Training. We're spending money on therapy
like no generation of the past. We're training our souls, and
not all of that's bad mind will and emotions and understanding
how that integrates and all that stuff.
But what I'm saying is we're a training generation.
We're giving ourselves the training.
But Paul writes to Timothy and he says train yourself in
godliness. So we invest in our workout, we
invest in time, we invest in our diet.
We invest in in chickens. That.
Roam around instead of chickens. That were in a a shed and you
know their eggs are different and you'll be investing all this
kind of stuff we'll pay I mean people pay 78910 eleven $12.00
per dollar per egg. You know we invest.
In these things, but how much do we invest in our training and
godliness? So you're called to.
Ministry, you have a unique calling from God.
He's got a wiring for you. That will light you up.
And bring you fulfilment like because that's.
What you were created for. And we'll train our bodies, and
we'll train our souls. But we also need to train our
spirits. So there's this calling to
ministry that all people have. All people are called to
ministry. Now when we come to church, we
come together as His Saints and we minister to one another out
of the grace of God. That's in that we have in our
hearts and our lives. Ministry is ministry for most
people. You, you, you come into the
church, you minister to one another as one big divine,
godly, multi generational, multi ethnic family and it's the most
beautiful thing. We come together and.
And we don't say yeah. That's not that's not my.
Gift to change a diaper or that's not my gift to smile or
that's not my gift to to work with.
Teenagers or kids or. That's not my gift to stand
behind a camera. Why?
Because everybody in the family does the dishes.
Everybody in the family gets up and helps.
The only people who don't do the dishes are children that are too
small to do the dishes. Guess don't do the dishes.
And that weird uncle that never grew up, he doesn't do the
dishes and everybody knows he's everybody knows something's off
with that uncle. No, we're a.
We're a. Family and we minister to one
another with our grace gifts, OK?
But the majority of your. Ministry.
The majority of your calling is actually worked out outside the
walls of the church. Building you come in here.
To develop in your ministry, you serve within the.
Church, you rub shoulders. With the people in the church,
those that make you mad and those that don't so that you.
Grow to become. Mature like Christ so that you
can go out into your true mission field, so that you can
lead your family, lead, lead your marriage, lead your
children. Show up like Christ in the
workplace, affect culture for good, Reflect his glory in the
earth. That's your ministry.
Every believer has a ministry.
Every believer is called to ministry.
Every believer is called to learn.
But there are some. The Bible says there are some.
It says Ephesians 411. Now these are the gifts Christ
gave to the church, the apostles, the prophets, the
evangelists, and the pastors and the teachers.
The new King James Version of the Scriptures and possibly the
English standard version of the Scripture say some.
There are some given. There are some given as gifts,
apostles, prophets, evangelist, pastors and teachers to the
church. So everyone in the church has a
ministry. And yet from the church there
are those who are called out among the church with a unique
calling back to the church itself.
And what do they do? The Bible says here their
responsibility is to equip God's people to do his work and to
build up the church, the body of Christ.
What's the goal? Maturity, Maturing the Saints so
that their lives look like Christ, that Christ is shaped in
them not to look like me, to look like Christ in you.
So there are some everybody's called to a ministry,
everybody's called to learn. There are some that God calls
out from the body and he calls them as apostles, prophets,
evangelists, pastors, or teachers.
Your version may say shepherds and teachers, Apostles, they're
like the thumb on the hand. You may have heard this, these 5
gifts that Christ gave the church as A5 fold ministry.
It's like a hand. The apostles like the thumb.
The apostle touches all the other gifts that minister to the
church. The apostle brings strength and
foundation. The pointer finger is like the
prophet. The prophet hears the word of
the Lord in due season and points the way for the body, the
evangelist. Reaches farther.
Than any other gift into the darkness.
The evangelist becomes very uncomfortable if all of their
time is spent inside the church walls.
They want to go out there and get right in front of the enemy
in his territory and call people out.
And they want to train people to do that as well.
The apostle, the prophet, the evangelist, the pastor, the
pastor, the shepherd, he's married to the church.
She's married to the local church, walks with the church
members, talks with the church members, smells like the church
members, marries the church members right and and buries the
church members and is there to weep with them and to to walk
with them through all the hard times of life.
They're not there to put on a show.
They're there to be authentic and with you.
And then there's the teacher who you might say is the smallest of
the gifts and yet they're not at all.
They're all equal. They're just unique and
different. The teacher is gets into the
nooks and crannies of what holds things together and connects the
dots of all the ideas of doctrine and philosophy and how
they connect to our daily life and they make sense out of it
all. And this apostle, prophet,
evangelist, pastor and teacher are gifts that Christ Jesus gave
you because he loves you. He loves you so much that he
didn't just go to heaven and say good luck.
He gave you these gifts to help you find your ministry, get
equipped for your ministry, get built up for your ministry, and
then grow in your ministry to maturity.
How do you? Come to.
Be one of these gifts. You ever asked that How do you
be a pastor? Is everybody that?
Preaches a pastor. I can tell you no.
How, how, how? Why does some people call
themselves prophets and others not?
And does everybody that call themselves a prophet, are they a
prophet? I can tell you no.
All believers can prophecy, but it doesn't mean you're a
prophet. This afternoon you could go
home. You could pull up to your house.
You can get in your garage, shut the garage door, and sit in your
garage all day long, but it won't make you a car.
Why? That's not your wiring from God.
You can sit in the garage, but it won't make you a car.
You can prophecy, but it doesn't necessarily make you a prophet.
You can shepherd people, but it doesn't with good good advice,
but it doesn't necessarily make you a pastor.
How does all this happen? He says here that he gave these
5 gifts to help the body fulfill the work of ministry.
The New King James Version, the English Standard Version, says
the work of ministry. In other words, every believer
has ministry to do. My job is to equip you and build
you up so that you fulfill it yet.
We run. Into this issue in America with
our English language because we use.
The word. Called to ministry to talk about
people that are pastors and apostles and prophets and
teachers, and we say they're called to ministry.
Well, that gets confusing because.
Every believer is called to ministry.
And your ministry is wonderful and the world can't happen
without it. If your ministry context that
God's called you to make a difference in is a hospital and
you have a mercy gift and you go over there and you serve with
that mercy gift from God. One day you will probably be
ministering to my body so I can stand up here and preach.
We need we need everybody, don't we?
So we have this. Thing in the English language
where all people are called to ministry yet?
Yet we have these. Some that are called out to
ministry as well, but the word. In the in the original.
Languages for that gifts right there where it says.
And Christ. Gave these gifts to the body.
That word is Domata. It separates these people out as
unique. Unique not, as they're another
level of human being. But unique in their grace.
Gifting from God, you have grace to fulfill your ministry.
I have grace to fulfill. My ministry, it's a unique
grace. You know what I did this
morning? I got.
Up and I took a shower. I hope you.
Guys did too. You know what else I did this
morning? I put on my pants one leg at a
time. You know what?
That's how every minister puts on their pants.
We're not a different level of human being just because God's
provided a. Platform for us to equip Saints
to fulfill. Their ministry doesn't mean that
we are a better. Version of.
Humanity and I, I think there's been some instance over.
Time and culture. Where there's been a separation.
Between oh, those are the. Ministers.
And we are the laity. Those are the special.
People and we are the non special people but we are all.
Given ministries and we are all. Special in God's eyes.
We simply have unique and different callings from God, but
what does it look like if someone is called?
To. Delmada Ministry.
You can. You can.
Be in a Church, 20. Years and nobody.
Explained this to you and then you won't know how to function
with these. People that come alongside you
or or you. Could be in a church for 20
years and. Never know how to become who God
has graced you to be. And I'll, I'll just break it
down really simply and we'll put this up on the screen for you
today. If you're called to Delmada
ministry, we often see these four things happen.
There's a time of calling where God comes across your life in
some way, whether it's through a divine encounter with Jesus
himself, or it's through God speaking through another person,
through a worship experience, or something.
Where God calls you with a desire to serve Him in one of
these ways, you may not know. Oh, I'm an.
Apostle right away or I'm a pastor or whatever.
You just know I am called as something different.
I'm called out from the. Maybe you've been a businessman
or business woman for, for years and all of a sudden there's this
desire growing in you and, and God speaks to you in a moment.
Like I need to separate myself to this calling.
God's doing something in me. I need to, I need to go after
this. This is different.
This is unique. So there's a calling moment,
then there's a preparation time, a preparation season, which will
include education. And oftentimes you see Bible
schools prop up for this reason that they're educating people to
fulfill their function. Just like you would go, if
you're a call to be a nurse, you would go to go to college and
learn how to nurse and how to care for people and put the
stuff. In their veins.
And you know all that kind of stuff and learn how to deal with
the smells of the human body and all those kind of.
Things you need training. And sometimes we get especially
in Karas maniac circles, which I grew up in and I love.
I'm all for the Spirit of God, but sometimes we get so lit up
with the. Spirit of God.
That we're like God will figure out and we forget like man, it'd
be good to get some skills. Like get some education along
the way, you know? Like I I didn't even know that
I'm teaching the whole counsel of the word of God, not just my
own ideas, because you know. Sometimes, you know, you get.
Praying. And then you eat something and
you eat something that's off, and then you get some unique
ideas coming. Not everything.
That comes out your mouth is from God.
So we have to know. We have to be able to know,
right? So there's a preparation season,
which will include education in a mentorship environment.
You come under people who speak into your life and call out
things in your life and, and help you grow in those things
and help you understand your wiring from God.
And then there's a separation season.
The separation season is kind of, you may have heard this
before, like someone being licensed in ministry or
provisionally ordained in ministry.
This is a time of testing where they, they step out and who they
know themselves to be, but they, they start to, to function in
it. And you know, if I was a
counselor and I'm giving counsel and everybody I give counsel to
is worse off when I'm done with them than I was when I started.
I need somebody, a mentor. To come alongside my life and
go, hey man, I love you too much to let you continue in this
vein. Like that's not your wiring from
God. Like here try this right?
At the same time if. You know, I'm called pastorally
and, and I feel pastoral and, and I get put in a counseling
environment and, and all of a sudden fruit shows up in
people's lives. Like marriages are getting
fixed. People are getting
understanding, anointing is showing up in the room and all
this kind of stuff's happening. Then.
Then we bless that and we say yes, that's what.
God's doing. You are a pastor and then what?
And. Then we Commission them, we send
them. This is when, like the elders of
the church, we'll get get together there be an assignment
from God. I'm called to go here, do this.
Yes, you are. We agree and we come up and we
lay hands on you and we send you in the anointing and in the
relationship necessary to maintain longevity.
That's why we need mentorship. That's why we need relationship.
So God calls. People to ministry he.
Lights a fire in them, and God is lighting a fire.
And some of you this morning for ministry, what is minister?
'S responsibility. Their responsibility.
Is to God to please God, not you.
If they want to please you, they won't say the things to you that
you need to hear when you need to hear them.
They will always try to make life comfortable for you.
And you won't grow because we don't grow to maturity without
going through testing. So your pastors love we.
We do like it when we please you, but our goal is to please
God by serving you with spiritual equipment and
spiritual edification, building you up to become mature.
All believers are called to ministry.
All believers are called to learn.
Some of those believers are called out as Domata Ministry
gifts to become the equipers and the Edifiers.
In the body of Christ. And if you're called that way
and you're not functioning in that way, you are very
uncomfortable inside right now. God is lighting you up.
I want to make this announcement this morning.
Heartland Church. This fall, starting in
September, we are launching Heartland Bible College.
Heartland Bible College is an Academy for cultural
transformation. It's an Academy to train those
who want to go deeper in their faith to understand their
ministry. Call from God.
The first year is going to be foundations.
It's going to be heart. It's going to be Kingdom
foundations. Kingdom Heart.
We're going to have classes like the Kingdom, the love of God,
getting into the Father's love and our identity.
We're going to have a class called Harmatology, which is
about the nature of sin and temptation, how to overcome it.
We're going to have all these classes lined out, one Class A
month. It's going to meet on Thursday
mornings from 8:30 to 11:30 and then it's going to meet once a
month, usually the last Sunday of the month for a mentorship
environment. And that mentorship environment
is going to kind of be rabbinical in nature.
It's going to be like sitting with your rabbi and he's going
to say, what did you learn? What stuck out to you?
What are you struggling with? What are you having a hard time
with? And you're going to go back and
forth with that, going to teach you how to get into the presence
of God, how to pray, learn how to pray and walk through these
things. That's first year.
Second year is going to be on Kingdom Minded.
What is your ministry now that you have this foundation from
God? What is your ministry from God?
Are you called to be an apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd or
teacher? Or what context are you called
into? Where is your ministry?
And you're going to start to see yourself as the minister God has
called you to be. You're going to learn about
faith. You're going to learn about the
history of revival and how to walk in that.
And then third year, it's going to move from the basics of
foundations to a year of internship and growth into a
year of apprenticeship where you live in the context that you're
called to ministering, helping people, walking in that so that
by the time you're done with your three years, you will have
built the relationships in this house necessary for
credentialing with the Heartland Alliance Ministry Network and
where we can send you where God is calling you to be in
relationship. So we're going to end up having
an orientation. It's going to be like August
24th is the orientation. But right now where things are
at is the website is just being developed.
Final things are being put into put into space for the budget
and things like that. But if you'd like more
information about it, if you'd like more information, you can
scan this QR code and that'll take you to our website where
there's a page on our website now, right at the top it says
Bible college. You can click on that.
You can put in your e-mail. You get placed on a list to be
able to get updates and information.
Who is this for? This is for anybody out of high
school that wants to step into knowing their ministry.
Call this is this is you don't have to be called and know that
I'm a pastor. You don't have to know that
coming in. God calls everyone with a
ministry and he calls you to learn.
He calls you to be a disciple. And you may be hearing God this
morning like, hey, my season, I can I can see this and I want
you to pray about it coming into the fall.
Are you to enter a season of learning, of discipleship, of
mentorship? Do you want, do you want to
experience that? That student life experience
with the whole cohort of people gathering every Thursday
morning, growing in God with spirit filled, qualified
lifelong ministers who want to pour into you and develop you in
the meeting once a month on Sunday nights.
Working that stuff out in relationship and in Holy Spirit
activation, praying together and seeing what God does in your
life. If that's what God's calling you
to do, I just ask you to fill out the stuff and get the
information. There is no pressure here from
me, no pressure from Pastor Dave.
God calls those He wants to with a unique calling.
Elijah came to Elijah because God showed it to him.
Jesus. One day, he's walking along the
seashore. And he calls out to these
brothers on the boat, Hey, hey, you up there?
Come follow me and I'll make you a Fisher of men.
Their ministry up to that point had been to serve their Father,
their natural father, as fishermen.
He was calling them to serve the Heavenly Father.
And you know what they did? They dropped their Nets and
they. Followed him Paul one day.
He was. He's known as Saul at that time.
He's just he's. Persecuting the church, killing
Christians. He's avid for the things of God,
but he. Doesn't have the right
direction. And God meets him.
On the road to Damascus, Jesus shows up.
He drops to his face. Lord, Lord, who are you?
I am Jesus that you're persecuting.
Now get up I'm. Sending you to the Gentiles and
I'll show you how much you much. Suffer for my name's sake.
I'm calling you to minister. This way he encountered him in
1997 I'm. Riding home from high school.
In my mom's. Car and we're.
Just talking and just. On a random day, I'm a senior in
high school. I'm I'm second semester senior
and I'm struggling. She doesn't know how much I'm
struggling, but inside I was struggling.
I was looking around me at the environment.
I'm I'm thinking all these people appear to know what they
want to do with their life. Look like this.
One's going to college. Here, this one's going to do
that. This one's going to be a nurse,
This one's going to be. A doctor.
This one's going to be a. Lawyer.
This one's going to be the I don't see any of that for me.
I don't know what's going on and I'm in the car just quiet like
all teenagers. How was your day?
Good. Very descriptive for my mother.
But that day, she said, hey, have you given any thought?
To what you want to do after high school.
I blew up. I blew up at my nice and sweet
mom. I just blew up.
It just something is the. Pressure on the inside, the
tension on the inside between. What public school was?
Leading me toward and what apparently God was shaping me
toward. Was.
Very tense in there and I didn't even know it, but one day I
came. Across this nice.
Question And I just erupted, you know, I'm just like, I have no
idea what I'm going to do. I'm like loud in the car.
In the passenger seat and she's just driving.
Sweet driving home. I have no idea what I'm going to
do. Everybody knows what they're
going to do and I'm just tearing up.
I'm shouting in the car and I'm like, I don't know what I'm
going to do. All I know is that I really love
people. That's all I knew, no idea.
And she kindly nicely. We'll just keep walking it out.
God will show you, and he did two years later, after a season
of fraternity life that I some of which I regret, some of which
I don't, I found myself in an. Altar I found myself in.
ACY Stevens Auditorium up in Ames and I on my knees in the
presence of God and His presence.
Came on me like warm honey all over my back, and I'd felt that
several. Times.
Before growing up, I just. Didn't know what God was.
Saying and finally, I, I just, I understood I love people.
I I love people way more than other people seem to love
people. Like I'm around people and
they're all thinking about how they're going to make money.
I'm thinking about are they OK? And I'm on my knees consecrating
my heart to God and hear him just this knowing in me comes
not like an audible voice. There's no audible voice that
said, Adam, I have called you to the nations.
That would have been nice. Honestly.
But it was just knowing that was.
So big. On the inside of me that I could
no longer deny the need to be wholly consecrated to whatever
he had. For me to do.
And it did not align. With the.
With the trajectory of regular. I just said regular I'm.
On I'm not an engineer, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not it just did
not align. I I just, I'm like God.
I'll go any, I'll go anywhere you want me to go.
I'll do anything you want me to do.
I just don't want some boring version of Christianity.
I want the real deal. Give me an adventure.
And he's never let me down. Never let me down.
Less than six weeks later, the girl I was dating and myself
checked out of Iowa State University and went to Bible
school. Did I go back eventually and get
different things? Yes, I did.
I finished that journey. But in God's trajectory for my
life, it's never been just a point A, point B, Point C, point
D. It's been like, do this here,
now do this and just trust me. Jehovah, sneaky God.
Almighty and so, so good to know that you're doing what you're
wired from God to do. So God is speaking among us this
morning. You are called of God with a
ministry. All of you are called from God
to learn to be disciples, some under the sound of my voice.
God is calling into the fivefold ministry.
You may not know which digit you are, but you know you're part of
this hand. You're part of Christ's hand to
help His church become who they're called to be.
Let's bow our heads and give God a chance to speak.
Thanks for listening to our podcast.
If you'd like to help more people hear this message, you
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social media. If you'd like to support the
ministries of Heartland Church, you can do so at Heartland
Church online.com/give.