The Call of God
by Jeremy Painter
April 27, 2025 · The Sanctuary, Silvis (Quad Cities), Illinois
Kind: sermon

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/jeremy-painter--the-call-of-god
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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Would you open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 11 and I'd like to read verses 31 and 32, the last two verses of this chapter and then go straight into chapter 12 verses 1 through 4. Sometimes the chapter divisions in the Bible are helpful and sometimes they can create a kind of unintentional break of attention and so you can lose the thread. It's very important that you read the first or the last two verses of chapter 11 and seamlessly flow into 12. And Tara took Abram, his son, and lawed the son of Heron, his son's son. Sarah, his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife. They went forth with them from Ur of the Caldees to go into the land of Canaan. And they came unto Heron and dwelt there. The days of Tara were 205 years and Tara died in Heron. Now the Lord had said unto Abram. Now this is a further description of what has just been laid out in outline

form in the previous two verses. Lord said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and make thy name great and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee and curse them that curse at thee and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. All the families of the earth. So Abram departed. I love that. The Lord is finished speaking and Abram is going. No questions asked. Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him. Lot went with him and Abram was 75 years old when he departed out of Heron. This is the word of the Lord. Thank you Lord for this day. Thank you for this opportunity to preach from your word and to be a messenger. Pray you would help me to

preach and teach only that which is true to your heart faithful to your word. I pray that what is spoken truly would be received in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Thank you for standing. You may be seated. My subject today is the call of God. The call of God. I want to say a few words about the call of God itself in the power of the calling and what the calling consists of. God created mankind and immediately he starts calling him. When mankind strays from him he still calls. He calls. The Latin word vocation stems from this creational relationship that we have with God. God calls and we answer. Voka, God's voice is our life's purpose. Heating God's voice. Our vocation is heating the voice, the voca of God. If you follow any other calling in life other than the call of God, you will always be much less than you were intended to be. You will never reach your potential in life

unless you follow the call of God. God's call takes the lid off of your life, gives you a new future, makes things possible that were impossible. The call of God can make you radically different from your upbringing. Your genetics said you should only be this. Your upbringing said you could only ever do this much. But when the call of God comes into your life there's no telling what will happen. You won't be able to recognize your life in the call of God from the life before the call of God. The call of God is everything. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid that when you follow the call of God, sometimes you feel like you're walking alone. Fear rather being lukewarm. Be afraid of being lukewarm. Be afraid of missing the call of God. There's no greater fear than that. There's no greater missing out on something than that, the call of God. Now, the voice of God is a divine call to every

human being. Many are called. God calls. He calls. He calls. In fact, according to one book in the New Testament, the grace of God has appeared to every single human being who's ever existed. God calls everybody. He calls everybody. But do you hear him? Do you know he's calling you? Are you alive to his calling? Are you seeking his calling? Do you want to hear his calling? Crowd it out of your life. Are you afraid of what it will do? Are you afraid of the wreck it will make of your plans? Of the mess it will make of your ideas? God calls. Will you listen? God is calling now. Will you listen? We read about Abraham. And we find that really God's call of Abraham is just one of many calls throughout the Bible. He's called you. He's called me. His first calling is the way you know you have been called by God is he gave you life. And then he gave

you time to live that life. That's already his calling. You don't have to ever doubt that you've been called just by the fact that you're breathing right now. Just by the fact that you were given life. You've been called. And there's a very specific reason why you were made in the first place. You were made to hear the call of God. You were made to follow the call of God. You're always going to be unhappy outside of the call of God. You'll never find peace outside of the call of God. You're always going to substitute the call of God. If you ignore the call of God, you're always going to try and find another call that satisfies. But it will always end up breaking your heart. It will always lead to war and strife, anger and envy and bitterness and disappointment. Always, always, always God puts this calling in the form of time. And what we do with our time is a reflection

of what our answer is. How do you spend your time? How do you spend your time? You give your time to what you value. There's no other way to put it. You give your time to what you value. And you answer God's call with your time. With your life. I'm so glad that you're here today. On a Sunday morning, it's beautiful outside. You could be doing many things. Lots of folks are doing lots of things. But you're here. I don't know exactly why you're here. For whatever reason, you're here. I'm really glad you're here. And you have, in some respect, just by coming today, answered a call. And you've given time to come. Now I want to suggest to you, though, that sometimes God's calling is answered only half-heartedly. It's only half-obeyed. We just go part of the way. We have Abraham, the story that we read about in our text. Here's a man at the foundation, at the very beginning, of everything

that we're about today. There's no United States of America without Abraham. There's no Europe without Abraham. Most of what we're familiar with, most of what we take for granted today, most of what we call good in life, is all tied back to Abraham. He's at the foundation of so many things. On my way to my favorite coffee shop at home, I pass a few dozen churches, Christian churches, and then I pass a synagogue, and then I pass an Islamic center. All three of these faiths refer to Abraham as their founder. And it counts for some four billion people in the world. Well, half or a little more of the world's population thinks of Abraham as the founder of its faith. It's remarkable. But it didn't start out that way. It didn't look promising here. The human race has run into several dead ends. The first dead end was the Garden of Eden, ejected the call of God there, and then death came into

the world. It culminated in the flood. The flood came and wiped out most of everything. And then there was the fiasco of the Tower of Babel. Mankind was tripping over himself to get away from the call of God. There was a group of people. There was one branch of the human race. According to an early genealogy in Genesis, there was only one branch left of the human race that retained true knowledge of the God that was worshiped in the Garden of Eden, the God that made the heavens and the earth. Only one branch who called out upon the name of the Lord. And then it's very unsettling to find out that that branch that had true knowledge of God had come to its own end and was no longer calling out upon the name of the Lord. You see, we read about Terra. He was part. He was the destination of that one branch of the human race that still retained that true

knowledge. Abraham's father, Terra, was the end of that line. And he, we find out in the book of Joshua, he, even he, the one last ray of hope, the one last light in the human race retaining true knowledge of God, even he now was a worshiper of idols and no longer a worshiper of the true God. His very name is named after the God of Ur, of the Caldees. He's named Terra, which means moon. He's an idolater through and through. And so the last flickering candle, the last flickering flame of true knowledge of God is blowing in the wind and it's about to be extinguished. There's just a little bit of smoke now rising up out of a wick. There's nothing really left. We're about to meet another dead end in the human race. And then God calls. God called Terra's son Abram. He also called Terra, but he specifically spoke to Abraham and he said, get up out of your country. Get

up out of your country. But I didn't quite say it as strongly as God put it. God put it this way. The King James text captures it really, really well. Get thee out of thy country. That means get yourself up out of your country. Don't wait for your dad to do it. Don't wait for your mom to do it. Don't follow like a shadow. Whatever, whatever they did, you're gonna do. Don't look around, wait for it to be safe. Wait for other people to prove it to be true before you step out. Get yourself out of that country. This is what God does. He calls you individually. He calls you individually. He didn't call your dad for you. He didn't call your mom for you. He called you. He's calling you. You might say, you might think, well, I was raised in this kind of circumstance and I guess I'm gonna die in this kind of circumstance. I was raised to be this

way. This is the way I am. No, not when God's call comes. See, Abram was nothing. He was an unpromising start. He was an unpromising candidate of the call of God. He had a couple of problems. One of them was, he was already 75 years old. He was living as part of his father's household. He was surrounded by his familiar. He loved, it seems, the life that he led. We can presume. Everything is comfortable. Everything is good. And this is the way my father lived. I bowed before that idol the same way that my father bowed before that idol. And then worse still, Abram, Abram, he was married to a woman who couldn't have children. And this seems to be a bad candidate for a man who's going to found nations. God, don't you understand your own business? I mean, you're the one that created the laws of physics and science and chemistry. You understand this is not the one you choose. Find

somebody who's much more promising, a little younger. You know, you can't teach old dogs new tricks. You just can't do it. Start when he's 15 or 20. Call that little boy, call that little girl. Call somebody young that they can give their whole future to. And they can have many children. Abram, he ends up being 90 years old and then 100 years old he still doesn't have a child. This is the wrong guy. See, see, I'm talking about here the call of God. The call of God makes all the difference in the world. All the circumstances can be lined up against you. Everything can be against you. But if the call of God comes, it breaks absolutely everything. It makes the impossible possible. It's the call of God that makes men and women great. It's the call of God. It's the call of God when the call of God comes. Will you answer? Humanity had lost its ability at the time of Abraham

to create a future. It was looking like another dead end. And dead ends, God seems to have, he kind of seems to have a thing for dead ends. That's where God usually starts his work, is at dead ends. Sometimes he takes the messiest lives and then he calls into that messiest of life and look what happens. He waits until Israel has the Egyptian army behind it and the sea in front of it. And then he begins to work. God waits until Abraham is old and decrepit. He waits until Sarah is old and decrepit. And then he begins to work. You see, God, God, God starts to work when we're done working. He's going to get glory from your life that way. Yes, he is. So a family is called to leave behind its ancestors' ways. Abraham, Abraham, is called to get out of this country. And he takes his father and his nephew with him. That's the way the call of God often

starts. It's one, not usually just one, it's usually two or three or maybe more. But then we find out in our reading that Abraham's father only wanted to go halfway. Only wanted to go halfway. So he stopped in a place called Huron and stayed there and then years later he ends up dying. Now Abraham, if he had been following his ancestors' cues, he would have stopped halfway. But God was calling him all the way. You see, you don't wait around for mom and dad to take the step. Get yourself out of the country. Whatever they do, it's great if they go along, but if they don't, you keep following me. You're gonna find that there are gonna be people when you've come out, you've come out of the world, you come into the church, you're gonna find there are people who walked in with you halfway. And they came for a little while, but they're starting to get a little bit, they're starting

to get a little bit, they're starting to back out. Don't you back out. The Lord is calling you. You're responsible for your calling. The temptation for you will be to go just halfway. Obey halfway. I know about this, but do I have to do that? I know there's baptism, and I know there's receiving the Holy Ghost, and I know there's coming to church, but I think I'm gonna draw the line there. I'm gonna draw the line there. Don't draw lines between yourself and God. Never, ever do it, never, ever do it. God has a future for you. It's not always gonna make sense. At the outset, it's gonna make all the sense in the world once it's passed. But follow the call of God. Do not draw a line. Do not say, I'm not gonna come any further. Follow all the way. Get yourself out of the country. Get yourself out of your father's house. And follow me into a place I call

you to. I'm here to tell you the call of God is very clear. And if you say, well, I'm not sure about... You know, there's this denomination over here, and there's that denomination over here, and there's this... I haven't quite had it settled in my head how it was that the resurrection took place. There's that little detail in Mark's Gospel I don't really understand. And you fancy yourself that you're a really honest person and that you've got to have all of these things answered before you finally authentically step out. But watch out. Your flesh is in charge. God's call is clear. What He wants you to do is clear. It's that you know it, and I know it. You know it, and I know it. God's calling is clear. What He wants you to do with your life, following Him, it's clear. The Bible is crystal clear. Now I know, I know, I know, I know. There are all these, where did Cain's

wife come from? There are all kinds of questions about the days of creation. There's all these questions about, what's the rapture gonna be like? I don't know if I can... That's the flesh. That's the flesh. It's trying to put up excuses. It's trying to put up justifications for commitments it has already made. See, if you're wanting to obey God, the Bible is so crystal clear. But if you're not wanting to obey God, it will be complex. And it's amazing. It's just amazing. How unclear the Bible becomes when it gets in the way of what we actually want to do. I'm telling you the call of God is clear. You know it, and I know it. God is calling you out of that life, and into a new life. And what your future holds in the hands of God. Your future plans, your highest dreams cannot compare to what God's plans are for you. You can't even imagine it. Abram could never have imagined.

He was just destined to become just another sheik in the desert. He would have become nameless. No one would have ever remembered him. But because the call of God came into his life, and he obeyed the call of God, he followed the call of God wherever it led him. And look, look at today. Look at this future. All across the world on this Sunday morning, there are tens of thousands of pulpits, and we're preaching today all across the world on Abraham or one of his descendants. Never could have imagined it. You never could have imagined it. God has a great future in store for you. But it's not going to be in the familiar, and it's not going to be in the comfortable. He's going to ask you to take a risk and follow him. If my children, I've got three adult children and my six, and I'm counting them six grandchildren. Three of them are still unborn. But they're my grandchildren. They're

alive. I pray for them. I don't know two of their names yet, but I'm praying for them. These kids and then grandkids, they grew up in a Christian home. They grew up in this. But if they just do this because I'm doing it, just because they think it's a good thing, Mom and Dad's lives have turned out well. I like the way I was raised and I'm going to go to church and I'm going to do these things that Mom and Dad did. If that's the limit of their calling, their obedience to the calling is it's comfortable. They're going to grow up and become old men and women and become really good little idolaters. They're going to worship success like everybody else and money, fortune, little fame, little popularity. They're going to worship at the altar of pleasure and comfort. And those false gods are every bit as dangerous as the other false gods. I don't want my kids to grow up to

be idolaters. I want them to be God fearing people and for that to happen, they're going to need to answer the call of God for themselves. Not because Dad and Mom did this. Not because Dad's the pastor or my Dad's a minister or no, no, no. You answer the call of God for yourself. Get yourself out of the country. Dad can no more answer God's call for you than he can eat for you or he can exercise for you. It just doesn't work that way. God's call is going to completely disrupt your life though. Get the out of thy country. That's leaving everything familiar behind. Now, you might say, well, does that mean that since I grew up in church I need to leave church now to go just do something new to do something new? No, no, no. God's calling looks very different for different people. When God showed up and called when he called Jeremiah, Jeremiah was trembling and God said,

calm down. Calm down. Don't fear it. No fear. But when God showed up with the prophet Isaiah, he said, start fearing. Start being afraid. It looks different for different people. God's calling you and it's going to look different. My calling, my calling, God called me back home. Back home. It was kind of the opposite direction of Abraham. He was called to get out of his country. But in my particular calling everything that was comfortable was me working at seminary. I had everything that I wanted. I was 48, 48 years old and checked every box that I dreamed of. When I was in my 20s I never dreamed that I would be kind of in charge of my own day. I remember if you were here last time I was here. I talked a little bit about my days in Burger King in my 20s. That was my life, man. I was hitting the clock and I was clocking in, clocking out. I'm behind

a counter. I'm wearing a uniform. I'm serving fries. I'm serving whoppers. I'm serving drinks. And I'm just chained. I feel like I'm never going to get never would have dreamed. And everything was comfortable. My wife and I we started a business and I had the job I always wanted. I set my own schedule. It was all good. And then my dad said he was retiring and I just said okay, all right, find a good man. Find a good one, dad. I'll help you out. I sent a few guys his way and he tried a few and there was an unsettling in my spirit. It wasn't a big place. It wasn't a big church. It was a little church. It's a little church. It's a little place. It might as well be the moon as far as Pentecost goes. You're not going to get famous there. You're not going to have adoration there. I mean, I go to churches in Texas and I've got

30 guys lined up to pray over me and anoint me with oil before I go up to the pulpit. And they call me, you know, every honorific name possible. But there in Washington, they greet you playing hacky sack. They call you by your first name. The ushers stand out in the foyer. They're playing hacky sack. That's how you're greeted out there. They say, they say, bro, good to see you, Jeremy. Come on, come on. Up to the platform. It's almost time to preach. Let's go. No church culture whatsoever. I hear, I hear guys, I was telling you pastor this yesterday. I hear guys, pastors, they've been threatened, their lives have been threatened. Pastoring. Nobody in Washington would threaten their pastor's life because they don't care enough about their pastor to have that strong an emotion about their pastor, love or hate. No sir. That's what I'm going to. That you're going to leave behind that job, that schedule. Everywhere you go, they know

who you are. When you walk into the building, they make way for you to go into a place and they're playing hacky sack. No culture. No church culture anyway. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You brought me here. You made all of this possible. Why would you let me throw that down? What? Why? No, my kids. My wife, my, we're all happy. We all live within one mile of each other. Get thee out. Get yourself out of your country and go to your father's house. And I get asked by them, you know, my family, I get asked by friends out here in the Midwest where I used to live. I get asked, so how do you think it's going to go? You know, you must know it's going to work out. No, I don't. I know it's going to work out. I know in the end it's going to be great. But I don't know how. I have no idea. I

really don't. I really don't. This could just completely blow up. I figure. I told some people usually within one year of a transition that you know whether the church has adopted you as their pastor or not. And I still don't know. I still don't know. I'm feeling like the stepchild but I haven't been adopted quite yet. I'm not sure. I don't know how it's going to go. But here's what I do know. I'm telling you this. This is not me boasting. I'm telling you I believe that the dividing line in the human races between those who call, follow the call of God and those who don't. And the call of God is going to make all the difference. And if you have the call of God that's all you're ever going to need. You need nothing else. If you have his call, you have his blessing. You're going to be okay. It's going to be better than you could have ever planned it

to be. So step out and follow that radical call. Get yourself out. It's going to completely if you've got all kinds of plans and you encounter God, and your plans stay the same, you haven't encountered God. He's going to wreck them. He's going to completely change your future. And this is the scariest thing. And you and your heart of hearts, you know that. So that might be why you hold off the call. He's going to change this. He's going to make, I know I'm going to have to stop doing that. It's like the ancient Christian who once said Lord, make me chased, but not yet. I can resist anything but temptation. Follow the call of God. Don't hold back anything. When I was a 19 year old kid I went to Bible college for a year and oh boy. I was just down there socialized. I was there I was kind of like an extended camp. I wasn't serious at all. And I

fell in with a group of very unserious young men. So we were meant for each other. And we just kind of casually approached this whole thing. A service like this, like this that we're having right now. You know what I'd be doing? I'd be listening, but only a little bit of it. I'm just listening to a little bit. When there's an altar call I'm going to come up. But I'm just going to come up just to go through the motions just to show that I was present. And then I'm going to walk out the door the same exact way that I came in. That's what I was, that's my life. 19 years old. And I was surrounded by all of those. And there was one particular friend I had. He was half serious too. But he was actually very sensitive about things and he really, above all else he wanted to please people. And even when he was insulted and everyone else would

laugh at him he would laugh along at himself. And this may be a good trait to have, but it was misdirected. He worshipped the idol of approval. And so this was the kind of guy he was. He'd just laugh at all our jokes even if he didn't think it was funny. Even if he didn't know what we were talking about. He would just fall in and then there was a day that we had a prayer meeting on campus and the campus pastor he made it an altar call that was one of those kind of altar calls that just oftentimes you find out as a preacher when you give an altar call there are people who come up because something is happening and they're obedient to this call. And then there are a lot of other people that are going up just because it's safe now to go because enough other people are up there. And you hope that maybe something will happen anyway.

And this preacher though he made such an individual calling to the altar that nobody would want to come. He singled this young man out though he didn't point at him or he wasn't meaning the Lord was talking to him. And he said I'm talking to a young man. I'm talking to somebody who's really his primary goal in life. Your primary goal in life is pleasing. Wanting to be approved. I want you to come down to the altar right now. And nobody want no 19 year old wants to move because we don't want to be guilty of that. Most of us are. But my friend stepped out of the chair and he walked up to the altar for the first time in his life he was doing something alone for God. He wasn't seeking anyone's approval he knew that this meant disapproval he knew that he was going to do this alone he knew that none of us would come up with him but

he came out get yourself out of your country. One of the most beautiful things I've ever seen he came up to that altar and he lifted up his hands and he looked dead even with the preacher and he said pray for me the preacher laid hands on him the young man was never the same he didn't laugh at the same jokes anymore the vulgarity of speech was gone utterly gone. We felt like we had lost a friend he wasn't severe he wasn't that kind of some kind of grump or a grouch he wasn't a Puritan but we knew that we were now in the presence of a man of God he had the call of God upon his life and the call of God makes you different it's just going to make you different you're not going to be able to do the same things that you used to do you're not going to be able to say the things that you used

to say you should turn radically away from all of those things and follow the call of God it makes all the difference there's one other instance along these same lines but it's happening now to me on the other side of life I'm now the I'm now the instructor and there are students that I have every semester for the last 15 years I cycle in and out I get to watch them grow and they're very different people when they graduate from when they came in but sometimes but sometimes they stay locked in who they are when they came and when I'm teaching a class I try not to lock eyes with people because I don't want to get distracted but almost unconsciously maybe out of the corner of my eye or peripheral vision I don't know what it is but I know when somebody is listening there's a certain look in their eyes I really can't describe it any better than that but there's

a certain look in the eyes when something's happening in here and there's a kind of silence that's settled over you where God is beginning to work and you can feel that happening as a teacher you know it and I'm just going through I see this one student her name is Miracle she's just kind of she's there in body only but she's texting at every chance she gets she's on social media she's barely paying she's just doing enough to get by and not get kicked out I never see that look in her eyes that silence never settles over her I know I know I've only got 1% just enough to get by but then this last Christmas break I don't know what happened exactly but I did know something happened because I was teaching a class and I saw that look in her eyes my eyes were arrested and I looked at her all that look and that silence was upon her this is

different I thought I must have said something profound must have been good what did I say but then the next day a couple days after that same thing I even brought out a really boring lesson on composition and I saw the same look in her eyes and I knew something had changed and I went the next day during lunch she was sitting alone outside at a table on a sunny day and she wasn't on her phone she wasn't on her laptop it's very unusual to see on a college campus these days somebody with an actual book open and she's reading a classic and thumbing through I gotta talk to her I gotta figure out what's going on and I said miracle can I talk to you for a second sure and I just kind of didn't know what to say I didn't really have a plan for this conversation so I just boiled it down as simply as I could what's different and

she didn't ask for an explanation she knew exactly what I meant and she looked up at me she had tears in her eyes just come flooding out of her she folds her book and puts it down and she says over Christmas break I came to the altar and I was worshiping God like I always do up at the altar and I was praising God but then I heard God speak to me in my heart and here's what he said why do you only worship me and give me your heart here but never in the classroom you act like everybody else out there but what happens up here doesn't really matter if it doesn't get carried out there it broke her heart and then mended her heart twice grace that taught my heart to fear that's grace is step one and grace my fears relieved that's step two she's not the same it's not even the same person she has the same name she's

a different person why the call of God is on her life I'm telling you follow the call of God but where where do I follow him to Abraham what did he what did God say to Abraham a lot of us we want to take we want the directions we want it all spelled out really really clearly okay where's this bus going my middle son Carter when he was a boy he was different than the other two the other two I just say get in the car we're going somewhere and they get in the car and go somewhere he always stood back and said where are we going he's like six years old where are we going and then I had to negotiate with this kid if it wasn't a good enough place he's like I'm not going it's like you're not 30 it's getting the car it'll be great where are we going God said to Abraham get out of your country and

go to a land I'll show you where where where where see here's what we're wanting to do at the outset we want to compare okay is where God's going to take me better than where my plans will take me I'm telling you that is foolish thinking foolish thinking you can't possibly understand what God has in store for you oh the riches of your future following the call of God you can never plan you're not wise enough to plan the kind of future that God has in store for you and so he just says follow me and I'll show you oh you're going to have a son how I'm a hundred I'll show you oh and then that son's born and take him up and lay him on the altar why don't worry about it I'll tell you later just throw yourself into the hands of God it's the safest place in the universe throw yourself the Bible says commit your plans unto the

Lord commit your plans under you know what the word commit means underneath all of that means put all of your weight don't do half don't just hold back here on what you consider to be firm or ground and just test no no don't do that commit yourself unto the Lord and he will establish your ways you're going to be radically changed by this process you say whatever I discern your will to be God I'm going to do that I'm going to take my hands off of the wheel of my life and you take me where you want me to go my goodness what a future awaits you my what 20 years of trusting God is going to look like what 10 years look imagine what your life is going to look like 365 days from now if you will leave your country and follow him oh my goodness I'm telling you right now I'm finishing a few weeks ago I got to go

to Amish country and I was asked to speak to a group of Amish alcoholics and drug addicts and porn addicts and you might think I never associated those things with you know that they have all the same problems and they gave me some directions some taboos be careful when you're a preacher be sure you don't you don't insult their upbringing or of course of course and also you should know just because just because they don't go through the same kinds of motions that you're used to as a preacher when people come up to the altar don't assume that they're not responding they're brought up in a very different culture they said I said so should I avoid an altar call I said no no no give an altar call but no one will come but give it anyway so my text was Joshua choose you this day whom you'll serve and then I asked for everyone to pray and I invited them all

down to the altar and every man in there they bowed their beards they looked down and folded their hands I'm going to go back and pray for them so I went back there to pray for them but then I noticed that one of them had gone up to the front he was behind me now I turn around and I go back to him and I introduced myself and he introduces himself to me he said his name is Jonas Jonas Jonas Hirschbach and in his broken his broken Pennsylvania Dutch English he said I don't know how to pray we don't really know how to pray except out in a book out of a book so will you pray for me okay so I pray for him and I don't see his hands aren't shaking his lips aren't quivering there are no tears 15 minutes okay he finally lifts his head up he lifts his head up he's done praying now and he says thank

you for praying with me well it didn't turn out as I was hoping but you know the Lord goes with him and this is the start of something and I go on about my business and then somebody tasks me on the shoulder and says Jonas wants to get baptized baptized do you have baptismal robes no okay is there a baptismal tank the pool in the hotel lobby they don't have a pool there's a lake it's nine o'clock at night the temperature of the water is 40 degrees and there's been tornadoes all over the midwest on that very day so the wind and the waves are three four feet tall okay who's gonna baptize him well you are I am I am the Lord's calling me I am but Lord I it's a lake it's a lake can we go to a hotel tomorrow tomorrow the sun will be up we'll be able to see the bottom of the lake even if we have

to get it'll be warm outside maybe right now in following God you roll up your sleeves and you get your hands dirty you get into the ministry and you do what needs to be done you follow the Lord even if everything doesn't seem to be lined up follow God's trust that above everything else the call of God follow and he says I said okay all right let's go so we go outside and his nephew he's over me and says he's former Amish he says my uncle's a Hirschbach but be a lot of trouble back home when they find out he got baptized lot of trouble it's gonna be bad he still wants to get baptized yes yes he does and then we walk outside and we look at the dark waters way high up waves cold and Jonas looks at those waters he's 65 years old and he says I thought it was going to be inside I always imagined it different but

when God calls he said I don't think I can do this I don't think I can do this he was taking his socks and shoes off rolling up his pants and then he did the water so cold I don't think I can do this I don't think I can do this and he's shaking violently like I've never seen a man shake I can see in his eyes he's not shaking like this just because of the temperature of the water but he knows that he's stepping into tomorrow he can't even imagine that it's gonna be a wreck tomorrow he's gonna have all kinds of problems tomorrow problems that he didn't have today he's gonna have tomorrow his nephew says he steps out into the water freezing cold and a man trembling barely can keep his hands together to plug his nose Jonas on the confession of your faith the shaking was gone and all the trembling was gone and there's a peace over him

and he put his hands over his eyes and wrung out the water and said this is the greatest day of my life the call of God is the Lord calling you here will be the greatest day of your life and the greatest decision you ever made to be buried with the Lord in baptism and if you're buried with him in baptism the Bible says you will also be resurrected with him as he was resurrected and that resurrection starts when you come up out of the water you're gonna be a brand new person and the call of God is upon your life and God only knows what kind of future you're going to have so the call of God has gone forth and you know exactly exactly what to do it's been clear the Lord couldn't have made it any clear will you answer the author of the book of Hebrews says all these people describing all the heroes of faith were still living

by faith even when they died and they didn't receive the things they were promised in this life they only saw them from a distance and welcomed them like the song said that we just sang just a little bit ago the day is coming when my faith will be turned into sight they were longing for a better country a city a heavenly one whose builder and maker is God therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared a city for them you're stepping out into the unknown but on to the solid rock of Jesus Christ all other grounded is sinking sand Jesus name the Lord is calling would you come to the altar the Lord is calling you answer him answer him cry out to the Lord call out to him hallelujah Jesus name Jesus name blessing Jesus