The Call of God | Rev Mike Bingham
by Mike Bingham
First Apostolic Church of Maryville (Maryville, TN)
Kind: sermon

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/mike-bingham--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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i greet you today in the lovely name of jesus christ our risen savior it is indeed a privilege and an honor to be here on this occasion 40th anniversary of this church i i wasn't sure we were going to live this long brother carpenter as much fun as we had as young people together i wish i had about two hours today and this was a an opportunity to tell funny stuff because we got a lot of stuff we can share with you today what a great time of blessing and fellowship through the years the binghams are truly happy to be here um sister bingham and i have always loved the carpenters we used to go on vacation together every year we went on vacation together and you know what these folks live for god on vacation even though they're scared to walk through graveyards amen i'm happy to have my wife with me who has been home care setting her father for many weeks and uh it's good to have her with me today and my son lebanon and his wife tiffany and samara and rhett now rhett may storm the stage and take the microphone in a little bit so y'all y'all be prepared for anything today no telling what may happen at the start of our service today i was a little bit apprehensive they texted me early this morning and said uh brother beam what will you be preaching today and uh could i have a few scriptures to go along with what you're going to preach so i after searching my heart i wrestled with a thought and then i didn't even give them my scriptures until i sat down just a few minutes ago but i was put at ease when i was a young preacher this would have highly intimidated me pastor it would have been hard for me to follow i always thought i had to preach something new you know if it wasn't new then uh i thought man you know you're you're stuck in the mud but after i got a little seasoned foundation to my ministry i learned to like confirmations of the holy ghost and a lot of times i go to preach i'll have two or three sermons in my heart and while we're worshiping i may preach through portions of one of them and see how that ties into the spirit and how it works and if it doesn't feel right i don't preach that and so today i i come to preach to you what i feel like the lord has sincerely laid on our heart and it is a blessing to be here thank you for the invitation i must start today by saying the call of god is a unique investment it's awkward to explain some men plowing behind oxen simply see an old man walking through a field and he throws a mantle around their shoulder they're willing to leave the occupation of a farmer and follow after a man that has touched their life the call of god is as unique as it is men with 9 16 snap-on tools in their hand crawl out from under a car go over and lay over the top of a toolbox and say god i don't know what i'm feeling today i don't know what's pushing me but i love you more than i love anything in this world i don't seem to be able to fulfill something within me doing what i'm doing and men have laid down those 24 ounce eastland framing hammers and went and set in their trucks at lunch reading their bible and knowing that somewhere there's a call that they don't have a clue how to fulfill that they just know that it's there and i can't explain all of that to you but i do know that when that call comes it's not necessarily understood by your family members it's not necessarily understood by sometimes even our spouses but at some point to step out on raw sheer faith and say god has called me to a church god never lets us see everything there is to see about a calling takes a while for that to unfold many times the call of god to start a church or the call of god to be a missionary we get that that working process and finally we get the stamp of approval of whoever we need to travel across the country or to go to go to a distant continent and there in the presence of the lord we start loving god not knowing that we're going to miss all the birthday parties back home and not knowing that we're not going to be able to fly home every time that we want to fly home there's that overwhelming distinction of calling that says god has brought us here for a purpose more than just being living life and and going through life that calling of god that comes and i remember pastor carpenter when sister bingham and i parked our little 32-foot trailer in your driveway over on benjamin and uh i never have been one to sleep a whole lot anyway but i remember i'd be up early in the morning but the carpenter come out of the house he had him a little cup of coffee the the steam was boiling off the top of it and sometimes he didn't have his shoes on he had his shoes in his hand he was running a little late and we would get in the church bus and we would go by and make that little church route and uh then we would head to uh pleasant ridge road and take those kids to school and uh we did that in the morning and then we did that in the afternoon uh during revival and i i look at the success today and who would not be awed by by what we have here this is magnificent and glorious and uh it's beautiful but you know pastor success was measured on those mornings when we invested in the hearts of young people and drove the church bus over to knoxville and back that's you won't amaze your success today but success isn't measured necessarily by the end result but from the beginning and the the despising not the day of small things and that place of of beginning to recognize who we are and what we want and i will confess for passenger carpenter today uh everybody likes sister carpenter better than they like him that's always been the case that's not just his case that's been our case sister bingham they always liked her singing much better than my preaching i became uh the giddy up chauffeur to take her places around the world to go and sing and that was wonderful and i was just glad to be in the show you know let me let me go with you baby don't run off and leave me i want to go with you and sister carpenter being such a unique person that she is uh you know she was beautiful as a young lady but she has just grown so spiritually dense and has that that apostolic appearance about her that you just want to look at her and say that is a mighty spiritual lady right there you've got to recognize that i'm i'm thankful today to look at at life at 66 is different than life at 26. if you ever get a chance ask pastor carpenter about the first time we ever met you'll like that story we're leaving that right there but uh what a day that was and what a day today is i want to preach to you a bit today about that calling that drags us to wherever god's purpose is for our heart to some it's across the nation to some it's across the globe to some it's across the building to a sunday school room the call of god it's important that you experience that call in your life i would also like to mention to you that god purchased this church with his own blood i want to talk to you a little while today about an experience and i didn't know brother and sister naomi were going to be here i love those people we've been there many many times they are so kind i'm going to preach a little bit about about the philippines and i'm going to talk about that a little bit this morning but years ago i was still in high school my dad had a missionary come to our house his name was carlos grant he had lived in dayton ohio was pastoring a successful church and he had been to the philippines in world war ii and he prayed when he got home he said god you need to send somebody to the philippines they need the gospel he told us he said i hated the philippines all i had seen was bloodshed and war and he said uh i just thought god would give somebody the burden to go to the philippines and one day while in prayer he said i felt like the lord said carlos you know what to do you've already been there get ready pack your bags that he did he went to california got on a boat rode for days and days on a boat got to the philippines and the boat docked and he and his family were walking down the gangplank and he heard someone call his name and it was a man named manuel blanca and manuel said oh carlos it's good to see you and uh it was the moment they got there and when that story began to unfold brother carlos grant began to uh have bible studies and preach and manuel blanker received the holy ghost and later became a pastor and as far as i know he's still alive today but uh when that process started brother and sister grant went there and they were so intensely laboring before the lord in a beautiful setting it was it was a magnificent country the the surroundings are beautiful and god began to do a mighty work there and it was in like 1969 or 70 that carlos grant sat at the table at my dad's house and told us that little story little did i know that over the next 50 years that our family and the assemblies of the lord jesus christ would have such wonderful rich heritage grow out of that little 7 000 island country and as uh the relationship began and my dad began to go over there and they they built a compound and there was ministries every year when they had their graduation my dad would go and my dad would uh he would ordain the graduating pastors that was his purpose for being there at that time and so about 11 years ago my dad and i and luke saint claire and some others had gone there to the philippines and we were we were preaching and it was my turn to preach on an afternoon and the crowd was probably uh maybe a little larger than this maybe uh 12 or 1400 had gathered there to that day and uh i told him i said look i just want to take a little bit of time here today i would like for every preacher that was ordained by my father to stand and uh i said i want y'all to just come down here in the front we're going to take pictures of all of you and so there was this group of men i i would say maybe 60 who came and then i said if your pastor is standing down front right here right now i want you to stand man all over that congregation there was probably 800 people that stood and uh they sat down and my dad we took the picture with my dad and all those preachers and then it was my turn to preach and i mentioned to them and please forgive me for personal reference here today this is not something that's only been done in the philippines but it's been done in papua new guinea and it's been done in russia and it's been done in taiwan men who have given their lives to the cause of god work and labor and spend their entire lives serving the lord with gladness and offering god their very best and on that particular day while preaching the presence of the lord swept into that house and as we begin to talk i mentioned to them i said my dad has made over 40 trips to the philippines just the plane tickets alone would have been over 50 000 and i began to talk about the investments that my dad's church and our church in carlsbad and and our family had made and please forgive me today i hope not to sound arrogant but that number would be well in excess of 200 000 that we've given to the philippines through the years and uh it's so humbling today i think about the work that we've done and and tried to do around the world not just the philippines but south america and the giving and i want to say to this church you are an amazing giving church may god bless you for your giving to missions amen you deserve that hand it was while preaching that the presence of the lord swept our hearts and i said we love brother grant he died here he gave his life in this country for these people we love my dad he's past 75 years old and he he's loved you people and he cared for you but i said this church is not carlos grant's church this church is not r.b bingham's church this church was purchased with the blood of our lord and savior jesus christ amen there's just something about being in the presence of the lord and feeling after him we talk about the lives that are given in the blood that has been shed all of that stands simply as a reflection of the image that christ has already made that you and i are to follow today that we might be what he would have us be in seeking after his plan in this world you're a lucky people today to have a pastor that loves you there are towns all over tennessee that don't even have a pastor let alone one that loves you enough to oh jesus help me i don't want to get in trouble right here but if a man tries to pastor that's not called of god he's an idiot it's hard enough to save yourself from this untoward generation let alone take on the responsibility of taking your wife by the hand and say honey i'm quitting my job i'm going to go to a town that we don't know anybody she's all in on that she likes that idea maybe we're going to pray a little bit and we're going to start a church are you sure how do you know because god told me he didn't say nothing to me and then he takes his kids that are kids just like everybody else's kids or kids and they make mistakes and do dumb stuff and and you got all these kids and you go to a town and you say hey my family's going to be the example and believe me there's plenty of folks that pick up enough ammunition that they can find something wrong in the pastor's family and a pastor says i'm not only going to try to save my family here i'm going to take a bunch of drug addicts a bunch of alcoholics and i'm going to add them to my little church and i'm going to drag these people to heaven if they want to go or not i'm going to make sure they get the chance to go if they make a mistake and quit church i show up on saturday and knock on their door grinning like nothing's wrong you need to be in church tomorrow something about that calling that he can't get away from it pastor carpenter you can go on vacation you can fly down to key west get on a fishing boat you're out there in the middle twirling around trying to catch anything that'll get on a hook and all of a sudden you think about oh man lord jesus god i want you to touch that family right now they weren't there wednesday night i don't know it would be a whole lot easier if you could just turn the switch on walk out of town leave them walk back into town turn the switch on that's not the way the calling works that's not the way that happens i love people i pray for people that have hated me for 40 years left church years ago they wouldn't spit on me if i was on fire i love them you can't get away from it you try to try to walk away from all of that and there's that knowing that pulling that idea you know god why did you put the responsibility of one soul that is worth more than the value of the world and you put these people in my care and as a pastor god sometimes it's more than i can bear and then it dawns on me this is not my church this is the church of the lord jesus christ who purchased this church with his own blood i am the servant i want to tell you maybe i'm maybe i'm preaching a little bit of my my conviction today but i just want you to listen to me i pastored a wonderful man one time he was great he was a plumber made great money tithed in his youth he had been a missionary down the caribbean came to our church and i was i was it was during a transition time my family was moving from florida to new mexico and it was my last day there the truck was loaded we were pulling out brother bruce comes pulling up in his red and gray ford pickup truck gets out of the truck and hugs me says pastor here's 300 this should buy your gas to new mexico and then he stood there and tears ran down his face and he said pastor i love you i was hoping that you would be my last pastor i i don't i don't understand why you have to leave i don't understand all of that you know what bruce never came back to church again he's never been back to that church i want you to love me but i don't want you to miss the point this is not just about a personality or a friendship this is not just something that we do because it feels good right now this is a lifelong commitment that says god paid the price for this church and i'm honored to be a part of this church if administrations change that's okay because he's the one that purchased the church with his own blood i have a wonderful pastor in carlsbad young man brother simon king that has assumed the responsibility of pastor you know there are people there that love me but the fact is this i'm old it takes me 30 minutes to roll out of the bed i wake up in the morning and i think am i hurting anywhere right now if i'm not hurting anywhere i just i don't move a muscle i just lay right there for a little while trying to figure it out finally sit over on the edge of the bed and trust standing up and i watch these young people zip zip run around do stuff man i'm gonna tell you what i'm a party hound until about 8 30 at night and if you come see me about 8 30 sister bingham will be the master of ceremonies because i have slid up the stairway and i'll see you in the morning at breakfast about four i all these young people have all of this energy to expend and you know the scripture says it like this and they slept with their fathers i'm not going to be here forever my ministry is just a short season of time here it's a calling to fulfill and it's a it's a place to go in the kingdom and open the door and say god i'll do whatever you want me to do pastor i feel the holy ghost here right now i'll do whatever you want me to do i'll go wherever you that's a dangerous prayer if you don't believe that you'll wind up in new mexico where it's 115 degrees in the summertime gives you a little more incentive to go to heaven god i'll do anything i'll go anywhere god i i'll do whatever you want me to do god i'm i i'm just longing i'm looking i'm desiring heavenly things and god i would like to take somebody to heaven with me i want us to call on the lord for a moment right now our musicians can come jesus i thank you i thank you father i thank you for your blessings thank you for your love i believe in you father i love you there's got to be a mark naomi somewhere i remember years ago i met him in new mexico we preached a fellowship meeting at brother fuquay's church in roswell and we struck up a conversation my brother-in-law and he were friends and little did i know that 40 years later for the name he would pick up and shoulder the responsibility of another man and another man and another man and continue the call of god i want you to stand with me right now i'm not going to preach anymore god's doing what he's going to do here these altars are open you want to walk down here today and just say lord it looks like a long way from where i am to where you can use me god i want to be used i want to be used father it's not a two-week deal it's not a one-night stand took 40 years for us to get here it's because somebody desired to walk in the will in the plan of god he's here right now the lord is here right now to do something wonderful if you want to lift your hands if you want to come to the altar if you want to stand in your seat if you just want to offer god your heart right now father i want to do as much as i can to win as many as i can god i want to stand close to you today i want to be by your side