Chosen to Declare God's Goodness: Called Out of Darkness

If you hear my voice, you're the one. You were chosen by God to be a part of his family. Serving the king as a mediator between him and the people, a member of a set apart specifically designed group that brand belongs to God who is responsible to care for. He did all of this for a reason. The reason is so that you might declare and evangelize those around you by sharing with them the goodness of this God who invited you to come out of your spiritual ignorance and receive the ability to know him and perceive the things of this kingdom. [00:40:44] (45 seconds)  #ChosenToDeclare

ever look at one of those, before you ever consider how you might serve in the church, just tell God you're willing to do whatever he needs and then watch what he points you to. I used to have a friend and said when we would call to invite people to serve in this ministry, that ministry, this board or something, the most common answer from a Christian is, let me pray about that. Here's an idea. Go ahead and pray today. Go ahead and be prayed up. So when somebody calls you, you're ready to say yes because you knew if you were praying for that, you were praying for that call. You were praying for that invitation to serve. You were praying for that board over there to be highlighted. You were praying for that ministry in this church to just stand out to you so that you would be able to see, yeah, that's God leading me. I asked for him to lead me. I asked for him to use me, and here he is asking for that, inviting me into that. So I'll step into that place so that I can declare the goodness of God, so that I can declare the praises of the one who called me out of darkness and into that marvelous light. [01:03:19] (68 seconds)  #PrayBeReady

We used to be a part of a ministry in Tennessee that we love dearly. One of the things we would would get together for a a three day weekend, and there would be a continuous sequence of about 15 talks. Five of those were given by pastors from various denominations. The other 10 were given by people such as yourself. You know which ones were the most powerful? Those given by laypeople, not the pastors. One of the reasons why was that most of the laypeople that gave the speeches were not good speakers. And so people tell me sometimes, well, I keep talking in front of people because I get nervous and I say the wrong thing just not as polished as other people. But when you see three hundred and fifty pound electrician get up there in his overalls because he doesn't have a Sunday suit to wear on that day, and he starts sharing with you about God at work in his life, and you can tell real quickly that he don't wanna be doing that. That he is not comfortable with that, but he loves you enough to do it anyway. And he's sharing not because it's his gift, but in spite of his gifts. [00:47:07] (80 seconds)  #EverydayWitnesses

As we see this and we share, I wanna make sure that we understand that you are the chosen one. Jesus is the one of the chosen, but you are also a chosen one. Not just other people, not just people who have different skills and talents as well. No. You are chosen not because of your skills and talents. You are chosen to serve because God loves you. And if he calls you to serve, then he gives you the ability to do that in the way that he is calling you to do. [00:45:40] (40 seconds)  #ChosenAndEquipped

The other question is have you answered the call in the first place? And if you haven't, then that's okay. You're not you you don't you don't need to serve yet if you still don't see yourself as part of the family. And and let me clarify, I don't mean the family of First Church here in Lake City. I mean the family of God. We serve with folks at Bethel and at Wesley and in Tallahassee and in Tennessee and in Zimbabwe, in Cboe, Manila, in Sydney, all over the world. We serve as part of the family of God. And what he asks you to do is to plug in to a local group where you're at and find ways to serve. There are local missions that you can get involved with. There are services such as today, if I counted, I I should've counted. There's probably 20 some odd people that made this service today work right. [00:59:20] (60 seconds)  #AnswerTheCall

But people say that disqualifies you. Well, you you have sinned in the past. Really? So what sin is it that God can't forget? I'll wait while you look it up if you want to, but I'll give you a hint. It has nothing to do with any of the things that I did in my past. Why? Because I've listened to the Holy Spirit and I've repented of those things. If you have sin in your life that you're not repented of, okay, then that may mean that's not a disqualification for service. That means you need to take time for healing. That means you need to seek the Lord in healing right now so that you can get your cup filled before you worry about pouring it out. [00:52:41] (40 seconds)  #HealingBeforeServing

That word chosen does not mean that you pick the squash over the zucchini at the market on Sunday. You know what the word chosen means? It is applied only to God. It means you are chosen by God. There's a word only reserved for God's choice. He's a little different than us. He is that, as we said before, that holy other, and I don't mean h o l y. I mean, w h o l l y, like completely of it. And when it says people, that doesn't mean that you are a human being, almost safety, and that word people refers to family. [00:30:22] (46 seconds)  #ChosenByGod

He invited you to leave behind your darkness. When we talked about this a few weeks ago, the word darkness, the same as it meant in John chapter one is spiritual ignorance, spiritual blindness, being ignorant to the spiritual things around you. An ignorant is not a bad word. We're not cursing someone that simply means they lack the knowledge of. You are unable to see what God is doing in the spiritual realm. [00:37:22] (28 seconds)  #FromDarknessToLight