Here Am I, Send Me | Pastor Brian Gourley

The question of life’s meaning starts with the truth that God creates people on purpose. The desires, giftings, and curiosities planted early on are not random extra parts. Brian’s childhood need to take radios and VCRs apart, rebuild broken things, research mysteries, work on cars, serve in the military, and learn business became training for the calling he walks in now. Delays can feel frustrating, but God uses delays for preparation, equipping, protection, and timing. A role entered too soon can become a crash and burn.

The disciples show that age does not disqualify anybody from changing the world. Jesus began ministry at about thirty, and the customs of first-century Jewish life suggest that many disciples were teenagers or young adults. Peter, likely the oldest, was still only in his twenties. John may have been as young as thirteen to eighteen. These ragtag young people left boats, nets, trades, and familiar lives to establish the first church and carry the gospel into the world. The call on youth is not to wait for someday, but to seek God for the passions, desires, gifts, and calling already stirring in their hearts.

Moses and Caleb show that being older does not mean the assignment is over. Moses spent forty years in Egypt, forty years hiding in Midian, and then stepped into his great assignment at eighty. Caleb waited forty-five years after spying out the land, yet at eighty-five he still said, “Give me this mountain.” Caleb remembered God’s promise, trusted that the Lord would be with him, and went after the greatest giant in the land. God’s promises do not expire because a mantle was set down, a dream got delayed, or somebody feels past their prime.

Isaiah shows that failure, sin, and a sense of unworthiness do not cancel a calling. Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, became completely undone, and cried, “Woe is me,” because he saw his own unclean lips in the light of God’s holiness. God responded with cleansing from the altar, then asked, “Whom shall I send?” Isaiah answered, “Here am I. Send me.” God is not looking for perfect people. God is looking for willing people.

The enemy tries to talk people out of what God has already declared. Christ calls His people new creations, washed, cleansed, purified, and forgiven. The call is to leave the boat, quit mending the nets, stop longing for Egypt, evict the giants, and become a humble, willing vessel that says, “Here am I. Send me.”

##

---

Key Takeaways

• 1. Delays can be God’s training ground. God does not waste the years that seem disconnected or slow. The skills, wounds, work, discipline, and lessons gathered along the way can become the very equipment needed for a later assignment. A delay may be protection from stepping into something before the character and strength exist to carry it. [08:30]
• 2. Youth can carry world-changing callings. The disciples were not seasoned older men with life all figured out. Jesus called young people who were still learning trades, mending nets, and figuring things out. God can put a fire, a vision, and a bold assignment in a young heart right now. [20:08]
• 3. God’s promises outlive human timelines. Caleb carried a promise for forty-five years without letting it die in his heart. At eighty-five, he did not ask for a chair, an easy road, or a quiet retirement. Caleb asked for the mountain with the giants because God had promised it. [36:23]
• 4. Willingness matters more than perfection. Isaiah’s encounter did not begin with confidence in himself. Isaiah saw God’s holiness, saw his own sin, received cleansing, and then offered his whole self to God. God can use the person who comes undone before Him and still says, “Here am I. Send me.” [45:23]
• 5. Christ defines identity, not the past. The enemy keeps pointing backward, trying to make old failure sound more true than Christ’s redemption. Jesus has already made His people washed, cleansed, purified, and new. Faith refuses the hogwash of condemnation and responds to God’s call with a willing heart.
  
  ## [51:07]

Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [01:53] - What Is the Meaning of Life?
• [02:30] - Early Desires and God-Given Giftings
• [07:59] - Delays, Equipping, and Preparation
• [10:27] - The Young Disciples of Jesus
• [15:08] - Peter’s Age and the Temple Tax
• [20:08] - Activating Youth and Young Adults
• [25:03] - Moses and the Call After Eighty
• [31:12] - Caleb’s Faith for the Promised Land
• [35:36] - Give Me This Mountain
• [40:52] - Isaiah’s Vision of God’s Holiness
• [45:23] - Here Am I, Send Me
• [50:42] - Rejecting the Enemy’s Lies
• [52:01] - The Call to Reactivation and Prayer

Bible Reading

Isaiah 6:1-8
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”
[45:23]

Joshua 14:6-12
Then the people of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal. And Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the LORD said to Moses the man of God in Kadesh-barnea concerning you and me. I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in my heart. But my brothers who went up with me made the heart of the people melt; yet I wholly followed the LORD my God. And Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed the LORD my God.’ And now, behold, the LORD has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the LORD spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. So now give me this hill country of which the LORD spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the LORD said.”
[36:23]

Matthew 4:18-22
While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
[20:08]

Exodus 3:1-10
Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Then the LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
[31:12]

Observation questions

1. In Isaiah 6, what happens between Isaiah’s confession, “Woe is me,” and his answer, “Here I am! Send me”? What does God do first?
2. What details in Joshua 14 show that Caleb remembered both the promise and the challenge connected to it—the hill country, the Anakim, and the fortified cities? [36:23]
3. What did Simon, Andrew, James, and John leave behind when Jesus called them in Matthew 4? What words in the passage show the speed of their response?
4. In Exodus 3, what does God say He has seen and heard about His people before He tells Moses to go to Pharaoh? [31:12]

Interpretation questions

1. Isaiah did not deny his sin or pretend to be worthy, yet God cleansed him and then called him. What does this show about the difference between humility before God and allowing shame to keep a person from serving God? [45:23]
2. Caleb waited forty-five years for his inheritance, but he did not ask for the easiest place in the land. What might “Give me this mountain” look like when a believer is facing a hard assignment that God has clearly put before them? [36:23]
3. Moses spent many years in places that could have looked disconnected from his purpose: Egypt, Midian, and the wilderness. How might God use seasons of work, hiddenness, discipline, and delay to prepare a person without wasting those years? [08:30]
4. The disciples left nets, boats, family work, and familiar routines to follow Jesus. What kinds of “nets” can keep a believer from responding when Jesus calls them into something new? [51:54]

Application questions

1. Think about interests, skills, or desires that have been present in your life for a long time. What is one God-given stirring you may have overlooked because it did not seem spiritual or important at the time? How could you bring it before the Lord this week? [02:14]
2. Is there a delay in your life that has made you frustrated, discouraged, or tempted to believe God has forgotten you? What training, maturity, protection, or equipping might God be building in that season? [08:30]
3. Whether you are young, older, or somewhere in between, where have you been tempted to say, “It is too early for me,” or “It is too late for me”? What would it look like to take one faithful step toward God’s calling now? [39:41]
4. Caleb did not let fear of giants erase God’s promise. What is one “giant” in your life right now—fear, comfort, a habit, an old mindset, a difficult conversation, or something else—that needs to be faced with trust that the Lord is with you? [52:55]
5. The Israelites wanted to return to Egypt because bondage was familiar. Is there a familiar pattern, relationship, sin, or comfort zone that you sometimes want to return to even though God is calling you forward? What support or boundary would help you move forward? [32:52]
6. Jesus calls His people new creations—washed, cleansed, and purified. What accusation from your past has been loud in your mind lately? How can you answer that accusation with the truth of what Christ has done? [51:07]
7. Isaiah’s response was not, “I have it all together,” but, “Here am I. Send me.” What area of your life do you sense God inviting you to place fully in His hands with a willing heart? [46:14]