Latest / Wesley at FSU & TSC / "You Have Been Called" | Sunday Service | February 9, 2025

Transcript

"You Have Been Called" | Sunday Service | February 9, 2025 · Wesley at FSU & TSC

• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: I want to preach a message this morning called You Have Been Called.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm going to say?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Look to your favorite neighbor and say, You have been called.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody's making decisions.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: You're seeing those decisions.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Look at your other one and say, okay, you've been called by God too.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: I want to walk through this passage from Luke chapter 5.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Luke chapter 5, it'll be on the screen.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a Bible, I'd invite you to turn to that.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Luke chapter 5.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: One day Jesus was standing beside Lake Generes.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: When the crowd pressed in around him to hear God's word, Jesus saw two boats sitting by the lake.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: The fishermen had gone ashore and were washing their nets.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus boarded one of the boats, the one that belonged to Simon, then asked him to row out a little bit, a little distance from the shore.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: When he finished speaking to the crowds, he said to Simon, Row out farther into the deep water and drop your nets for a catch.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Simon replied, Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but because you say so, I'll drop the nets.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: So they dropped the nets, and their catch was so huge that their nets were splitting.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: They signaled for their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they filled both boats so full that they were about to sink.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: When Simon Peter saw the catch, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, Leave me, Lord, for I am a sinner.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Peter and those with him were overcome with amazement because of the number of fish that they caught.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: James and John, Zebedee's sons, were Simon's partners, and they were amazed too.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said to Simon, Don't be afraid.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: From now on, you will be fishing for people.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: And as soon as they brought the boats to the shore, they left everything and they followed Jesus.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Let's pray over the preaching of God's word.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Gracious holy God, your word is a lamp into our feet, and it's a light into our path.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: May it speak to us and may it speak through us for the establishment of your kingdom on this earth.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight and in your sight alone, O God.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: You are our rock and you are our redeemer, and we love you.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: We give you all honor, praise, and glory.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: At the beginning of every school year, uh we have a residential staff who live here and work here, and we put them through what we call work week.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's about five uh days of just constant work.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we literally pull out everything that we own in the kitchen and deep clean it.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we we build things like these little backdrops we made.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't most of you don't know this at this point, but I want to share just a second about these backdrops.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: These backdrops are made by two by fours, which means that they are very heavy.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't intend on making them two by fours, but what happened is when I came to Wesley, we had some, let's say, less than safe bedding in our apartments made out of two by fours.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: And uh this was during COVID, so wood was really expensive.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: I tried to sell some on Facebook Marketplace, and I was very unsuccessful.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the things I loved about it is as we were taking these beds apart, replacing them with actual beds, we found that they all had like little scripture verses or songs written, song lyrics written on them, like really awesome things that are kind of reminiscent about what had happened in the past in this ministry, and all of a sudden I didn't want to sell it anymore.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like I couldn't get rid of it anymore.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like that was a part of this place.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so my friend Sam and I, she said, Hey, what if we were to build backdrops out of two these two by fours?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, sure, not realizing how heavy they would be.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and so we built those.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that's actually what those are, and they've got little things written on them all inside, and we painted them and that sort of thing.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it's pretty cool.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that we do during work week, unfortunately, more often than we should, is that we have to take trips to Lowe's.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because inevitably, what happens, and if you've ever done a DIY project, you've ever done a project at all in your life, you know that you're gonna go to Lowe's or Home Depot, whatever your choice is, and then uh you're gonna need something later, and you're gonna go back to Lowe's.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: They always say there's no DIY project that doesn't require like a minimum of three trips, right?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's kind of how work week is.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so one of those days, I was I was with one of our interns at the time, and he and I were uh, you know, he he's a little old, he was a little older, and he and I used to go back and forth on a lot of things.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: We agreed on some things, we didn't agree on other things, and there were things I wanted him to change about his life, and there were things he probably wanted me to change about my life, and and but one of the things that we shared a lot was music.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so we would get into the car and we'd go to Lowe's, and he would, I would be like, Hey, what are you listening to these days?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, bro, you gotta listen to this new album by Luke Combs.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: You gonna know Luke Combs, country artist, Luke Combs?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: So uh here's here's the picture of the album.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Zach's gonna put it up there for us.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he was like, you gotta listen to this new album.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now I am I don't really listen to country that much, but I'm not, you know, I'm not genre specific.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'll listen to anything.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so I start listening to it, and this album is a straight banger, by the way, like an incredible album, just like all of Luke's.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, if you're if you're not into if you're not into country, that's fine.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: But get into Luke Combs, okay?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because his writing is incredible.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but the very first song that played on the album was a song called Doing This.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: And here's here's the language that it starts with.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: It says someone asked me once in an interview, what was growing up like and where'd you go to school, and what would you do if you weren't doing this?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I'd be driving my first car on a worn-out dodge.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Did I twang in that?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Old worn-out dodge.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Trying to make rent with a dead-end job, just making do, with tips in a jar, my guitar, and an old bar stool.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then he starts in the chorus to describe the awesome kind of magic that happens when you're singing to a crowd at a bar and they're all kind of singing along and they all know the songs, and that's kind of the magic of live music in general.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: If you're a live music fan, you know that.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's something exciting about seeing a band play live.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted you to hear this song, and you're gonna hear it in just a second, just a piece of it.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: I am gonna warn you, it does have some what we call in our family grown-up words in it.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I didn't bleep them because whatever.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we're but we are in church, and you're adults, right?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to hear this because I want you to hear how he sings this.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Whoops, growing up like where'd you go to school and what would you do?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be driving my first car and tryna make rent with dead and job to speak.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Through my plate.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Still be doing it, I wouldn't do it.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Derek played me that song, and he kind of looked over it after, you know, about a minute and a half or so, and I'm sitting there weeping like a child, like completely crying.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, bro, what what and I was like, bro, that is the best articulation of being called to something I've ever heard in my life.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's so what would you do if you weren't doing this?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'd be doing this, you know?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think I'd be doing that thing that I can't get away from doing.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's like one of the best articulations of that I've ever heard.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I deal with this question of call all the time in the work that I do with you all, because there are many a time I have sat across a table at uh Canes or at Starbucks or whatever from you, Lucky Go, and we've talked about like the things that you want to do in your life and how you hate the major that you're in and you hate going to school, but you've got to figure out what you're gonna do in your life.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: And and I start asking, you know, deep questions like, Well, what is it that you want to do?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, I don't really know.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Some of you haven't thought about that because you came into uh a degree program or a major and that mom and dad told you that you had to do, and so that's what you started to do, and then you realize later I'm not actually called to that.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: I just like am there because that's what I was told I had to do.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is an underlying question that we have throughout all of college.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that I often ask is if you could do anything in the world, set aside money, set aside degree, set aside expertise, what is it that you would want to do?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like if there were no barriers in your life?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because aren't there a lot of times where we are controlled by the barriers in our life?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of times where we're like, I'm only gonna do this because that's that's what's gonna aim me that money.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's the barriers they're putting on.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: When I was in seminary, I had a professor named Dr.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Ellen Davis.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: This is a picture of her, and I wanted you to see her because this exactly what you think she sounds like, that's what she sounds like.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: She's one of the kindest, sweetest.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, she's probably this tall, like kindest, sweetest, shortest, youngest, like our oldest, but like so cute and precious women in the world.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: She has a little bit of a speech impediment.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think that makes it even more uh I'm gonna use this word, but I don't mean it pejoratively, like adorable, you know?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the thing, she's super wise.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: So the minute she starts talking, you listen to every word she says.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And they put her in charge of coming to the new seminary students and telling them, hey, we want you to convince these students that they need to take biblical Greek and biblical Hebrew, which was not a requirement, but it was strongly suggested.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Ever had those moments in your life?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like you don't have to do that, but I really want you to.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: That was her role.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And she went through this beautiful like uh explanation of the scriptures.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, she really laid on the guilt, you know, and she was like, Listen, if if you want to read the scriptures, don't you think you're maybe reading it through a lens if you're reading it in English?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't it be better if you could read it in the original language?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we're all like, oh yeah, it probably would be, right?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so we're feeling this guilt.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is like day one of seminary, and then she gets to the end of that talk.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Some of you have heard me say this before.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: She gets to the end of that talk and she says, There's one more thing I want you to know as a seminary student.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: She said, if you can do anything else in the world right now, get up out of this room and go do it.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because there is nothing else.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: If there's nothing else that you can do, then you could be here.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: But if you can do anything else, go do it.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because this work, she said, can only be done by the called.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: This work can only be done by those who are adamantly called by God to do this work because you're gonna deal with a lot of annoyances.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna deal with a lot of things that are gonna bit get in your way, you're gonna deal with a lot of roadblocks and barriers.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And if you the only thing that you can do is if you can only be here, then that's what you have to do.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, get up and leave.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: And my friend B.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Rice, and three, he's always, you know, he's like in for the bit, you know?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Three seats over, he goes, All right, guys, I'm out.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and he like walks out.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm just kidding.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: He did do that, but he stayed and hung out and ended up graduating.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: There was a student at my previous school who had been identified.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: I actually called him this week.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I texted him, that was a lie.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: I texted him to ask if I could tell this story.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, his name is Sal.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Sal is on the autism spectrum, and he was identified through some uh things in the system uh about how to um basically how to get along with the with school, like how do you get further along in school?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I'm a part of a meeting called Reach Out, and uh his name gets brought up, and they're like, we need somebody to reach out to Sal.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you know that you did that thing where everybody else is in the room and there just nobody's raising their hand.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like nobody, everybody knows what's going on with Sal.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: They don't want to reach out to Sal.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Sal's failing all his classes, and so I kind of said, Oh, you know what?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a newbie, I'll do it.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I shoot him a text, and we end up meeting up.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: We have pizza out in the uh like the main courtyard of school.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: And Sal's talking to me how he doesn't know what he's gonna do with his life, and you know, his parents are on a car dealership, and he doesn't really want to do car dealers, he doesn't want to be a car dealer, and he doesn't know that he has all those skills.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I start asking the same questions that I ask of all these things.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what is it that you if there were no barriers, if there was nothing in your way, what would you do?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: And he he said, uh, I don't really know, I don't really know.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Well, let me let me ask you this like what do you do in your free time, Sal?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what is it that you just naturally start doing?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes, I watch, this is Gen Z, watch a lot of YouTube, like a lot of YouTube.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Okay, well, what do you watch?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: And he started going into uh people you might have heard of, like Mr.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Beast, Markiplier.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I said, well, what kind of videos do you watch?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: What do you watch on YouTube?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, I love top 10 videos.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: I love like somebody just talking about like their top 10 sports or their top 10 favorite restaurants or whatever.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was like, you know what, Sal?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh maybe you could be a YouTuber.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: False hope.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: What if you what if we just started making some YouTube videos?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we went to my office and we recorded a uh a jingle for the beginning of his video.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Top 10 was Sal.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Top 10 was Sal Camp Easy.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: I tried to look for a version of it, I couldn't play it for you, but uh, it was awesome.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh we did a little animation because I was getting into After Effects at the time, and and then we went around and we filmed him doing top 10 sports and top 10 YouTubers and top 10 restaurants and top 10 the things to do about Lakeland, and it was awesome.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: And uh his his a friend of his father's was a personal friend of mine, and he reached out to me uh about a month into it.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, Man, I just can't tell you the difference it's made in Sal's life that he has seems like he has a purpose right now.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: It was really cool.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Sal ended up realizing that the traditional college wasn't really for him, and ended up going to uh a college that specialized in some of his needs, and it ended up being a real blessing to him.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: All of which I think was because he started to get a sense of purpose in his life.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of that when we're trying to find that in our own lives is what is it that I do when I can't do anything else?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: I like that's the only thing that I do.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: If you weren't doing this, would you still be doing this?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a question we all have to ask ourselves.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now, today's scripture lesson from Luke 5 is I think one of the most famous, and I don't know, go back, yeah, yeah.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh just a second, yeah.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of the one of the most famous um stories of when the disciples are called by Jesus.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't know, Jesus calls 12 different disciples.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: They all came out of different walks of life and different professions and different careers and all that, and then they came in to do this, and it shows us a few things.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to show you three different things I think that it kind of shares with us in this story.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: The first one is that God often uses the skills and experiences that we already have to call us.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now think about that.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: If you're trying to figure out where you're called in life, what is it that I'm trying to do?
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: You might start going, what is it that God's already gifted me with?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, maybe being called to something doesn't mean I have to give up everything in my life and go here.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: I could actually work off of what I'm doing.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Let me show you what happens in this uh first few verses here, chapter five.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: One day Jesus was standing by beside Lake Gennesaret, I said it better this time, when the crowd pressed in around him to hear God's word.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus saw two boats sitting by the lake, and the fishermen had gone ashore and they were washing their nets.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus boarded one of the boats, the one that belonged to Simon, and then asked him to row out a little distance from the so shore.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Which, first of all, just a second.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus just stole that boat.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Can we?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: The boat is Simon's.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: He gets in it and he goes, hey, buddy, take it out there.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now Jesus is famous at this point, people are following him.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think Simon knew what was going on.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: But a little bit of like, who do you think you are?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and he said, roll out a distance from the shore.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: I love that he also sits down on the Sermon in the Mount, something you might miss in the scriptures.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's interesting that we when we preach, we stand up here.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of us put on platforms or whatever.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: But when Jesus teaches, he sits down.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's interesting.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: When he finished speaking to the crowds, he said to Simon, Row out farther into the deep water and drop your nets for a catch.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now, later on, he's gonna describe being fisher of men rather than fishers of fish.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: But do you see how the initial thing he's about to do is he's about to build upon the gifts and skills, the talents, the job, the career that Simon already has.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: He's not necessarily calling him to something brand rune right now.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: He's saying I can build upon this thing that you're already doing.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: That may be happening in your life right now.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's really easy when you're upset and you don't know what you're gonna do, and I'm just gonna go change my major and I'm just gonna run away.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna drop this relationship and I'm gonna change my entire friend group.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that that is always bad, but maybe you could build upon what you have right now.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you could figure out where you're skilled and gifted, maybe you could figure out where your talents lie, maybe you can figure out how you spend your your money and your time right now to take that next step.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's the first thing.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: God often uses the things that we're already gifted in to teach us.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: The second one is that answering God's call always means trusting and stepping out of your comfort zone, which kind of takes what we were to the next step.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus does this with Simon as well.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Simon replied, Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: But because you say so, I'll drop the nets.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now, hold up a second.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: What's happened here?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Simon's been fishing all night and they've not caught anything.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is probably pretty scary if your livelihood depends on you catching fish.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're not catching anything, there's something wrong here, right?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so he Simon says, Hey, listen, like, we've been doing this.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: You you want me to throw out the nets?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we've been doing this.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you just, bro, we're the experts here.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, uh, maybe, maybe you should take it out a little further.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: All right, next one.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: So they drop the nets, and their catch was so huge that their nets were splitting.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever had those moments in your life where you feel like you should do something, but you definitely don't want to, but you feel like you should do it, but you definitely like there's a lot of reasons why you shouldn't do that.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't make any logical sense, but you feel like God's maybe calling you to that, but it just doesn't make sense in my timeline.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: It just doesn't make sense in my head.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: But maybe I should do that because I really feel like I should do that.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And let me just tell you that in those moments when you feel like you need to step out of your comfort zone, that's where the biggest blessings come.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's where the biggest blessings and times come where God says, Hey, hey, hey, if you just throw those nets back in, I'm gonna fill them up.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no, no, you don't understand.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I have been trying to do, I've been trying to do this all night, man.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Do you not think like we were trying to throw it here and then it didn't come in, and we tried to throw it here and it didn't come in, and we tried to throw it here and it didn't come in, and we've been doing this for a long time, Jesus.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is how we make our money, this is how we survive.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, Would you just do it a little bit further out?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Would you just go a little bit further?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think God might be speaking to you in that same way.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that I've been gifted with?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that I can't do when there's nothing else?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that I can't do?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I can just go a little further.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe just take another step of faith.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Step outside my comfort zone to trust a little bit.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Trusting God.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Accepting a call from Jesus.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: It means shifting from focusing on yourself to focusing or helping others.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is a shift that happens in this moment.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus proves to them who Jesus is.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Hey, I know you haven't been catching fish, but if you just go out a little further, if you just trust me, I'm gonna bring in those blessings.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: So he he pours down the he pours out the nets, and then the fish start coming in.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think at this point he has Simon's attention.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Would you agree?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: He certainly has the James and John, the other one, the sons of Zebedee, he has their attention too, and they're all kind of paying attention here.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Peter and those with him who overcome were overcome with amazement because of the number of fish they caught.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Keep going, Zach.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: James and John Zebedee's sons were Simon's partners, and they were amazed too.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to Simon, Don't be afraid, from now on, you will be fishing for people, which is a little bit of a hold up moment.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: We've been talking about fish, bro.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: You told me to go out and get my larger gathering of fish.
• 22:57
  unknown: He says,
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: What if, what if we're not actually talking about fish?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: What if we're not actually talking about the mechanics of what you're doing in your own life?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: What if you take a step outside of a logic for a second and let me invite you into seeing something bigger, like fishing for people?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: We know it meant something because in verse 11, as soon as they brought the boats to the shore, they left everything and followed Jesus.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: That shift from, oh, I've been bringing in my own supply.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've been bringing in my own things.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: I've been focusing here rather than here.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: If I can make that shift, I could follow what God's doing.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: I could follow God's call.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Call's a hard thing.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really hard thing to articulate, and it can exist in a lot of different places.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: In December, I had the uh joy of taking, it was a joy, right?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of taking five of you all to tours of seminaries, because you're people who have kind of said, I think God might be calling me to church work, and a lot of times that requires a degree, some sort of study of theology.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: I tell you what, we had a great time.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: I would say the most beneficial time, though, was not at the seminaries, it was the car ride where we were talking, well, we talked about a lot and we listened to a lot of wicked.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: But we were talking about the work of the church, and I could just hear, it was so cool.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody wanted to watch their church livestream.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like we got to watch Quaid's sister sing, she's incredible, and she's coming to FSU next year, and we're stoked.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: We got to see what God, I got to see what God was doing in their lives by driving up I-95, which has never been a blessing to me.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you have to go to grad school.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you have to go to seminary.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you have to even want to work within a church.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I do think you probably need to be a part of a church community for you to find what God's calling you to.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: But whatever you're doing right now, whatever you can't get away from, whatever it is that just occupies your mind, your time, man, that I think has something to do with what God is calling you to.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: He just might be taking you to the next step.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then once he's taking you out of your comfort zone to the next step, then maybe, maybe he's gonna say, hey, and by the way, this wasn't about you.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna be a doctor, it wasn't about the money you were gonna make, it was about the lives you were gonna heal.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna be a lawyer, God help you.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't about you.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was about what God's gonna do through you.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Questions you might ask yourself: Am I called to this?
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: Is this what I want to do with my life?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it be music or uh some sort of art or science or medicine, maybe just history, maybe theology.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: How is God using the work that I'm doing here to take me out of my comfort zone?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: How is God using the work that I'm doing here to touch the lives of other people?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: The last thing I want to say about being called is don't stop.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: There are going to be roadblocks, speed bumps.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: There are gonna be people who want you to do something that makes no sense.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna they're gonna be people who just read the situation wrong.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: Last week at the end of the service, you all, surprisingly, but gratefully, prayed for me before I had my interview with ordination.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they did not pass me, but they passed me on all the hard stuff.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I went through the normal emotions you do when you don't succeed at something you thought you were going to.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I had the normal reactions that a lot of people have when you don't succeed at the thing you were going to.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I went through all the emotions.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: I explained it to somebody like my brain feels like inside out three, you know?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like I've got literally Ulist and emotion I felt it in the last week.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Disappointment, sadness, maybe being the top.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of people, and I mean a lot of people, people I didn't even think, called me, texted me, wrote in my Facebook post, um, some of which were on the board that decided that, who came out to greet me while I stood in the middle of the forest because I wanted to be away from humanity.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: And all of them, all of them, their opening line was, you are called.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: So when you hit those roadblocks, and you will, you hit those bad grades, you hit those people who are like, I don't think you should be doing this.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know in your heart where God's calling you.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Just as God was calling fishers, those fishermen, they ended up changing the world.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: And you, as a disciple of Christ, you have that same ability.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: God's gonna use you to do that same thing.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: Don't give up.