As I get into my word, I wanted to share with you guys a very important part of my life growing up. When I was young, we were living in an apartment complex in Tom's River, right on the corner of Route 37 and Vaughn Avenue - I know Lynn knows where that is, she used to live right by there. I was in this apartment complex, and my parents both worked a lot, so we ended up getting very close - there was an older couple that didn't have any children that lived next door to the apartment - and we ended up getting very, very close to them. And I ended up getting very close to them, and they were actually the managers of the apartment complex. And in fact, today, even though both of them have since passed, I consider them almost like a second set of parents to me. That's how close we became over the years, and I would visit. I would go and see them up until, you know, they ended up living in Vermont. I would go up there and see them every year up until recently, to be honest with you, when they passed away. But when I was a child, I would spend a lot of time over there.

So every morning, my parents were working, I'd go there if I wasn't already sleeping over there. They would drop me off there and I would go in. And this is like right in the 90s, right? Quintessential 90s. You walked in and they had this big cabinet that you would open. And inside of the cabinet, it was just filled with VHS tapes, right? VHS from top to bottom, all these VHS tapes. And they were older, right? They didn't have like the 90s cartoons. No, they had like the 50s and the 60s cartoons, right? And I would go every morning and I would pick one out and I would go and I'd go into the Lamborghini tape rewinder, right? I would stick it in, I'd rewind the tape, and then I would go and I'd pop it in the VHS thing and go watch cartoons every morning. And these were, again, not like 90s cartoons. We're talking like Superman, Popeye, Woody the Woodpecker. Do you guys remember that Disney did a remake of Robin Hood? It was like a little fox cartoon, right, in the 50s. I'd watch it all the time. I loved it.

The wife, I called her “Ai” - That was like my nickname for her - And she was a little bit of a hoarder. I'm not going to lie to you guys. Not inside the house, right? But she had storage units in an apartment complex in the basement. And she would just kind of load them up. So me and another young man who she also took in who I still talk to to this day, we would go and we would just like go in these basements and go explore. And to us, it was the greatest thing in the world. There's treasures in there, right? And, you know, probably now it's probably filled with dust, and spiders, and rats, and who else knows what else was in there. But one time we found a bow and arrow - a real bow and arrow. So we were running around and who do you think we were? We were Robin Hood, right? Going around shooting, very sharp, very real arrows around the apartment complex until they got a phone call saying, you know, those kids are going to kill somebody. And then she came out and she had a wooden spoon and she threatened me with it. And she'd come out, you know. And, you know, that was, we were reenacting. She would see that we would reenact the cartoons that we were watching.

So Eye, being a very wise woman, when she needed me to do something, she would never come and say, “Kris, go do this.” Right? She was very wise. She wouldn't do that. She would bring me, she'd let me watch my Superman, she'd let me watch my cartoons, and then after I got done watching Superman save Metropolis or watching Popeye save Olive Oil, she would then look up and say, “Oh no, what am I gonna do? I need these vegetables cut.” Or, “Oh no, what am I gonna do? Your parents are coming soon and the house is a mess. What am I gonna do?” And what do you think I did after watching those cartoons? I stood up and I said, “I am here” right? “I'll save the day. I got this.” And I would answer her call. I would stand up loud and proud, “Have no fear it's okay I'm here, I will answer the call” And now I look back on it and obviously she had a plan but at the time I thought I was really saving the day.

You know I was studying the Bible this week and I was looking and I was kind of planning out what I was going to preach about today, and I was looking at common Hebrew words that we have that are repeated throughout the Bible. And wouldn't you believe it, as I'm looking through it I came across the word in the Bible that completely describes that young man standing up saying, “I will answer the call, and I will be there, and I will be the one to go.” There's a word for that in the Bible. The word for that is “Hineni”. (Those are them. Just so you guys know. They actually made it to my wedding. I was very happy) But the word is Hineni. Everybody, let's say it together. “Hey-nay-nee”. Hineni. Jessica had all sorts of this - week she was like running around thinking, kept changing the word, messing me up, because it's hard to remember how to pronounce this stuff! And she was running around the house, kept saying it wrong, messing me up; so I had to put the thing on the bottom, so I remembered how to say it.

"I am here for you, Lord, fully present, fully willing, whatever the cost."

Hineni, roughly, it translates to “here I am” right? In the English language, it translates to “here I am” but honestly, that doesn't do it justice. Pastor Janeth has shared before that the English language is so limited compared to other languages, and especially the Hebrew. So when we look at the word Hineni, it doesn't just mean “here I am” What it really is saying; it's a declaration of readiness, of presence, and of total availability. It's a word that conveys complete surrender, willingness to serve when called, it's a statement of alertness and attention, obedience without preconditions, and humility without courage. You know, we look at the English language and we just say, “here I am” But no, that one word means, “Here I am. I am ready. I am present. I'm ready to obey without preconditions. I'm willing to serve, being humble yet courageous, alert and attentiveness. I am completely surrendered and I am totally available to you” That one word really means all of those things. Ultimately, it implies “I am here for you, Lord, fully present, fully willing, whatever the cost.”

Today, I want to open up the Bible and really explore some young men who had “Hineni” moments throughout the Bible. And how it changed nations - it changed cultures - just by young men, just like me as that young man standing up, answering the call. God had young men that were willing to stand up, answer the call to serve, and we can see some of the greatest moments in the Bible through it. So we can start by saying, Hineni means a life of readiness. Hineni means a life of readiness, as we explore these things today and what this term really means and how it's used throughout the Bible, I'm praying that you would have a Hineni moment today. I'm praying that you, your eyes would be opened and that you would be ready to answer the call when God comes.

But it does - It takes preparation - It means that you are ready. It means that you have prepared for the moment and are ready to answer the call. And I was reading my Bible this week, and there's nowhere really that signifies and really depicts that as well as the story of Moses, as my wife referenced this morning. Throughout the Bible, it can be seen, but in Moses, you really see it very clearly. Because Moses spent 40 years as a prince of Egypt. He was brought in. No price was expended. Everything of Egypt was poured into him. They taught him the leadership of the Egyptians. They taught him the wisdom of the Egyptians. They taught him how to be a prince and a man of the Egyptians. And then what happens? We all know the story; He kills the slave master, and then he ends up fleeing Egypt. And he spent the next 40 years - It's crazy to think about that - 40 as a prince of Egypt, then 40 years he spent in the fields as a shepherd. And why? Why did God do that? Why didn't God just bring him out and, you know, button hook it right back in and bring him and say, “Okay, now you're going to rescue the people.” Why didn't He do that? Because Moses wasn't ready at that moment. Moses was not ready, God had to use those next 40 years in the field to deprogram him out of the ways of the Egyptians, to change his mindset that was so stuck on the Egyptian way of doing things. And He had to start teaching him who God was.

Moses needed to be ready to answer the call. He was not ready when he first left Egypt. He was still in so many ways a slave to the mindsets of the Egyptians. How they did things. How they think. How they reason. How the normal way of doing things should be. All in the mind, he was still a slave in so many ways to the thinking of the Egyptians, and God had to bring him out. God had to teach him who He was. He didn't know the God of his ancestors. He didn't know God's power and His might and His goodness. And how could he go rescue those who were in slavery if he was still a slave in his mind to how the world thought?

And we pick up the story in Exodus 3:2, I'll have it up here. “Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in the flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that the bush was on fire, yet it did not burn up. So Moses thought, ‘I'll go over there and see this strange sight - why the bush does not burn up.’

When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush and said, ‘Moses! Moses!’”

And Moses replied, “Hineni - here I am.” There's another Jewish word, or Hebrew word, that means like location - that signifies location - okay? So he didn't use that word. He didn't use the word that like, if I say, “Hey you” and you're like, “Yes, what's up?” Or “Here I am. Hey, what can I do for you?” It wasn't an answer to a greeting. It wasn't to say to give away his location. Moses was saying a very powerful word. Hineni, “Here I am. I'm ready. I'm prepared. God, what do you need? Let's go. Let's do this. Whatever you say next, God, the answer is yes. I am here and I am ready and I am prepared.” Because Moses had been prepared in that wilderness.

You know what this reminded me of? On your first day of academy, you go to academy, show up in Lakewood in Ocean County Park - I still get heart palpitations every time I pull onto that park, right? But when you go, you're kind of like sitting in the parking lot and you don't know what's going to come. And all of a sudden - it's like a Braveheart movie - these guys just appear, and there's smoke and they just come out of the smoke and they're just in compression shirts and they just are walking to you real aggressively. And next thing you know, you're just getting screamed at, right? And I'm always like, on the first day I was like, “Why do they hate me so much? They just met me. Like they don't even know me!” Right? And I was going through this and there's this one part where they call you your name and they call you up front. And you have to go in front of everybody and they all surround you and they all start yelling at you to say a simple phrase. I forget exactly what it was, but it's something along the line that's like, “Sir, class 116, 20 enrolled, 20 accounted for and present,” right? So you have to say that. It seems like a simple term. But it was the first time I heard it and they're all yelling at you in your ear. and they're all saying it at different times. So they're all starting at different parts of this phrase and they're all just “Say it! Say it!” And there's one guy in your ear that almost gives voice to your anxiety and insecurities. And he's just like, “You're going to fail. You're not going to make it. You're not going to make it. Just go home now.” Right? And you're dealing with all that anxiety.

And it's funny because I saw - you see - how different people react based off of how they were raised. Some people shut down, right? They just shut down. They mentally can't handle it. Other people get angry and want to fight. Other people; I saw one person started crying, got in their car and left, I never saw him again. That was the last time I saw him, was that day. Different people react differently, and at the time, I was like, “Why do these guys hate me so much? I never did anything to them” It wasn't until like a year later that I was on the road and somebody came up and started yelling at me in my face. And how do you think I handled it? I was like, “Oh, this is no big deal” Right, why? Because that time, there was a purpose to it; They were deprogramming me out of all the ways that I had been taught to deal with stress, to deal with threats, to deal with somebody yelling at you. They were deprogramming me out of the way I was raised and reprogramming me to deal with things and think clearly, and think logically and not lose it, and be able to make good decisions under stress.

"You can't do it in the old way, the worldly way, the way the world thinks…"

You know, Moses was no different. He had to go to the wilderness. God had to teach him. He had to deprogram him out of the ways of the Egyptians, out of the ways of the normal way of doing things, the normal way of thinking, the way that you're supposed to do things. He was a prince for 40 years, yet God needed to bring him and teach him who He was. He had to teach him His ways, preparing for that moment when he was going to be called up and God was going to use him. You see, people think the church is just something you do on a Sunday. People think the church is just something to check a thing off a box. “Oh, I gave God something this week” But the church is an academy, the church is a training ground, the church is a place - hallelujah - that you can come and get deprogrammed from all of the ways of the world. To get all of the worldly ways, the worldly thinking, the worldly way of doing things, to have it taken out and be taught the ways of God. To be taught who God is, to be shown that God's ways are higher than any ways of the world. You see, we need to be ready, amen? We don't have long in this world, but the church, the word of God, it teaches you to be an overcomer inside of this world. To be an overcomer - Not a blender, not a fit-inner, not a disappearer - no, an overcomer in this world that we live in. You see, Moses couldn't do it thinking like the Egyptians. He couldn't do it in the old way. You can't do it in the old way, the worldly way, the way the world thinks, the way the world says, the way the world things should be. No, God is looking to reprogram you today to teach you His ways, to teach you His ways are good and that His way is better.

God cannot use you if you're still in the old. What is left of Egypt inside of you today? What of the old is left inside of you today that God needs to take out and teach you who He is? What are you still white knuckling this day? Is it your rights? Is it your thoughts? Your way of thinking? Is it the old way? The old man? What is it that God needs to remove from you today, because God cannot use you if you are still stuck in the way of the Egyptians. But Moses answered, because God had prepared him in the wilderness, because God had taught him who He was. Moses answers, “Hineni, here I am. I have been waiting. I'm present. I'm sober-minded. I'm ready. God, what is Your will? The answer is already yes. You just have to tell me which way You want me to go.” Think about it; Moses left in his gold robes, right, in his jewelry, looking good, a prince of Egypt, filled with worldly authority. He left and he came back dirty, lowly, right? In probably a beat up sackcloth robe, yet filled with heavenly authority. And because of that heavenly authority, he was able to overcome a nation. He was able to go and come against Pharaoh. Hallelujah.

He was able to go and the whole armies of Pharaoh came against him. Their war machines, the best they had, the intimidation. It all came against him. Yet what happened? The horse and the rider fell into the sea and God's people walked over on dry ground as my wife said this morning. Hallelujah. Our mindset must be one ready for the call - One who has submitted themselves unto God and said, “God, take away Egypt out of me. Take away my former way of life. Take away my thinking and the normal way of doing things and what the world says is appropriate. Take it all out, God. Because when that time comes - when that day comes that my name is called to the front - I want to know Your ways. I want to be one who is prepared and ready to answer, Hineni, God, here I am. Use me.” We today must rid ourselves of your past so that God can use you to transform someone else's or your own future.

Hallelujah. So once we know that, right, then we have to know we have to change our answer. We need to change our answer when called. I heard a comedian the other day say that you can tell how old somebody is by what they say when their friend calls them and they answer the phone. Right? Somebody in their 20s, if you call them and say, “Hey, do you want to-” The answer is yes. Right? “Hey, do you want to?” - “Look, say enough. Say less. The answer is yes. I'm in my car. I'm coming right now” Silas is like that. I said to him, last Sunday, I was like, “Yo, you want to play pickleball?” He called me on like Thursday and was like, “Yo, I'm in my shorts. I got my headband on. I got my paddle in my hand. I'm in the car. Where we meeting?” And I'm like, “Dude, I'm not that. I'm not 20 anymore. We’ve got to have a meeting about the meeting. We've got to have a group text. We've got to confirm every day leading up to the day. Like, I don't play that. You're crazy.” Yeah, “I haven't heard from you since Sunday. I forgot about you” you know? But that's somebody in their 20s, right? They just answered, yes, the answer is “Yes, I'm there” Somebody in their 30s, “Hey, man, do you want to-” “Well, give me the details,” right? “Give me the details. Fine, I'll go, but I'm driving my own truck and I'm leaving early,” right? “I'm not going, not carpooling. I'm leaving.” Somebody in their 40s, you call them and ask them? “No. The answer is no.” Right? “I'm no. I got to get up early tomorrow. I'm going to Home Depot.” Right? The answer is no. “Don't even tell me what it is. I'm not going.”

We can understand why God says that He loves someone with a youthful heart. Why? Because they answer yes. Because they say, “Yes, God,” whatever it is. You see, we must learn to trust God and be able to say, God, whenever you call, the answer is yes. Automatically, like that guy in his 20s. Whatever you call, when you call up, Lord, the answer is yes. Say less. I just need the details. I'm already in my car, ready to go. And I'll tell you, when I read the Bible, no story depicts that greater than the story of Abraham and Isaac. Another great, monumental story in the Bible.

In Genesis 22, it says, “Some time later, God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’

‘Hineni (here I am)’ he replied” Here I am. What is it, Lord? “Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, whom you love - Isaac - and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on the mountain I will show you’” And like that guy in his 20s, already in his car, “Early the next morning, Abraham got up and loaded his donkey” He was ready to go. He was answering God. You see, we don't answer God like that, do we? Sometimes we say, “Well, God, just let me finish college. You know, let my plans fall through, and You'll be my backup. Just give me one minute, Lord. Let my kids grow up. Let them do what they need to do, and then I'll serve You. Then I'll answer the call. Just let me do all these other things first. Just- Lord- just wait one minute” But that's not how Abraham answered. Abraham answered, “Hineni, God, whatever it is, I am available. I am ready. I am present. I am prepared. I am sober-minded. I am ready to answer the call. I am humble, (my favorite) humble yet courageous; humbly submitting to your word, but courageous and going after whatever it is that you call me for.” That is what that answer means when He says “Abraham” and he answers “Hineni”

I've said this before and I'll say it again; When we look at the Bible and we look at what it is when God opens a door for His people, it's either open, but then it closes. The door opens and it closes. Does anybody remember what I said when I said “what's a door that never closes?” What is it called? Anybody remember? Sam? A hole, right? There are no holes in the kingdom of God. There are no holes in the walls of the kingdom of God. A door opens for a time and then it closes. God calls out to a man. He calls and says, “Answer the call. That door is open, but one day it is going to close” Are we going to be the ones that are ready to answer as soon as God calls? Or are we going to be the ones that says, “Hold on, God, give me a moment. Let me just finish all these things first” and then hope that the door is still open by the time that we're ready to answer. I'm telling you there are going to be a lot of people who are disappointed because they are not available in their hearts to God when he calls on their name.

You know when Abraham's name was called, he could have said “Lord, anything besides this” Right? “Yes Lord, anything besides that I'll do” Or he could have said “Listen I'm already busy still doing the things that You already asked me to do. How could You expect me to do more?” But he doesn't answer in those ways. He says, “Hineni” ready, willing, and prepared. And there was zero back and forth between him and God after that. God called him, he answered Hineni, God gave him all command, and then he was up early the next morning loading his donkey ready to go. He was one that was embodying somebody that can say, “Here I am, God. Use me. Use me in this moment”

When I read this, it reminded me when my son was younger he would go with his grandfather to the store all the time. And every single time he went, what do you think he came away with? Right? One of those stupid race cars that are like $7 that the stores know they put in there on purpose for the kids. But every time he went, and that's why he'd want, yeah, “Grandpa's going to the store. Yeah, I want to go. I want another race car” Right? And he would go and every day he would come home with a new one. You know, that's good, but ask any parent, there has to be a transitionary period. Right? There has to be a transitionary period where you start instilling inside of your child, no longer just a “what do I get out of it?” But you start instilling something inside of them that says, “How can I pay back into the home that has been feeding me? How can I help support the home that has been blessing me?” You must develop a sense of contribution in the child. The problem is, is that we have a large amount of Christians in this country who never grow out of the phase of saying, “What do I get out of it?”

I'm not saying that God doesn't bless His people. He does. But yet there's something inside of the heart where people answer, and they don't answer the way that they should. Right? They answer in a thing that says, “Well, what can I get out of it? What is it?” And when you call them, well, you know, “Here I am, Lord, bless me” It's not “Here I am, use me.” But it's “Here I am, Lord, bless me. Here I am, God, I'm right here. What can I get out of this? Here I am, Lord! What are You going to give me today? What am I going to get when I go to the store?” There's never a transitionary period inside of the heart that says, “What can I do, Lord? You have blessed me. I have been fed by your very hand. I have been here. I am submitted unto You. I am ready because I live every day knowing the mercy that You have shown upon me, God. You have been so good to me. You have loved me, God. And Lord, when You call my name, I am going to be ready. I am going to be prepared, and I'm going to be the one here answering Your call”

Abraham's heart - it was one filled with vulnerability, one filled with readiness, and one filled with trust. You see, I don't know what God's going to call when He calls your name. I don't know what He's going to say. I don't know the words that are going to be out of His mouth after He calls your name. But that's the beauty of it. That's the beauty of being able to answer God from the heart. That's the beauty of being able to repay God or give something back or begin to support the one that has fed you all of your life and be able to say, “God, You are so good.” I live in that trust every day to say, “God, when You are so good, when You call, Lord, when my heart just leaps when You call my name, that I can call unto You and say, ‘Here I am, Lord. Here I am, God. Use me.’”

You know, Jesus answers in Luke 9. There's a piece of that where Jesus begins to speak to people. And he says to a man, he says, follow me. But the guy replies, “‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’

And Jesus said to them, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’

Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord, but let me first go back and say goodbye to my family.’

And Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the service in the kingdom of God.’”

We look at that and you're like, “Geez, Jesus, man, that was kind of rough” right? But Jesus, these are all Hebrew people. These are all Jewish people. They know God. They know this is a very, very common term. Hineni - they all know it. And they all know the way that God is looking when He calls your name. You see, Jesus was looking for this type of answer. He was looking for them to recognize Him as the Son of God. And when He calls them, for them to say, “Yes, God, here I am. Hineni, I'm ready” But they don't. They say, “Wait a minute, God, I'll just be a few minutes. Just give me a few. I got a few things to take care of first” And we still see that today. But Jesus, He replies, “You're either ready or you're not. You're either available for Me, or you're not.” And He was looking for that type of response to come from them, and because their priorities were so many other earthly things - he probably would have let them go to the funeral, He probably would have let them go say goodbye. But it's the fact that their heart was not prepared. Their heart was not ready.

You see, there is an intimacy and trust that comes with knowing God. There's a trust to say, “God, whatever You say next, the answer is yes, because I know You have good things for me. I know You have plans for me. plans to prosper me, give me a hope and give me a future” right? That's trusting in the word. And there's an intimacy in that to know that, “God, you know the depths of my heart. You know the things that I cherish the most. You know the things that I hold dearest, that I cannot live without. God, You know my heart” And that's the intimacy. And then trust to take those very things, the most cherished things in your life, and put them into the hands of another. That is intimacy. That is trust. That's why Abraham's answer was “Hineni, whatever you need God” The answer is yes.

You see we don't talk about that type of vulnerability. We don't talk about that type of trust in the American church. We talk about saying a prayer and getting a golden ticket and going to heaven forever and nothing being required of you. But God very clearly in this word, his one word of Hineni exposes a truth of the heart to say there needs to be vulnerability. There needs to be trust. There needs to be intimacy. That you can take your kids, your finances, your home, your marriage, and go and trust God and put it into His hands. If we can't do it with those things, how in the world could we do it with our eternity? How could we do it with salvation? How could we do it for the things that are going to affect us for the rest of our lives? God is calling for us to change our answer, to stop answering “Hold on, God, I'll just be a minute” or to stop answering, “Here I am, God, bless me” God wants us to change our answer from our humanistic concerns that are just about us and about what we can get out of it and concerned about our fleshy things. And instead answer, “God, God, here I am. I'm ready and I'm willing and I trust you and I'm in intimacy with You. And God, Your name is good and You have loved me and I trust You no matter what You ask. So yes, Lord, of course, the answer is yes!”

God wants to know today; do we have that type of availability to God? Do we have that kind of accessibility to our heart to say, “Yes, God, the answer is yes. Hineni, whatever You say, I will be there.” So once we change our answer, then we need to answer from the heart. To answer, Hineni - it comes from that place of intimacy like I spoke about. It comes from an established heart of submission founded upon a preexisting relationship between you and Christ. This can be clearly seen in the prophet Isaiah; You guys know the story of Isaiah. Isaiah was a younger man - they said he was probably about 25 years old from the best that they can see - and he was a godly man from the beginning. He was not one of those guys out doing his own thing in the world. No, he was a godly man. And he came, and there came a moment where God called his name and it changed everything, he had a vision of God. And that's where we're going to pick the story up. Isaiah 6: 4-8. He's having a vision, and in the vision it says, “At the sound of the voices of the angels, the doorpost and the threshold shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am ruined. For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.’

Then one of the seraphim (the angels) flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, ‘See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin is atoned for.’

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’

And I said, ‘(Hineni) Here I am. Send me!’”

Isaiah was not somebody new to the faith. He was living out the faith- years before this. He was well-educated, he was actually believed to be part of either the ruling class, or maybe even the royal family. But he was doing his thing, everybody knew him, he was known as a righteous voice in Judah, he was very involved in politics and matters of the country, and he was also married and had two children. You know, I look at that and I hear that story - You know what I think of when I hear that story? This guy was doing well, right? He had a whole established life. He kind of won in life. He was doing well. You know, he married, he had two children, he was doing well, he had a future, he had a job, he had everything planned out. He had responsibilities, he was already a godly man established in relationship with Him. But you see, there is a difference between just living righteously inside and God calling your name to bring about action, to bring about change, to bring about transformation. That you're going to be willing to stand up and answer the call and say, “Here I am, Lord, use me. I am ready and prepared to be utilized by You to bring change.”

"What can God use in you if you are willing to answer the call?"

No matter what you are or what you've been through, God can use it for His purpose. He used Isaiah's education and his access to the king and the royal court and everything he had been through to bring change and transformation to his nation. With Moses He utilized his past and his access to Pharaoh and his forgotten lineage to save a nation. With Abraham, He used his willingness to establish a line of people that still exists to this day. What can God use in you if you are willing to answer the call? If you are prepared and willing inside of your heart to trust Him and to come into intimacy with Him and to answer the call. Do you have a broken past? That's okay. So did Moses and God used it. You have an established family and a life? So did Abraham and God was able to use it. A you set in your ways and your career and you have your future all planned out? So did Isaiah, and I tell you today that God can use it. To those who are willing to answer the call and say, “Here I am, God. Hineni. Here I am, Lord, submitted underneath you.” God can take what you are - can take a broken person - can take whoever it is and utilize him for their purpose. He can bring about His transformative power in your midst, but it takes someone to say yes to God.

"When God calls you to say, 'Yes, God, because of Your goodness...'"

And it's not a self-confident “Yes.” Right? I want to make that clear. It's not someone who's like got it all together and be like, “Yeah, I'll be great for God. I'd be great in this job. He can really, you know, He can use me because I'm so good and He can do it!” No, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about someone who lives in the shadow of His mercy every day. Right? Who lives every day walking in the shadow like an umbrella when it's raining. Everyone else is getting wet but for some reason that umbrella is keeping you dry and you're just walking in the rain. That is who God is; To walk in the shadow of His mercy means every single day you are walking in the knowledge of who He is, of what He has done for you, of His goodness and His grace and the things you do not deserve - yet God found it in His good purpose to bless you and to bring you into something new. To live in that mercy means every day we are living, waiting for that moment when God calls you to say, “Yes, God, because of Your goodness, because of Your mercy, because of Your love, the answer is yes, no matter what. I am here and ready and available to You to do what You want to do this day.”

Charles Spurgeon - he described the process in three steps. He called it cleansing, calling, and commission, and it makes sense when you think about it. Every man must come to a time like Isaiah where he said, “Woe to me, I am an unclean person, unclean lips, and I live in a land of unclean people!” Every man needs to come to a moment where they realize their sinfulness, where they realize that they cannot stand before God, and God needs to come and bring the coal to their lips and come and cleanse them in that moment. Every man must come to that revelation when they get a picture of who God is, and then, and only then, are you able to come into the calling. You see, only people with ears who are sensitive to hear, who have been purposeful in their cleansing, who have been purposeful in preparing, who have been searching their heart to look for what Egypt has left inside of them, who have gone before God and said, “God, take out all the old. Take out all the Egypt. Remove it from me this day!” - You see, only those have ears that are sensitive to hear the call of God that says, “Who shall I send?” And when you hear that call, when you develop that type of sensitivity, then you can answer, “Hineni, Lord, here I am.” And God warns him and He says, “Look,” in the later verses, He says, “You're going out to a people and a land with stubborn hearts. They have ears, but they cannot hear. They just don't get it. So I'm going to be with you, and I'm going to empower you.” You see, the answer to answer God's call today means that God is coming in and is empowering you to fulfill the call that He has called to you if you are ready and if you are willing.

I'll close with this in a minute. You know, this is kind of my last thing. But, you know, when I was getting into being a cop, there was a long time where I was trying to fit the mold of what the world said you're supposed to look like. You know, I went to my boss, my boss said to me - he looked me square in the eyes - and says, “Look, you're not going to do it. You just don't fit the mold. You don't have it. You know, maybe you should explore other options.” And I was like, man, that's messed up. You know, I was like, alright. You know, it hurt a little bit. I'm not going to lie, it stung, right? You know, but okay! So I got up and I'm like, “Well, I got to change” right? I got to fit what the mold says that somebody like that should look like. So I was like, “Alright, how can I change? I got to fight. I got to go do something. I don't know. I got to lift. I don't know what I got to do, but I got to stop eating cheeseburgers. I got to get out there.” And I was like, “I got to fit the mold better.”

It wasn't until a moment that God started to work upon my heart, and God started to take out all the Egypt that was inside of me. And I started to submit myself, as hard as it was, to submit myself to the call of God and to come to real truth about all of the prince of Egypt - the prince of this world, the prince of darkness that still existed inside of me - that I had to go before God and say, “God, You've got to take it out.” And it wasn't until that moment, and then God started to speak to me, and I started to hear the call, that I was able to realize, I've got to stop trying to fit the mold. The call is not to look like everyone else. The call is not to fulfill these other things. So I started to submit myself, and you know, the craziest thing has happened since, all of a sudden God's been using me, but in a role that has never been seen before.

You see, it's nothing to do with me. I'm not that great. I don't fit the mold like my boss told me at that time. Yet at the minute I submitted to God, He began to make rivers in the wilderness, in the desert; Ways that have been never made before - Things that nobody had seen before, and it's not about me. It's about the fact that God was able to use somebody that was just willing to rid themselves of Egypt and say, “Yes, that's me. That's my story.”

What can God do through you? What could God do through your situation, and your life, and whatever it is that you do? If you're at home with your kids, can you imagine if you had the ears to hear - that God looked and said, “You have these kids for such a short amount of time.” I mean, what could you do in them? My wife is amazing when it comes to that. With molding and teaching my child the Bible and every morning going, she's teaching him a way that he will not depart from. Right? Hear the call of God of what God is calling from you.

If you're in your jobs, instead of getting so caught up in lunch breaks and meetings and budgets and all the other stuff that we get caught up in, hear the call of God! Rid yourself of Egypt this day and say, “God, what can You do through me this day?” It's not about your job. It's not about the budget. It's not about the meetings. It's about what God can do with a man that says, “Hineni, here I am, Lord. Use me.”

God utilized young men, young men who were just willing to answer “Yes.” He rescued an entire nation through Moses. He went and spoke to people. And through Isaiah, we still quote to this day verses from Isaiah that were prophesying of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. We still quote them every single Christmas; We still quote his words. Why? Because he was willing to answer “yes”. Abraham, he went and set up a people that still exists to this day because a young man was willing to answer, “Hineni, God, here I am. Use me.”

What can God do through you this day? What can God use in you, in your schools, in your work, in your home, in your marriages, in your friendships, whatever it is, what can God do if we stop trying to make God fit into a world box instead of taking God and trying to say, “Well, God, You have to fit into this mold, otherwise, it's not going to work.” I thought that too. I was there. But the minute that you stop saying, “God, You need to fit in the world”, and you start saying, “God, Hineni, here I am”, you will make rivers in the wilderness. You will go in the desert, and you will bring waves that have never been seen before. God will begin to do it. It just takes somebody who is willing to answer “yes”, who is willing to prepare, who is willing to stop giving up their flesh and stop looking to benefit from every little thing and stop.

I'm not saying God doesn't bless; I'm a recipient of it, but what I'm telling you is that our hearts have to make a transition to stop being the child in the supermarket and to start being the one that comes and says, “God, I have been fed from Your hand my entire life. I am only here today because of Your goodness and Your grace. How in the world can I give back unto You? How can I support You, God? How can I answer You?” God can do amazing things with men and women who are willing to answer the call.