When God Calls You to Purpose | Bishop Martin

You mentioned something a while ago that really struck my attention. I thought about what Jesus went through for us. He died simply to give his life that we can have life. But then again, how much are we willing to go out of our comfort zone to help some other child? The thing of it is—and you mentioned something about Comfort—I think that what has happened is the church has gotten too comfortable, and they got so comfortable until they feel like that it's not their problem; it's somebody else's problem. But they fail to realize that Jesus said, "I came to seek and to save that which was lost." Right? We should be doing that. If we are going to be Christlike, that means we are going to have to walk in his shoes. The Pharisees and the Sadducees did not agree with what he was doing, but he knew his responsibility. When God called you to purpose, he did not say it was going to be a level road; it's going to be a smooth road. It's going to be some ups and downs. You are going to have some problems, but ultimately, if you just stay in the process, God is going to move in it. He's going to teach you. In all of those situations that we've been in, God made us stronger. He makes us more aware. He helped us to be able to be a blessing to somebody else.

We went through—yes, I'll tell anybody—yes, we went through hell, stealing, lying, anything you can name they did. But the thing of it is, God never gave up on us, so why do we have to give up on the children? We did something, and we are doing this, and we believe today that if God is telling us to wait in those woods, churches nowadays are so flourished with so much wealth and so many gifts that they can help another child. But are they doing it? No. And here God, all the way down in those bushes in those woods, started something, and it's to be—to show this world what we are missing. We don't know what we've got locked in that system. We could have presidents and preachers and teachers and missionary work all locked in that system, but if we don't do something about this and stop this process right now, it's swelling up every day more and more and more.

So I'm believing right now that God is going to use this as a catalyst to let this whole world know, "Hey, look! Look what you're missing! Look what we have!" James 1:27 said, "Pure religion is undefiled before God, and the Father, that we take care of the widows and the orphans." Now, have we done that? No, we have not. And God has an indictment against these comfortable churches with these big fine family life centers doing all of this. I'm not against that because I would like to have one myself.

But the fact of it is, we've got all the resources we need. When we didn't have no resources, the only thing we had was each other. You thought the community—we came together and realized that the church has to come together. We created our own wraparound support right there in the church. We did. The men and the women helped us to watch over the children because this is a major problem that's going on. The schools have problems; I have to go to the school, I have to do this, I have to do that. But not one time did I back up from the responsibility. Why? Because if God be for us, who can be against us? We've got to realize right now that God has given us the ability to do the thing that we do because the Scripture said, "Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world." We've got this power over everything—over all the money—because the Lord is with us, and that's all I know, and that's what he told Moses on that mountain.

He said, "Look, you ain't got to worry about that." He said, "If you don't know what to say, just shut your mouth up and I'll speak through you." So God has done the whole thing. All we have to do is be willing to go on and do the work that God called us to do, and stop looking to the left and stop looking to the right, and stop looking up to the hills from whence cometh our help. We can get this thing done. This system is going to be empty; God is going to empty this system out. Why? Because he went all out of his way.

I'd like to say this too: the first law of nature is self-preservation, but the first law of grace is sacrifice. Jesus went all out of his way to make sure that we can be sitting up here today. Well, there's something to be said too for a demonstration case in a relatively isolated and poor community because if you can do it there, you can do it anywhere. That's the idea, isn't it? And you know I was reminded when you were talking about the story of Elijah and when Elijah is running from Jezebel, right—the evil queen, essentially the nature worshiper. He ends up in the house of a widow, right? And the widow has not enough food for her and her children.

There's a famous episode in that story where I think she hits the side of the flour barrel continually, and every day there’s more flour provided. But the idea there is that it’s a very fundamental idea, and it’s the idea that you just expressed, which is that there’s more possibility available, even to people who think they’re in poverty—even if they are in poverty—than they believe, if their alignment is proper and their aim is up. Amen.

Now, okay, so let’s delve into that a little bit. So this is a poor community; it doesn't have many resources. The church isn't even architecturally sound, and yet people do this. So how do they manage it? Why does it work, and why did it work? It worked because, number one, we came together; number two, it worked because the Lord was with us. We had many needs and still do, but the problem of it is some way, somehow, when you are doing this for the Lord and doing it in his will and obeying his commandments, God would drop stuff on you that you never dreamed.

God would take somebody that you never heard of and he said, "Look, I just was thinking about you and I just want to bless you with something." This is the way God works. This is where you are able to accomplish things. And look, it ain't nothing to be grinning about like, "Oh man, look who I am." It ain't nothing like that. But the thing of it is, you must stand in the process.

I can't get that word out of my mind: process. A process is something that you stay with. If you get out of the process, you’ve messed up. But if you stay in the process, especially when God has already opened up them channels for you to walk through, all we have to do is just stay with the process, obey his will, and understand that God has your back.

I don't care what happens. See, that's the same thing with Elijah. I mean, he went to this widow's house, and what happened? He said, "Look, I tell you what you do. He said, 'I've got a little oil and a little meal, and me and my son we’re going to eat and drink, and then we are going to die.'" But look what God said: "Look, don't do that. He said, 'Give me mine first.'" She obeyed the man of God and the mandate that was on his life. She obeyed what he did, and her meal barrel never ran out again.

This is what happens when we obey God. This is what happens when we stay in the process and do what he said do. It ain't going to happen no way because we do have our adversary out there that fights us on every hand, doesn't want to see us do this. And the same thing you’ve done about this whole move, he has fought us on two fronts. But let me tell you something; the only thing I can say about that is, "But God." When you’re going through something and you know that the Lord is with you, you don’t even have to be afraid. Don’t look at their faces; don’t be afraid of that because God is going to work it out some way and somehow.

God is going to work it out. When Israel got out there in the wilderness and needed some water, what did God tell him? Hit the rock, and more water comes out. It’s just the way he does things. We can't always define it, but we know that God is with us.

So, you know, one of the things that’s interesting about that Elijah story too is that it's after Elijah has the encounter with the widow—who is contrasted with Jezebel, who’s powerful—that his conscience awakens within him, right? This is a very crucial story because Elijah, of course, is one of the prophets who appears with Jesus when he's transfigured. It's Elijah, Moses, and Jesus. Elijah is the first person in the biblical sequence of stories who formally identifies God with conscience.

It's because it’s Elijah who talks about the still small voice. He realizes that God’s not in the earthquake, not in the fire, not in the storm—these awe-inspiring elements of nature. That’s partly why he’s opposed to the nature worshippers. What he does instead is take everything that people had misapprehended in the awesomeness of nature as indicative of God, and he places it in a very lowly place in a way which is the voice of conscience.

Now, part of the theme that we've been developing in this discussion is something like the awakening of conscience in the church. Okay, so now do you think there’s any particular significance in the fact that this is also something that happened in a predominantly black community? No, it's something that is happening. Well, let me say it like this: what we did was in the black community, but what God did—what God is doing now—he's exposing it to the world.

Yes! He wants everybody to know that we all have a part in this. Like I said earlier, everybody can't adopt, but everybody can be a part of adoption. We can do something to help. The sad part about it is if we don’t do absolutely nothing. That's the sad part. But I do know one thing: if God be for us, I don't care what happens. I don’t care what they can shake—the graveyard and call dry bones to rise. It doesn’t matter; if God be for us, we are going to succeed in this move.

If Josh would just give you a short history of the hell of the problem and the situation and all the trouble and the trauma that we had to go through just to get this far, and still the devil ain't through yet—he's still raising his ugly head. But here’s the thing: God wants somebody who won't give up. A lady told me the other day—she said these words: “Whatever God says yes in your spirit, that’s what you do.” God done said yes, and that’s what we are doing. We are not backing up, we are not taking down, we are not running away because you know why? We got the power over this—not the enemy—but he wants to throw up this bluff and make us feel and try to intimidate us.

But look, I’m too old a cat to be fooled by kids. I'm not going to let the enemy try to bring this stuff down on me, and I know better because I already know what the Lord said: “No weapon formed against us shall prosper.” We are more than conquerors, and our stance is solid.

I’ll say something—you’re pretty good at that! There is something about your community and even the black community at large because of what they’ve had to overcome historically in our country—the bond that’s been created through community and family—that they’ve thrived because of and survived because of it. It's an example, I think, and a picture of what Christian family is supposed to be like. You know, and I don’t mean blood family; I just mean spiritual family as well.

I think there is something that we noticed that allowed for this to work and is an example that we want to follow. I think we've lost, at least in the bigger cities. You know, I think there’s a lot of smaller communities that just kind of naturally have that, but it’s a—it was just being a black woman and proud of being black.

But, well I was thinking, I think there’s a particular problem with the breakdown of family structures in the black community, and so the fact that you’re working within your marriage and then you’re working within this community to rectify some of the consequences of that seems to me to be significant, in addition to the fact that you’re doing it hypothetically with restricted resources.

It's like it’s not so obvious in a way that your community is poor because you actually have a community. If you’re rich and you don’t have a community, you’re poor, right? Well, it’s true; it’s true! Well, you’re just rich and isolated, and then that often just does you nothing but give you license to pursue your idiot habits.

And you know, that’s partly why Christ says to the rich man who’s in distress that he has to sell everything. You think you’re rich, but you're not rich at all. In fact, your wealth is an enemy—that's kind of the enemy that you made an illusion to with regard to the church.

No, it’s the comfort—the comfort you could think of—that comfort is Abraham's worst enemy when he begins his adventure, right? It’s what he has to sacrifice immediately to go out into the world. You said something that you brought up about Abraham. Notice what Abraham did when God said, "Abraham, get up and go to a land that I will show you." Did he ask God which direction? Did he question God, “Why me?” Did he question what? Abraham gathered up his flock, gathered up his stuff, and started—and hit the road.

Now I’m sitting up here saying, how did Abraham know whether to go north, south, east, or west? The Lord was with him, and God was showing him—"I’ll show you the way you should go." He went that way continually. You mentioned Lot a while ago; it came a time that God had to do something because him and Lot—the Bible said how can two walk together except they agree? So Abraham and Lot had to separate, right?

Because God had a plan for Abraham; that’s why they separated. But the thing of it is, God blessed Lot, and he also blessed Abraham. But Abraham had to cut— I preached a message one Sunday: "To get a lot, you’ve got to give up a lot." Yeah, and that’s what we don’t—that’s what we don’t! You’ve got to give up your lot to get a lot! That’s what Abraham did. He gave up his lot, and that's funny—to get a lot. After he gave up his lot, look what God done!

He said, "Abraham, I’m going to make you rich," but he had to give up his own nephew in order to get this riches from God. Well, God offers Abraham four things, right? So he comes to Abraham and he says, "Leave what’s comfortable." And he says, "This is what will happen: your life will become a blessing to you; your name will become known valuably among your contemporaries; you will establish something permanent and of lasting value." For Abraham, it’s a dynasty of nations, and you’ll do that in a way that brings a blessing to everyone.

Right? And so, that call of adventurous responsibility—that’s what came to you on the porch. Okay, so what has that done to your community? What have you seen happen as a consequence? First of all, to the people who adopted and the children. But what’s been the broader impact on the community? The enlargement of love, family, stability, faith, sound of hope, you know, and passing down—stopping the generational curses, right? The breaker—being the bondage breaker—and seeing that those children, because they were gathered into love and impacted by change, that their children, my grandchildren that I nurture, you know, that comes up to our home, will never have to experience what their parents did.

Yeah, you’re talking about gratitude and gratefulness, right? So it’s a permanent change; it’s a permanent change. It’s an everlasting promise, just at the promise given unto Abraham.

So, well, that’s right! So what happens? So what happens to Abraham is that God says to him, "If you follow the voice of adventure and let it take you wherever it wants to take you, then you’ll become the father of nations." And so, I’m thinking about that—well, I think what it means—okay, see, there’s a mistake that evolutionary biologists make when they think about human reproduction. They think about reproduction as sex, but that’s foolish because our children require this kind of dedicated commitment that you mentioned, right?

Once you take on a child, it’s like—it’s a 40-year commitment, right? And so sex just gets the ball rolling, you might say. There’s an immense sacrifice that has to be made after that, and that’s the sacrifice that forces you to mature. Well, what God points out to Abraham is that if he does that right, he’ll establish a pattern of fatherhood that will then cascade down the generations and make his descendants successful. Right?

Because God promises him that his descendants will defeat the people of Cain, for example—and those are the resentful, bitter descendants of Cain.