Higher Calling

Ps Natanael Shares a timely message to arise 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Well, we're gonna talk today from Joshua chapter 1. I know you've never heard me talk from Joshua chapter 1, but this time you're gonna hear me from Joshua chapter 1. Something happened in Joshua chapter 1 for me, and that's why I always speak about Joshua chapter 1. There are some portions of scripture that become more than verses to you and to me. They actually become life messages, and for me, Joshua 1 is a life message. Through this message I came to Christ. When I was 16 and 10 days, we had only come to Australia six weeks before, and I'm the youngest of seven children. I was at uh Kuranda Language Center in Peran, in Melbourne, learning English, because I didn't speak any English. And um I came from school, and um my father was home, my mom was home, and me and my sister were home. And uh we had lunch, uh late lunch, and then my father went to his room to pray. He would have a devotion time uh in prayer on a regular basis, but not just once a day, sometimes three times a day. He went to his room and uh he opened his Bible and he would read the Bible most of the time on his knees. So he would put the Bible on the pillow and he would read the Bible on his knees and pray and spend time with the Lord on his knees. And uh he after about 15-20 minutes, my mom went to the room and she came out just crying out to me. She said, Nathaniel, come quickly. I think your father just died. So I ran to the bedroom, and um he was on his knees with the Bible open, with tears in his eyes, and with the head rested on the Bible and on the pillow, and tears flowing on from his eyes. He had a heart attack at the age of 52 and passed away. Now, the Bible was open at the last chapter on the left hand side, it was the last chapter of Deuteronomy, which speaks about the death of Moses, and on the right hand side it was the first chapter of Joshua, which speaks about Joshua's calling of God. Now, when we saw the scripture open, we thought that my father was reading about Josh, uh Moses' final moment about his death. And we thought that he understood that that was his death. And uh we in a in a way we had peace. I mean, it was very uncomfortable and difficult because imagine seven children you'd come to a new country ready to, we were staying in state housing on the 19th floor in ghettos, uh, housing commission ghettos in Victoria, and we were hoping that he would get a job, you know, we would make a new life in Australia. But he he passed away, and that was we the fact that he died on his knees with the Bible open, we knew that the Lord allowed that passage to happen, so we accepted it, but it was still challenging. Now, I moved to Western Australia six years later, and one morning while um I was praying, the Lord prompted me to go back to the scripture where my father had the Bible open when he passed away. And the Lord said to me, Look on the other side. So rather at the death of Moses, but now at Joshua's calling of God. So uh I want to read these verses to you, even if we stay here till 1.30, um, with the risk of being stoned to death, because this is very powerful. And you know, when you're in church, I think we should read the Bible, because many people don't read the Bible at home. So at least in church they're forced to listen to the Bible. This doesn't happen in Albany, this is just in Perth, you know, people in Perth. They're busy, and um, where I come from, you know, people don't read the Bible as much as they should. But sometimes I even read it for them and they don't listen to me. I have a podcast called Daily Prayer with Nathaniel Costia. So every single day you can actually listen to me for six or seven minutes, and you can pray with me every morning, and there's a Bible verse there as well. Now, I want you, I'm sure you would have read this passage and heard this passage before, but I want you to hear this passage this time with a dying father passing on this inheritance, this legacy to his son, and God is now speaking to me, Nathaniel, after the death of my Moses, my father, who passed away, and what the Lord is calling me to do. Because this was the passage that made me come to Christ. I got saved through the Old Testament, but through the new covenant in the Old Testament. Now that will mess up your intellectual theological mind, and that's okay. We shouldn't mess you up in church. So, after the death of Moses, the Lord's servant, the Lord spoke to Joshua, son of Nan, Moses' assistant, he said, Moses, my servant, is dead. Therefore, the time has come for you to lead his people, the Israelites, across the river Jordan into the land I'm giving them. I promise you what I promised Moses. Wherever you set your foot, you will you will be on land I have given you, from the Negev wilderness in the south to the Lebanon mountains in the north, from the river Euphrates to the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, including all the land of the Hittites. No one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. For I will be with you as I was in Moses, I will not fail you or abandon you. So this is the NLT, your translation may sound a little bit different. Be strong and courageous, for you are the one who will lead these people to possess all the land I saw to their ancestors I would give them. Be strong and very courageous, be careful to obey all the instructions Moses gave you. Do not deviate from them, turning either to the right or to the left. Then you will be successful in everything you do. Study this book of instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. This is my command: be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid of discoverage, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. So this is the chapter when when I read that, I actually fell on my knees and I started crying that I ignored God and I allowed my life to drift away. Even though I grew up in a Christian family, I had drifted. So I repented and I had a three-day conversion. For three days I didn't go to uni, I just cried. I sat on the floor, most of the time on those old Jara floorboards in my Lydaville house, and I just cried and cried and cried, and after three days I came out of that, got baptized in the Indian Ocean at Mamian Beach, and uh I started doing ministry and getting involved in the local church. So through these Bible verses, the Lord continued to shape my life, continued to shape my ministry and my destiny. But there was one phrase that has impacted me long before I read this, Joshua 1. Throughout my adolescence, my youth, my adult life, there was a phrase that God has put in my heart, which kept echoing in my heart. And that phrase was you have a higher calling. You have a higher calling. So these words have guided my decisions more than anything else in my life. They produced with within me something that the Bible calls a fear of the Lord, a holy fear of God. It wasn't a fear of punishment, it was a fear of it was a loving fear towards God, a respectful fear, a fear that was honoring towards God, a desire never to disappoint or grieve the one who has called me God. So this call of God on my life, you have a higher calling. It was an invitation to always rise above the situation, above the circumstances, above the temptation. It wasn't just to avoid sin, but it was an invitation to come up higher to everything that God has called us to be, called me to be. So that is where Joshua begins as well. This opens up with this amazing turning point in biblical history. After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua. So Moses dies, and God tells Joshua, Moses is dead. So he has to understand that. Now Moses was the greatest Israel, the greatest leader Israel had so far. So the whole nation is grieving. They haven't reached the promised land. The promised land is still over the Jordan. Millions of people are waiting, and now all the eyes turn towards Joshua. So the weight is on his shoulders, and he has to do something, and God is speaking to him. He had served Moses for 40 years faithfully. He had climbed Mount Sinai with him. So he had experienced the highs and lows of Moses' ministry. He had remained in the tent of the meeting when others returned to camp. He was one of the two spies who believed God's promises when they came back from the promised land. He had witnessed miracles, he had witnessed failures, he had witnessed victories, and he had seen the traveling of the people of God for 40 years in the wilderness. He also saw manna coming from God every single day for those 40 years. And now all of a sudden everything changes. I want you to feel them. He gives Joshua his own assignment. Okay? We sometimes think, I want what uh what she's having, I want what he's doing, I want no no no. God's not asking you to fill somebody else's shoes. God's asking you to be everything he has called you to be in your own shoes. Your R.M. Williams are better than everybody else's RM Williams. So love them. I told you about the story of my R.M. Williams, didn't I? So I I would never pay $600 for a pair of shoes. But uh when when Uber came to town, I I had a beamer and I registered to drive Uber, Uber Black, which was like the top end of Uber, right? And uh I made a killing. I mean, quite honestly, the the guys from Uber they called me in and they said, Nathaniel, who on earth are you? Because you've signed more people than anybody else to Uber, and he said, You are so disproportionate. Like we won a night at the Hyatt, we won a night at we won like at Print Hall, best best diner in Perth. They they they had these competitions and we won all of them. We were signing more people than anybody else. They said, tell us, they said, what do you do? I said, I'm an evangelist, I'm a pastor. They said, you gotta come and train our people how to do this stuff, right? So uh, and also like I was making more money on Uber than any other driver. They said, This is disproportionate. You must have hacked into our system. I said, No, I didn't. I said, because you monitor me. He said, Yeah, but how do you know? Like you drop up in the city, how do you know to go back on Stirling Highway and head towards Caras Law at you know 5.30 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon? Why do you do that? I said, because there's no work in the city at 5:30 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon. You gotta go back to the suburbs. And in the Golden Triangle in the blue chip suburbs of Perth, you will get clients. And they said, You're right, but he said the average driver would never think of that. So, you know, by the time they would hang around the city hoping to get another job, I would do another job from Netlands or from uh Caroslo or from Mount uh uh Claremont back to the city. Anyway, that's not the story, that's just bragging. I pick up this guy from West Perth and I have to take him to Miss Maud's. They had a Christmas function. His name was James Bond. Irishman. And I'm about to drop him off at um at Miss Maud's and he gets a phone call. He's a car dealer for Alf Babagallo in Osborne Park, and the alarm goes off at the dealership, and he's on duty that night to attend to the dealership if the alarm goes off. They had a roster. He said, Oh, I hope you don't have a fare because I need to go quickly to Osborne Park to check that nobody has gone into the dealership and then come back for the dinner. Can you take me to Osborne Park? I said, sure. So there we get back, I drive towards Osborne Park and I talk to him, and he tells me that he's with the Scottish girl and they don't get along, and and I said, Well, you know, I'm I'm pretty bad. I said, Well, did you think it was gonna work out? He goes, Yeah, it generally works out. I said, but you're living in sin, aren't you? He said, Yeah. I said, how do you expect it to work out when you're living in sin? He looks at me as if, you know. He goes, This is what my grandfather would say to me. I said, Who's your grandfather? He says, he's a minister, uh church minister back in Ireland. And he he told him about the faith, right? So I'm I'm sharing Christ with this guy, right? And I'm taking him. So nothing happened at the dealership. By the way, the the owners of uh Alpha Bagalo and all that dealership, they're Mormons. So they actually tried to convert him to Mormonism as well. So he comes with a pastor, right, in Anuba. So I'm taking him back, and on the way back, I'm sharing Christ with him, and I'm giving him my little book, the most precious gift, and then my book, 40 years and 40 days. I gave him everything, you know. I thought, you know, if you find a person of peace, just stay there, right? So I'm giving him all the literature, right? But this guy, he actually reads it. And I left him my number and I told him where I pastor. And a couple of weeks later, he shows up at our church, and he gets baptized and he becomes a follower of Christ. He enrolls in our school of ministry and he starts growing and maturing. And then he gets a job in Abu Dhabi selling Aston Martins as John and as James Bond. He goes back to Ireland, tell his grandfather, his father grandfather rejoices that all his prayers have been answered by God, and his son, his grandson found God in an Uber in Australia. And then he marries a beautiful Christian Irish girl. They move to Sydney, they have children, and now he sells uh big uh mining uh machinery and he lives in Sydney. And when he went to Abu Dhabi, he went to my sister at Churchlands where I was pastoring at the time, and he said, I want to give Pastor Nathaniel something really, really nice. What can I give him something that is like a very generous gift? And uh my sister asked me, she said, What do you want? That's how family works, right? And she goes, he said generous, like he wants something. I said, generous, how generous, you know? And I said, uh, a pair of RM Williams. And he bought me a pair of R.M. Williams. And then one day I'm playing soccer in the city on Langley Park, and he rocks up there with his bag and with the R.M. Williams, and he brought them to me while I'm playing soccer with the guys, and that's on his way to the airport, just to bless me. So now I've got R.M. Williams. But they're not his, these are not James Bond's R. Williams, these are Nathaniel Costilla's R. M. Williams. You don't want my boots, trust me. The grass is never greener on the other side. You don't want my problems, you don't want my backaches, you don't want my hairstyle. No, you don't. Your shoes are perfect for you. But God is calling you to become everything that He's called you to be in your own shoes. So God gives Joshua his own assignment. He's saying, That season's finished, it's ended, now you arise. Now you have a higher calling. Now it's time for you to take these people, cross over this Jordan, and lead these people into their inheritance. God calls Joshua to become everything he designed him to be. Every generation has his own has their own assignment. Every believer has a unique calling of God. Comparison is the enemy of your calling. Comparison kills your calling. God never asks you to imitate somebody else's destiny. He asks you to faithfully steward your own calling and your own destiny. You know, God's first words to Joshua, they're not strategic words. They have to do with identity and responsibility. Identity now you, responsibility, arise. Before Joshua could conquer the cities of the promised land, he had to stand up, he had to rise himself. You have to arise from your own ashes, from your own limitations that no one has put on you except yourself. There's so many things that are waiting to be pulled aside that we've actually think that we can't do that. So, before he could lead the nation of Israel, he had to answer God's call for himself. He had to rise up, he had to stand up. Before he could possess the holy the land that God has promised him, he had to possess first his own courage to obey God. You gotta possess the courage to obey God in your own personal life. God's calling for your life always starts with an invitation to rise. He's calling you to rise up. Rise above yesterday. Rise above fear. Rise above comfort. Rise above enemies. Rise above excuses. Rise above comparison. Rise above grief. Moses is dead. They were grieving. Rise above grief. Go mourn for two, three days, but then rise above it. Life is still ahead of you. Challenging, challenging. Rise into God's purpose. Now, the call of God for Joshua was much larger than himself. God's call for our life is always larger than us. It's greater than us. Because, first of all, you got to see beyond yourself because you can't be egocentric. And second of all, you need God. Your assignment is so great that you can't do it on your own. You will need his help, you will need his blessing, you will need his assistance. That's how you're going to bless other people out there. So, Joshua's call again, he was called to lead an entire nation into the inheritance that God promised to Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac and Jacob. That's how big his calling was. And then he was going to divide the land among the tribes, and he was going to establish God's covenant to the people in their inheritance in this new land. Massive, massive responsibility. And this calling was huge for Joshua because the purposes of God are always massive, they're bigger than ourselves. So your calling is not just about money, career, income, uh, I don't know, position, business card, reputation, comfort. Your calling is connected to God's purposes on earth. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven through Nathaniel Costia. Through you. You bring the kingdom down. Through you, the kingdom comes down. You download the kingdom. Someone else's breakthrough probably depends on your obedience. Someone's salvation probably depends on your faithfulness. Maybe James Bond's salvation depended on me being open, and God gave me a second chance. Because from Westbirth to Miss Maud was not good enough. God said, okay, I'll turn the alarm off at Osbomkar. I'll give you another chance, Nathaniel, to work out the courage to say to James Bond that this has to be safe. Someone else's future may be shaped by the way you say yes to God. So don't underestimate what God will do in your life. That's why God's call for your life is absolutely sacred. No one should take that away from you, not even yourself. You're not allowed to divert yourself from it. So it's never about what you accomplish, it's about what God will accomplish through you. That's the call of God on your life. That's why Joshua 1 is so personal to me. Because every time I wanted to settle, every one time I wanted to compromise, every time I wanted to become distracted, or pursue something else because it looked good, or I was making money and I've done that many times. It was a diversion. God kept telling me, Nathaniel, you have a higher calling. Holy Spirit would say, Nathaniel, but you have a higher calling. So those words have also rescued me from many, many diversions in life, from temptations, from sin, from retaliation, from resentment, from repay uh revenge, from paying back. God, Nathaniel, God would say, Nathaniel, you can't do that. There's a there's a higher expectation from you. You ought, we expect more from you. I remember going to court once at the state administrative tribunal, and the judge there, some clients of ours thought that we mistreated them. We we mediated and he was uh sorted. But the judge looked at me and she said, Nathaniel, I have a higher expectation of you. You shouldn't be allowing yourself to to you know to go down that path. If the clients want to go that path, that's that's their problem. But from you, as a director of a company, you you ought to understand things differently. We have a higher responsibility, we have a higher expectation of you. So in everything in life, there's this there's there's a lot more. There's been so many situations where God has has called me back. And as I said, this is not fear of punishment, but because God is always saying, Nathaniel, come up higher, come up higher, come up higher, come up higher. So the same invitation is for you today. God is saying to you, like He's saying to me, now therefore, arise, arise, arise, arise into what I prepared for you, arise into the assignment I entrusted to you. If I give my son ten dollars and I say to him, Go across the road and buy me a packet of chips from uh from uh hungry jacks, I believe he can do that. I entrust him the ten dollars, I entrust him the responsibility, and he's able to deliver that. God has entrusted you this assignment, whatever it is, because he knows that you're able to do it with his help. So he knows that you can do it. So step into this higher calling, arise into this higher calling that God has placed on your life. Next slide, the language of calling. I want you to look at verbs, and verbs are wonderful in the Bible. This chapter is filled with verbs. If you want to write a book, just write a book on the verbs of Joshua 1. You better write it before I do. So God's not just simply giving him encouragement, he's giving him marching orders, he's actually giving him commandments. Commandments are, listen to me very carefully, non-negotiable instructions. You don't negotiate with what God commands, you do them. Step by step, step, direct and real. They're non-confusing, they're very clear. Look at those verbs. Arise, go, but God, uh go. Step. How do how do I go? Like this. One step at a time. You get up and you go, you shift, you move. Um, I mentioned uh to Paul yesterday. People say, Oh, this business doesn't work here in my business coaching. I tell people, everything works everywhere all the time. People say, No, no, these things don't work here, or this this market won't accept that. I say, no, no, everything works everywhere all the time. How? If you get up and you move it and you step in it and you shift it, it goes. Otherwise, it doesn't go. Nothing moves until you move. But when you move, everything moves. So everything works everywhere all the time if you work it. The things of God that say, Oh, it doesn't work for me, faith doesn't work for you, prayer doesn't work for me. Of course it doesn't work for you if you don't pray. Of course it doesn't work for you if you don't step in it. Of course it doesn't work for you. It never works for you. God's calling for your life will never come to pass unless you arise, go, cross over. Whatever hurdle it is, God is saying to Joshua, cross over this Jordan. It's like it's just a creek, man. It's only that deep. Just cross over it. But Lord, it's water, but Lord, it's a boundary, but Lord, it's a blockage, but God, it's it's a it's a it's a another country. Whatever it is, the obstacle, get over it, cross it. Then lead. Give. Possess. But God, I want to possess first and then I want to give. No, no, you give first. Look at the order of the verbs. You give first and then you possess. But God, I want to possess first. If I possess, then I can give. God says, No, you give first. In fact, you can't possess until you give. So even Joshua's promises of God, inheritance in the promised land, was linked to him leading the people into the promised land. If Joshua doesn't lead the people into promised land, he can never get his inheritance. He had to lead them, he had to divide them the inheritance, give them the inheritance, and then he will possess his own son. You can't get into the promises of God and the inheritance that God has provided for you until you lead others into their own inheritance, because your inheritance is linked to their inheritance. It's an overflow of their blessing which comes upon you. Isn't that amazing? God's economy is different than yours and mine. Things work differently. Quite uncomfortable. But they're only uncomfortable if you negotiate them. Like Homer Simpson. Homer Simpson is praying to God. You probably saw that. He's got two cookies on a plate. And he said, God, if you don't want me to have these cookies, make them disappear. Otherwise, I'm gonna have them. He gets up from his knees, the cookies are still there. We will never do that, but we do it other ways, you know. We negotiate with God. We reason in our hearts and in our minds, and we say, God, if if I sell this, then I will do that. God saying, What's stopping you in doing that now? Oh, but but you know, God, if you do this, then I'll do that. And we've we've done deals with God like that, and He's done His part and we haven't done ours, right? Guilty? Of course. Don't raise your hand, it's not an altar go. Be strong. Now, this is very personal. God is saying, I mean, this is not your friend, this is not your coach. Hey, mate, before you go on uh on the field and you give me 110%, I want you to be strong, I want you to be courageous, I want you, you're the best, you're the best. This is not a hype up talk. God is saying, This is your identity. You are my son, you are a representative of me, you have a leadership responsibility, steward this well. Now become strong, be strong. You know, strengthen yourself, strengthen your your your inner man, the the loads of your of your being. Strengthen yourself, be strong, be courageous, observe what.