Called and Chosen 1984

I'd like to begin by reading from Luke, chapter 8, verse 4. And when a great crowd came together, and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path, and was trodden underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock, and as soon as it grew up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture.

And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it, and choked it. And some fell into good soil, and grew, and yielded a hundredfold. As he said this, he called out, He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

It's a fact that only a small percentage of the people to whom God gives a living word hold on to it. The vast majority of people who receive that word go on their way unchanged. The birds fly off with it.

It grows up in the heat, withers away, and dies, or it gets choked up by the thorns. But who decides what kind of soil we're going to be? Is it foreordained by God that most of us are going to get choked up by the thorns, or wither away in the heat, Is it foreordained by God that only a small handful of us are ever going to bring forth fruit? Who decides whether we make it beyond the birds, and the heat, and the thorns to the place where we in fact bear fruit for the kingdom of God? Reading on in that passage, when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said, To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God. But for others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.

Now the parable is this. The seed is the word of God. The ones along the path are those who have heard.

Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts that they may not believe and be saved. The ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy, but these have no root. They believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away.

As for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go their way, they are choked by the cares, and riches, and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast, in an honest and good heart, and bring forth fruit with patience. God knows that that's the way it is.

Three quarters of the seed goes to waste, but whether we receive that seed and penetrate through the birds, and the heat, and the thorns, and bring forth fruit, or whether we die it's not God's choice, it's ours. The soil that bears fruit is the soil that chooses to hang on to that seed, that chooses to root out the thorns, and chase away the birds, and water that seed so that it bears fruit. Putting it the other way around, if the thorns choke out the life of God in us, it's not because we're the victim of the thorns, it's because we've chosen to have those thorns in our lives.

And most of us have a very difficult time truly believing that we're responsible if these thorns are choking out the life of God in us. We seem to think of ourselves as the victims of circumstances. It's so hard to follow Jesus.

I mean, there's so many distractions, so many pressures, so many problems, money problems, car problems, time problems, never have enough time, temptations all over the place. Why, it's very difficult to even think about the kingdom of God here in metropolitan Detroit in 1984, because I'm surrounded by all these things. These circumstances hem me in.

I'm the victim of circumstances. A few years ago, a doctor named Leslie Farber wrote a book entitled The Wave of the Will. The thesis of this book is that anxiety and all the aberrations of the mind and spirit that come with it, that anxiety comes from trying to will what cannot be willed.

For example, I may will to be an opera singer in the Metropolitan Opera. You know what? I may go and take voice lessons all over the place, travel all over the country to the best teacher, and exercise and stay a night all the time. I'm singing, singing, going for auditions everywhere.

But all my efforts to be a singer in the Metropolitan Opera, if I don't have the voice, and if I have an ear that just can't catch and hold the pitch, all those efforts to be a singer in the Metropolitan Opera aren't going to land me in the Metropolitan. They're going to land me in a state of frenzy and disappointment and discouragement and anxiety and despair. I may decide that I want to be a pitcher for the Tigers.

So every day I'm out there in the backyard practicing baseball. Years I've been doing this. In the summertime I go to Florida so I can keep on practicing.

I go everywhere I can learn. Baseball clinics all over the country. But if I don't have an arm, I mean, thank God for the arm God gave me.

He gave me a beautiful arm, but it's not a pitcher's arm. No comment. You know, if I don't have the eye muscle coordination, if I don't have certain given things that have to be part of this, all my struggles to be a pitcher for the Tigers are going to land me not even in the minor league.

They're going to land me in a state of total despair. The young man falls in love with a beautiful young woman. He's just in love with her.

She's wonderful. He writes her poetry. He writes her letters.

He calls her on the phone. He sends her presents. The only problem is this young woman finds this young man repulsive of body and spirit.

Now I know there are all kinds of stories that are written like that. The young man finally rescues her from the burn building and they get married and live happily ever after. And it may be that some of our wives found us repulsive in the beginning until they found out how beautiful we really are.

But in most cases, in the real world, that's not how it works. That's something which is beyond the young man's power. He can't manipulate her heart.

And so finally she says, leave. No more letters. No more telegrams.

No more flowers. No more presents. Leave me alone.

And the young man is crushed because he was trying to will what cannot be willed. Barber is right that there are things that we cannot will. There are choices we do not have to make.

And we make ourselves miserable by trying to cause things to happen which are absolutely beyond our control. But what Barber never told us in this book is that this compulsion to will what cannot be willed is itself a disease with which most of us are afflicted, if not all. A disease, a syndrome, which has at its bottom, at its root, an escape from making decisions which are within our power.

The real problem is not that we're beating our heads against the wall trying to be opera singers and movie stars and baseball players. The real problem is that we are not making choices which are within our power. We're failing to make those choices and then we sit around complaining that we're the victim of circumstances.

Some years ago I visited a man in the county jail who was caught in the act of an armed robbery and he sat there as we were talking and he shook his head and he said I'm the victim of my environment. Because that's what he was told all his life. Everywhere he went.

You know, your environment makes you. So he didn't stick the gun on the guy and take his money. His environment did.

In a far away city I visited in a penitentiary one time a man who had stabbed another one to death in a drunken rage and in these visits I would never bring up of course what had happened. That was up to him to talk about. One day he decided to talk about it and he approached it.

He began by talking about his father. My father or my old man I think he called him always put the pressure on me. What a shame that somebody had to die because of it.

In other words, I didn't kill that man, my father did. And in both cases the Lord has convicted me when I began quickly to pass judgment on these men that I have done the same thing, made that same excuse a million times in my own life. I'm no different from either of those men.

At the root of it, for all of us deep down in our guts there is a creed we live by all too often and that creed is I'm the victim of service. We don't tell anybody. We rarely believe it to ourselves but we think that.

I'm the victim of my circumstances. I didn't choose my parents. I had nothing to do about the color of my eyes.

I didn't pick my IQ. I'm like a piece of mud slapped against a wall and all I can do now is sit here until I dry out and the wind blows me away. When Jesus comes to us the first thing he does I'm not talking about doctrines about Jesus I'm talking about the living resurrected Jesus.

When he comes to us he cuts those chains. What is this seed that he plants in us? It's the seed of freedom. It's the life of God which is enabling us now to live as sons and daughters of God and he says to us you're free.

You're free from your past. You're free from your guilt. You're free from your sin.

You're free to live. Now go out there and live and don't you ever again call yourself the victim of circumstances. If there are thorns choking out my life in you you're not the victim of those thorns you've chosen those thorns.

You can choose to pull them out if you will. Reading from John chapter 5 verse 2. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool in Hebrew called Beth Zatha which has five porticoes in these lay a multitude of invalids blind, lame, paralyzed paralyzed one man was there who had been ill for 38 years now they were there waiting for the moving of the water for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and troubled the water. Whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.

One man was there who had been ill 38 years and when Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time he said to him Do you want to be healed? Do you want to stand on your own two feet and no longer have people carrying you around? Do you want to work and no longer have people providing for you? Do you want to be free so that you can no longer blame your circumstances for your misery? The man who was sick answered him Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled and while I'm going another steps down before me. Jesus said to him Rise, take up your pallet and walk and at once the man was healed and he took up his pallet and walked. Now Jesus has opened to this man a freedom he did not have before.

Now he can make choices which were not within his power. Now it's up to him what he's going to do with this life God has given him. He's going to decide whether he gets choked out by the thorns or withers in the scorching heat or bears fruit.

True. Three quarters of the soil into which the sea is sown produces nothing. It produces nothing because it throws the freedom God has given it to the winds.

It lets that freedom wither in the heat or get choked out by the thorns. What are you doing with the freedom God is giving you? Matthew 22, 1. Again Jesus spoke to them in parables saying, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a marriage feast for his son and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the marriage feast but they would not come. It doesn't say that they were the victim of circumstances and just couldn't get off their seats or they were too tied up.

He said they would not come. Again he sent other servants saying, tell those who were invited, behold, I have made ready my dinner. I'm giving you another chance.

Come on now. My ox and my fat calves are killed. Everything is ready.

Come to the marriage. But they made light of it and went off one to his farm, another to his business while the rest seized his servants and treated them shamefully and killed them. The product of their heredity and environment.

The king was angry and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, the wedding is ready but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the thoroughfares and invite to the marriage feast as many as you find.

And those servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to look at the guests he saw there a man who had no wedding garment.

He said to him, friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? But he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, find him hand and foot. Cast him into outer darkness.

There men will weep and gnash their teeth for many are called but few chosen. Many are called. The king was generous.

He wasn't a snob. Everybody's welcome. Bad and good, everybody can come.

And once they receive their invitation, they have they can never again say, I'm the victim of my circumstances. Because with the invitation is given to each one invited a wedding garment. What is this wedding garment? This wedding garment is freedom from God.

You put on the wedding garment and you're free from your past. You're free from your sin. You're free to live.

Anybody who wants to can put on the wedding garment and come to the wedding feast. Most of them don't. Many are called but few are chosen.

And so bringing it down to us today, right now, the spirit of the Lord brings the invitation to us and offers to each of us the wedding garment. Put on this wedding garment. Come to my feast.

How do we put on the wedding garment? By doing three very simple things. First of all, we put on the wedding garment by repenting of our past. Don't say, I'm the victim of my past.

You can't say that anymore when you're offered the wedding garment. At the end of his sermon on Pentecost, the people began to cry out, what shall we do? Peter said, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. Which is the same as turn away from your old life.

Break with it. Get down into the waters of baptism. Die to it.

Cut away from it now. And that's exactly what he says to us. And many of us right now are dragging our past with us and making excuses.

And the Lord says, break with it now. Do it now. Repent.

And if it helps to get on your knees, get on your knees. But repent of that past. Turn away from it.

Spin in its face. Don't carry it with you another hour. Second thing we do to put on the wedding garment is that we enter into the life which God now gives us in his spirit.

Repent every one of you and be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. No hocus pocus.

The Holy Spirit, the representative of the Godhead on earth, the one who conveys the presence of the Lord into our midst and into our very bodies is here in this room. All we have to do is open. It's like breathing.

You see him. And move with him. Obey him.

Move with his mercy. Move with his call to repentance. Trust him.

Live in the Spirit. Walk in the Spirit, Paul says. The Spirit will help you, but go with him.

Most of the time we're fighting him. Finally, put on the wedding garment means that from here on in we live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God every day for the rest of our lives. God speaks.

You take the trouble to listen. Get along with God. Shut the door in that room or get off in the closet.

Shut whatever. And if we hold still, maybe after reading some scripture, maybe after opening up our prayer, God will speak. Perhaps the word that he speaks to us will be the same word for a whole month or two months or six months.

Maybe all he says is trust me. Trust me. Trust me.

Trust me. Then perhaps after that he says forgive. You're walking around with a grudge.

It's blocking my grace. Forgive. Forgive.

Forgive. And that goes on until we incorporate that in our lives. Then he says draw near to the body.

Draw near. Then he says open your mouth and speak. Go make disciples.

He'll make it clear. And in the doing of that word we have liberty of speech. And so to those of us who've been really inwardly wallowing in our self-pity, thinking of ourselves as victims of circumstances, the Lord comes afresh today and says here, put on the wedding garment and be free.

This garment gives you the power to choose. As you eat my flesh and drink my blood, I give you the power to choose. As you open your heart to receive my spirit, I give you the power to choose.

Now go root out those thorns and start bearing fruit. I think it would be appropriate for us to just take a minute, total silence, no prayers, no praise, no nothing, just silence and allow the Spirit of the Lord to say a word to our own personal heart, to us. Let's just wait on him in silence.