Consider Your Call 1986

I'd like to begin by reading from 1 Corinthians 1, verse 26. For consider your call, brethren. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards.

Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. If there's any word that ties together the redemptive work of God as we find it set forth in the Bible is the word call.

From the day Adam sinned in Genesis 3 all the way through the Bible to the very closing verses in Revelation 22, the word of God comes to men and women as a call, always as a call. Adam, man, where are you? God is calling Adam. In the cool of the day, right after he broke away and rebelled, Noah was called to build an ark.

Abraham was called to leave his father's homeland. God called Moses at the burning bush, Moses, Moses, take off your shoes. The prophets were called.

Mary was called into the purpose of God. The disciples were called. Saul of Tarsus was called.

And now a door has been opened into the kingdom of God through the death and resurrection of the Lamb. But God doesn't just open this door in silence and then let people figure out what to do. No.

The risen Lamb stands in the door calling to us by name. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. The Lamb says, come.

The Spirit and the Bride say, come. Let him who hears say, come. That's how the Bible comes to an end, with that call.

Because it's that call which raises us to life. I don't enter into the victory won for me by Jesus' death and resurrection until I respond to the call. I mean, he did it, the work is finished, but it doesn't do me any good until I act on that call.

So consider your call, brethren. Consider it. Think about it.

Because it is this call which brings you to life. It's this call which draws you and leads you on into the purpose and into the glory of God continuously. When Jesus first said to Peter, as he was washing his nets by the Sea of Galilee, follow me, it meant one thing.

It meant that Peter was to draw near to this teacher and learn everything this teacher has to teach him. When Jesus, risen from the dead, says to Peter for the last time, by the same Galilee, follow me, it means something much, much more. It means that now, very soon, Peter isn't going to see a visible Jesus to follow.

He's not going to hear audible teachings to follow, but Peter knows that there is a call on his life which is going to draw him in the footsteps of Jesus to a cross of his own. Consider your call, Peter. Never forget what you are in this world to do.

And Peter answered his call every day. He picked up his cross every day. Now the call which came to Peter has also now come to us.

Most of us, at least in here, have at some point in our lives heard that call, understood what it meant, and passed through that open door. And should there be somebody in here right now who has not ever heard that call, today is your day. You're going to hear it.

And when you hear the voice of the Lamb addressing you by name and saying to you, come, answer that call, respond to it. As long as we're clear about this call from God and that this call takes absolute priority over every need, every desire, every fear, every ambition, and active respond to this call, we live with power and with vision, and we bear fruit. But what happens is that we tend to allow this call to fade and become blurred.

We allow the call from God to become crowded out by other considerations, so that after a while, instead of the call from God being the driving focus of our living, it simply becomes a kind of badge of membership in the kingdom. I'm a card-carrying Christian because I know that there's a call from God for my life, even though I have to admit, see, that I'm cluttered and distracted right now by other considerations. Then comes that blessed moment of disruption when God says in some way, hang the other considerations and consider only your call.

Reading from Luke chapter 14, starting at verse 15, when one of those who sat at table with Jesus heard this, he said to Jesus, blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. But Jesus said to him, a man once gave a great banquet and invited him, and at the time for the banquet, he sent his servant to say to those who were not ready, but they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, I have bought a field and I must go out and see it.

I pray you have me excused. Another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen and I go to examine them. I pray you have me excused.

Another said, I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come. So the servant came and reported this to his master. And bring in the poor and the maimed and the blind and the lame.

The servant said, sir, what you commanded has been done and still there is room. The master said to the servant, go out into the highways and hedges and compel people to come in that my house may be filled for I tell you that none of those who were invited shall taste of my banquet. The invited guests were people who had received the call but who allowed that call to be crowded out by other considerations.

I got a piece of land. I bought five yoke of oxen. I married a wife.

I married a husband. I have my reputation to consider. And so the servant is instructed to fill the chairs left empty by these people.

These people who will never fill them. Ever. With people who have no other considerations to distract them.

And so the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind are brought in to take their place. People who have no other considerations but to call. And the people from the highways and hedges are the marginals.

They are the fringe. They have one thing to bring to this banquet that the invited guests did not have. One treasure.

They have a single mind, a single eye, a single heart. Nothing to distract them. They're going to listen.

They're going to respond. And so they come. Now the thing about these people who have only one thing, one thing, no distractions, is that when they hear the call, they answer it.

And the banquet hall begins to fill up with guests. What Jesus is telling us in this parable is simply consider your call and consider nothing else. Or putting it another way, don't even consider your call from God unless you are willing to push aside all other considerations.

That's what he means because he reinforces it by adding what comes in the very next verses of Luke 14. The very following verses right after this parable go like this. Now great multitudes accompanied him and he turned and said to them, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

No other consideration. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Which of you by desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build but was not able to finish.

Or what king going to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000? If not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an embassy and asks terms of peace. So therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. The professing Christian church is made up of only two kinds of people.

The people who are living under their call and the people who are not. The call comes to all of us. It's a call that will root us and ground us in the death and resurrection of Jesus, a call that will anoint us with power, that will make our lives fruitful, that will guide our footsteps.

But the issue is, what are we doing with this call? Are we responding to it? Consider your call, brethren. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful.

Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. Consider your call in three ways. Consider what you have been called from.

Consider who it is who is calling you. And consider what you are being called to. First of all, consider what you've been called from.

God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. Chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. Chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no flesh might boast in the presence of God.

And He chose us, all of us here, from a place really of foolishness, from a place of weakness, from a place that this world sees as low and despised. And He has said to us, I'm going to take your foolishness and make it wiser than the wisest wisdom of this world. I'm going to take your weakness and make it stronger than the world's greatest strength.

I'm going to take that weakness that despised that low place where you are, as far as the world is concerned, and I'm going to use it to bring down strongholds of evil. He did it, and He's doing it by calling us out of ourselves. All the time, we're being called out of ourselves.

First of all, we were enmeshed in sin, every one of us. Sin for some of us that was destroying our minds, or really all of us, and for some of us, and perhaps in some ways all of us, destroying even our bodies, and He called us out of that sin, whatever it is. And every time we're tempted to go back, every time we think that way, He reminds us, that's not where you belong, I called you out of it, get out of there.

He says that a lot. He called us out of idleness. And I'm even talking about, in spite of all our busyness with our careers, or our jobs, or our businesses, or our families, when we're busy, and yet, in terms of the things of the spirit, we're often as purposeless and idle as those laborers standing idle in the marketplace.

And He says, come, I have work for you to do. Beginning right where you are. He called us out of a life that was often in service to false gods, ambition, money, vanity of one kind or another.

He says, come on, I have work for you to do, come out of that, follow me. And every time we find ourselves tempted to go back, He says, I called you out of that, you don't belong there, come on, out. Consider what you've been called from, and consider who it is who is calling you.

Who is this voice that is saying, even in our hearts today, right now, follow me. It's the same Jesus that called Peter, Mary Magdalene, Saul of Tarsus, same Jesus who died on that cross, same one who rose as the firstborn of the new creation, never to die again, who is Lord of the new creation and Lord of our lives. And we need to ask ourselves, how are we responding? Am I responding to this call as to one who is indeed Lord over my life? Have I taken off my shoe? Have I left my fishing boat in my tax office? Have I given in my life? The man who said, excuse me, but I just bought a field and I have to go and look at it, please have me excused, was not considering who it was who was saying to him at that moment, come, for all is now ready.

If this man had considered for an instant who it was who was addressing him, he would have forgotten his field and everything else and would have obeyed and followed. I keep running into people who say, me and Jesus are tight. I got a good thing going with the man upstairs.

And they really believe it. But I say, if you knew who you were dealing with, you'd never talk like that. You'd be on your face.

You'd be walking the different road. Don't be calling me Lord, Lord, unless you respond to my call. Unless you do the things that I command.

Or else you'll soon be saying Lord, Lord outside a door that will never open again. Lord, Lord, open to us, but the door will never open. Consider who it is who is calling you.

And consider what you are called to He chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, what is weak in the world to shame the strong, what is low and despised in the world to bring to nothing things that are. How do we, how do we bring down the foolishness of the wise? How do we shame the wise and shame the strong and bring to nothing things that are? By the foolishness of proclaiming Jesus and him crucified with our mouths and with our lives. In the same area of first Corinthians chapter one, verse 20, we read, excuse me, where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews, foolishness to the Greeks, but to those who are called, to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Skipping over to chapter two of this same first Corinthians, verse one, when I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in the demonstration of the spirit and power that your faith might rest not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

We are called to make disciples. We are called to gather the ones who are yet to be gathered, and we are to do it by proclaiming without shame and without apology and with great power that Jesus is Lord, and we do it right where we are. Your pulpit is your place where you find yourself right now.

Whether it's changing diapers or working in an assembly line or teaching school or scrubbing floors, whatever it is, that's our pulpit. And we gather them in. That's what we're called to, all of us.

This banquet, which we've been invited to today, is more than a meal. It's a covenant. Because in this bread and wine, he gives us his own life.

In return, we give our lives back to him. So when we eat this bread and drink this wine, we are committing ourselves to spending the rest of our days gathering the ones who have to be gathered, calling the ones who are yet to hear, need to hear this, bringing them from the streets and lanes of the city, from the highways and hedges of the country, into the banquet table of the Lord. Consider your call, brethren.

How are you responding to that call? Is it, I bought some land, I just bought me a truck, just married me a husband, I want to stash another 200,000 yet, then I'll be a missionary. Maybe it'll be 350,000, I'm not sure. Or is it, I have decided to know nothing, nothing, except Jesus and Him crucified.

Where He says, I'm going to go, and what He commands, I'm going to do. Thinking of ourselves right now, in the silence, how are you responding to His call on your life right now? Let's have silence. No prayers, no nothing.

Let's just have silence and consider and let the Spirit of the Lord speak to us.