Celebrating a Christian Calling

There are numerous callings in the Scriptures. There is the “general call” of God which goes out to all men through the preaching of the gospel. This calls all men to repent for the kingdom of God is at hand and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. The general call of God came through the lips of John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles. Luke records this general call going out to the crowds gathered in Jerusalem at Pentecost as they heard through the mouth of the apostle Peter, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words…” (Acts 2:14) It was upon these words that the Lord was casting the net broadly and generally to all men gathered there that day. To hear the general call of God is to be highly favored. There are millions of people in the earth who have not heard this general call.

There is also a vocational call in Scripture. This is a call to a particular job, position, or station in life. These callings are most familiar to us in the Old Testament. We read of Adam being called to rule and subdue the earth (Genesis 2:15). We read of Noah being called by God as a leader and savior of his family and caregiver of those animals that God chose to preserve in the earth after the flood. (Genesis 6-9). We read of Moses being called by God to be a deliverer of his people living in Egypt (Exodus 3). We also see this call in the New Testament. We see Peter being called from being a fisher of fish to a fisher of men (Matthew 4:19) or Matthew being called from being a tax collector to a disciple of Christ (Matthew 9:9). Paul speaks of this kind of calling in 1 Corinthians 7:20 when he says, “Each one should remain in the situation which he was when he was called.” The situation is the vocational calling or station which has been assigned (7:17). Therefore a calling may be in regard to your social or positional call in life. It is this calling that people tend to put the most significance or mark their own significance upon. This is the calling that most people are so willing to celebrate if they think it makes them significant or so willing to despair over if they think it does not measure up. But this is not the calling to celebrate. Though we should be thankful and content in the various callings we have in life, these callings are just that, for this life.

The third calling in Scripture that is the most to be celebrated is the effectual calling. It is what Paul is referring to in 1 Corinthians 7:20, “Each one should remain in the situation which he was when he was called.” Paul is referring to remaining in a situation or calling that they were in when God effectually called them to salvation in Christ Jesus. It is God who calls his own to salvation in the powerful, able and efficient call. Because man is incapable or unable in himself to come to Christ for salvation God must act toward him in his grace and power.

Jesus speaks of this call in John 6:44 when he says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” This verse speaks both of man’s inability to come and the Father’s effectual call to come unto Christ. Man’s inability is in his sinful condition. In the condition of man’s hard sinful heart there is no righteousness, no seeking after God, no want of blessed affections or right thoughts of God and his salvation. All the heart is in love with is self and for the glory of self it lives to die. Jesus is clear in saying “No one can come…”. There will be those who say it is the preaching of the gospel that will enable them to come. But I would say through the preaching of the gospel there goes forth a general call and man may believe the gospel preached for himself but not in himself. Others may say, “It is in how that gospel is preached. There are not many clear gospel preachers, or relevant gospel preachers, or cultural / missional gospel preachers, and this is why people are not coming.” But if you were to name the greatest preacher of all time who would name? If you named anyone but Christ Jesus himself you stand to condemn your judgment for he is God and the very author of his Word that he preached. Yet when he went throughout Galilee and Judea many heard but did not come. This is so because coming to salvation in Christ rests not on the preaching of the gospel, the one preaching or those hearing, but on the Father’s effectual calling.

The effectual call takes place when God by his free and special grace through his Word and Spirit calls men, women and children out of the condition of sin and death, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ. He does this by enlightening the mind spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away the heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh, renewing the will, and by his great power determining the person to that which is good and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ. And in this the person comes most freely and willingly by grace. (Westminster Confession of Faith Chpt.X.1) God is gloriously gracious to bring us to see the grossness of our sin and the beauty of his righteousness in Christ so that we act against our old will according to the life of the new will made alive by the Spirit. This is the calling to celebrate in life toward life.

It is in God’s effectual call that we have a glorious social standing of being one in Christ Jesus (Gal.3:28) and a magnificent positional standing of having all things in Christ Jesus. This is the calling most of all to be celebrated in a life of love through obedience to his will in whatever social, cultural or positional condition God has assigned to us. It is here that we can learn most to enjoy his presence in love and serve our neighbors in love without fear of losing anything and with humility to not take our position or standing to the love of self.

Confessions at Thanksgiving

I have a dog named Burton. She is named after a place I grew up in the summers and a place my family returns each year for vacation, Lake Burton. Burton is a Yellow Lab who loves to eat. She can be on the other side of the house as I walk quietly into the kitchen, quietly take out of the cabinet the box of crackers and quietly try to open the jar of peanut butter. But before the lid is out of my hand and laying on the counter and my knife is just beginning to dip into the peanut butter to be applied to my first cracker she is at my feet drooling. She loves to eat. I do not feed Burton dog food. She eats things like fried eggs and toast, left over Sunday dinner and chicken noodle soup. But she has a character flaw. She is an ingrate. She never says thank you. In fact if I have determined that she is need of nothing to eat while I am in the kitchen and I tell her to go lie down on her bed she will obey. However as she lies down she sighs, sometimes moans or just plain growls showing her disapproval of me and my unfeeling command that certainly does not understand her situation. But she never says thank you. She is dependent upon me for every meal, she eats better than any dog on the block, she sleeps inside, gets the run of the house, a bone on Sunday, but she is an ingrate, an ungrateful canine.

I tell you about my dog to tell you about myself. I have a wretched sin problem that is akin to my dog Burton. I am cynical. The word cynic is derived from the Greek word for canine which means dog. Webster defines cynic as “having the qualities of a surly dog.” Some may try to blame this on my melancholy temperament. However, I find in my heart the expressions of being cross, crabby, sour, rough, just plain surly and cynical. But I did not say my dog was cynical, I said she was ungrateful. Exactly, she cannot express her surliness unless she growls or howls, but I can express mine in all kinds of words and when I do it is the expression of being an ingrate, an ungrateful prig, a thankless wretch.

Now that you know about my dog and me, and are thinking that we both belong in a dog house, what about you? We are fast approaching one of our favorite days of the year, Thanksgiving. Burton does not remember last Thanksgiving so she does not know what is in store for her. But when she receives some of the bounty of that day and the day after will she be thankful or will she eat her bowl clean and return to the kitchen for more just as ungrateful as before? On that day we will gather around the table and tell everyone something we are thankful for while the rest of the time we complain about our football team, our job, the state of our country, the faults of our neighbors or family who are not present and the folks at church? That’s my biggest problem with comparing myself to Burton, at least she is consistent. I am just hypocritical.

I don’t want to sit at the children’s table this Thanksgiving, or be out with the dog, but I ought to. I act like an ungrateful child who expects the world to give me everything I want, and when it doesn’t I growl. I want to sit with the mature adults but maturity is thankful from the heart and expresses it in gratitude and praise. C.S. Lewis noted this difference when he observed, ‘The humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious (large), minds praised most while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least.’ Maturity is founded in a recognized dependence on God for all things and is expressed in a humble thankful life and speech. When my mind and heart are balanced and filled with great thoughts of God then the Spirit produces in me humility and a want to give thanks.
Therefore preparing for thanksgiving is not something the Christian is called to do once a year, though he ought to make that a special time, it is a way of life everyday. For me to continue in the sin of ingratitude and a life of cynicism is to live like a dog. Therefore I must flee from this sin and put it to death by thinking great thoughts of God in utter dependence upon him for all things. I must enter the realm of his truth and let my mind and heart reach deeply into his Word. And there I will find great and wonderful things concerning him, his salvation and his will. It is in this realm of greatness and beauty that gratitude is birthed and nurtured. It is in this realm that I can give thanks in all circumstances (1Thes.5:18). I must thank him when times and things are “good” because it is good and I must thank him when things or times are “bad” because he is working in me patience, endurance, humility, and a want for another reality. Preparing for a heart and life of gratitude and the practice of thanksgiving does not happen because Aunt Jane gives you a piece of paper and asks you to write down one thing you are thankful for. My dog could do that with her bowl in her paws if she could write. We must go on our knees into the throne room of God where is displayed in Christ God’s infinite grace and mercy, unending forgiveness, majestic beauty of holiness, extensive power and revealed wisdom. It is here that our hearts are revived and we will magnify him with thanksgiving (Ps.69:30, 32).

Preaching and Writing Fantasy

While reading one of my son’s posts on writing fantasy I happened upon something that has helped me better to understand preaching and the hearing of the preached word. In his writing on fantasy as “escapist” he says, “Escape is not a flight of reality; it is merely the move from one reality (prison, death, Evil, or darkness- take your pick) to another (life, salvation, Good, or light). Desertion is the rejection of reality and your value for life. While it seems fantasy may be the escape from reality with its common use of dragons, elves, knights, castles, and other such ancient notions, the creators of such beasts or beings do not let them exceed the limits of Reason or reality. While you may create some beast that has hooves and can fly, the beast itself does not try to escape from what it was created to inhabit.” Here he is reflecting on what J.R.R. Tolkien writes when he says, “Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!” The beauty and “glory” of fantasy is the weight it has on the mind and the soul to move us from one reality to another or to liberate us through an escape into another realm of reality. But preaching God’s Word and hearing God’s Word is not considered fantasy. However, it shares something in common.

Preaching is escapist and hearing preaching with the ears of faith is escapist. A preacher is given the task of rightly dividing or handling the Word of God. The Word of God contains many different genres of literature. But it is not a book of literature; it is the breathed out Word of God. Therefore, the preacher enters into a prayerful studious process to understand what God is saying in a particular text through the study of its language, context and culture. As he unpacks what it says he then must understand what it means. He must discern by the Spirit what it meant to the original audience and what it means to the contemporary audience who is to hear it in the present. He must then apply this meaning to the present context of hearers and their lives within the Kingdom of God. But as of yet he has only been a student of the Word, he must now preach the Word.

He must preach to the people of God as one faithfully handling God’s Words through the power of the Spirit. He must tell them what it says and what it teaches applying that to their minds and hearts. And it is here that the preacher reaches glory and takes the hearers with him. He leads the hearers by God’s Word like prisoners with their minds and affections from one reality to another, not as deserters rejecting reality and a true value for life, but as escapists into a life they are created and re-created to inhabit. This is where the preacher escapes one reality and his hearers go with him into another reality that is glorious and weighty. It is not the role of the preacher to give three simple points that rhyme so that you can practically remember them for a moral life. The role of the preacher is to carry the Words of God as other worldly to a people in the world and by them lift them out of this world into a great escape in the new heavens and earth.

The listeners must expect this from God each Lord’s Day as they prayerfully gather around the servant of God called out by him to lead them in their escape. They must see him as the slave of God joyfully bound to the God of righteousness sent to them as a vessel spewing forth the Words of life. They must not see him as a communicator but a herald of words that they can light on by the power of the Holy Spirit and ride from one reality to another they were meant for with weight and glory. They must look past the man; his tie, bad hair, and quirky mannerisms, that they may hear Christ, their prophet, speak his escapist words to their mind and heart.

Preaching and hearing the preached word is escapist. And until the preacher longs for this liberty for himself and his hearers and until the hearers long for this movement from one reality to another through Word and by Spirit, the preacher and the hearers will only go to church like robots following a calendar of days.

Preparing for Thanksgiving

Holidays are special, and the Thanksgiving holiday is special to people in America for many different reasons. Those reasons may include family, country, food, or several days off during the week. But for the church a day of Thanksgiving set aside during the week should be a significant time to recount the wonders of God. But recounting the wonders of God may take some preparation for the average church goers in America.

The reason being is that the average American church goers are not focused on wonders. If you ask most people in the church, who are busy with family, jobs, activities and church, what they are thankful for, the response is, “I am thankful to have made it through the week.” There is not much time to contemplate the wonders of God or there is not much time taken to think on the wonders of God. But taking time at a special time of year like Thanksgiving to think on the wonders of God may do more than provide for a special time of thanksgiving, it may have a transforming affect on average church goers, turning us from ungrateful to thankful.

Let’s consider the wondrous things God does in the first heavens. Elihu says to Job, 11He loads the thick cloud with moisture; the clouds scatter his lightning.12They turn around and around by his guidance, to accomplish all that he commands them on the face of the habitable world. 13Whether for correction or for his land or for love, he causes it to happen. (Job 37:11-13) God is in the heavens doing all his pleasure (Ps.115:3) taking the stores of his own water sources and loading them into thick clouds that are holding tanks. He loads them out of the waters in the earth. He takes the water out of seas by evaporation. The salt stays behind and what was fluid flies off from the waters in vapor that is lighter than the atmosphere so it can go up and load into clouds. The vapors condense through the forming of tiny dust particles forming clouds loaded with water. He then directs them around the heavens at his pleasure while they obey his direction like a company of choreographed dancers in all their glory.

These clouds of water then clash together in the heavens sending forth lighting at his will. Lightening is an atmospheric charge that is explained by various theories. But we do not know how it occurs. However we do know there are more than 16 million lightening storms in the world each year, a lightening bolt can reach temperatures of more than 54,000 degrees and travel at 22,000 mph. Lightening is not a wonder of science it is a display of God’s wondrous work. He brings them out of the clouds like clashing cymbals sending forth majestic light and fearful sounds. They are like a well tuned orchestra displaying a symphony of perfect sounds in the midst of an array of a perfectly engineered light display. And man can only wonder at this display of unfathomable judgments.

He commands them for correction, land and love and they act at his command. If he pours forth an inch of rain on one square mile of land he gives forth 17,377,536 gallons of water weighing 144,735,360 pounds. And when he sends these drops forth sometimes they are big enough to lay down the plants in a field or flood the field and sometimes they are small enough to gently wet the leaves and fall into the ground to nourish the roots. Some rains sweep away land, animals and people and some fill water tanks for drinking and cooking. He pours it how as he wills. Some lightening strikes fear as it claims a life or burns a home, some strikes ignite a forest burning and clearing to purify the land, and some leaves a person in awe and wonder at it’s beauty. As Elihu says to Job after consideration of these wondrous things God does, 14"Hear this, O Job; stop and consider the wondrous works of God.(Job.37:14).

A church that shows forth a form of godliness but denies it’s power is an ungrateful church (2Tim.3:2,5). But a church that is looking on the wondrous things that God is doing everyday in things like rain and lightening and the orchestration of clouds she will respond with awe and thanksgiving before God who does all his pleasure for his glory and the good of his creatures. Whether it be in God’s general revelation or his special revelation let us not hide from ourselves or one another the wondrous things that God is doing in his creation, providence and redemption. Then we will come into his presence together with thanksgiving. We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.(Ps.78:4)

Ready for Good Work

How is God who is the gospel glorified by his church? How does the church beautify the God who is the gospel? God can not be made more glorious by his church. The church cannot add beauty or glory to God. He is infinitely glorious in the fullness of triune nature. But the church can in knowing and enjoying the glory of God revealed in the gospel show forth that glory in what she wears by her life.

In Titus 3:1b-2 Paul tells the young pastor what should adorn the church as she lives in the beauty of God in the gospel. She should be ready for every good work. The good work that the church is re-created in the image of Jesus for are works that are prepared beforehand (Eph.2:10) that she must be ready concerning. Good work is not avoided. In the church there can be no giving of the eyes to much sleep or folding of the hands for to much rest (Pr.6:4,10). This kind of life will bring the church to poverty not adorning the glorious God of the gospel. The church beautifies the God of the gospel when she is like her Lord who found it his food to be doing the will of the Father who sent him by accomplishing his work (Jn.4:34). That work may be at home, toward his church, or in the community toward her neighbors but it is work we are not seeking to avoid but are ready concerning. And that work is good because God has prepared it for us and in doing it for his glory by depending on his grace and being obedient to his will, it adorns his glory. Good work is not defined culturally but Biblically and providentially. Be ready.

In this text Paul tells us what some of the good work that adorns the gospel of God is as it is exercised toward those around us. First of all he says to speak evil of no one. We are not to blaspheme or slander someone with our words. We are not to speak to others in a false way about someone so as to injure their name or reputation. Therefore the good work is to speak of someone in a manner that upholds their name and reputation truthfully. The church should speak about others not seeking to injure but to have compassion on their person and their life. Secondly, he says to avoid quarrelling. We are not to fight but rather strive for peace with everyone (Heb.12:14). The church should avoid looking for a fight, or being contentious. There are those who will seek to get into foolish arguments with those in the church and the church must be careful not to think that God is glorified by besting someone into the kingdom through a well fought argument. The third work the church must be ready for is to be gentle. It is gentleness that is the beauty of God’s glory in Christ (Mt.11:29), and that gentle forbearing life of Christ through the church is the good work that adorns his beauty. Gentleness is born out of strength. Paul tells Timothy that he has not received a spirit of fear but of power and love and a sound mind (2Tim.1:7). It is through the strength of God in the gospel that we have received power in the Holy Spirit and the same power that raised Christ from the dead is toward us (Eph.1:19), but that power is for the fruit of gentleness (Gal.5:23). Gentleness is necessary where there is so much brokenness. The last work mentioned that the church must be ready for is to show perfect courtesy toward all people. Courtesy is often translated meekness. It is used to describe a quality of life toward others in the midst of difficult circumstances. In this text Paul follows these instructions in verse 3 reminding us of the difficult circumstances we lived in because of sin before we shared in the gospel of God through his mercies, For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another (3:3). Therefore he is telling us that this is the difficult circumstances we should see people living in because of sin and we should be ready to be patient, meek, courteous and mild toward them as we await God’s mercy to reach them. A child will say something they should not say and perfect courtesy will not reprimand them publicly but with meekness and gentleness take them aside and show them God’s mercy through truth toward their sin. In this way the mother adorns the gospel of God.

Therefore the church beautifies the God of the gospel when she is ready for and living in the good works that are prepared for her in Christ and lived through the Spirit. But what does God provide to fuel the faith for these good works? Paul gives us this answer in the explanation of the beautiful God of the gospel and its resulting hope, 4But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Tit.3:4-7). Be ready for every good work as you hope in the knowledge and enjoyment of the glorious God of the gospel as he is offered you in life forevermore through Christ Jesus.