Message by Pastor John Culp :  September 14, 2008

“It’s Your Call – Part 1”

Text – Jeremiah 1:1-10, 17-19

     I have a job for you.

     Now that is technically quite true!  But I really said that at this point largely to ask you to reflect for a moment on your reaction to the statement.  My guess is that it produced no significant spike in your blood pressure.  It was really probably relatively easy for you to, in a sense, distance yourself from the challenge they pose.  If you thought much at all about those words, you probably, on some level, thought: ‘John’s just trying to make some point to begin the sermon today…’  Of course, if I were to call you at home tomorrow and, after exchanging the conventional pleasantries, say to you, “I called today because I have a job for you,” my guess is that hearing the very same words in that context might well get a rise out of you – or at least catch your attention!

     Tell someone that you have a job for them and you’ll get a response somewhere across a wide range of attitudes and emotions.  On the one hand, that response can certainly be somewhat negative.  I’ll confess that those words – “I have a job for you…” – are not the ones I most welcome from the lips of my dear wife Jennifer.

     On the other hand, under the right circumstances, telling someone you have job for them can elicit a response of enthusiasm, excitement – even genuine joy.  How do you think Joe Biden felt when his cell phone rang a few weeks back, and ‘Barack Obama’ came up on his caller-ID?  Or how do you think the governor of Alaska felt even more recently when John McCain called to say, “Sarah, I have a job for you?”

     I said at the outset that I have a job for you.  That’s quite true – however you respond to the thought!  And if the prospect of becoming the next Vice President of the United States is sobering yet exciting, the thought of this job is even more so.  For that matter, it’s really far more awe-inspiring even than becoming President of these United States!  That’s because it’s not just I who hold out the possibility of this job to you.  The fact of the matter is that it is truly God who has a job for you.

     All of this comes in the context of something that’s happening here at Tower Church in two weeks.  On September 28 – after both worship services, we’re going to do something we have not done for two years.  It’s Tower’s Mission/Ministry Fair.  What’s that, you ask?  The best answer I can give is to say that those two terms together (mission and ministry) encompass everything we do as a church.  Our goal at the fair is to showcase all that we do as a church – but let me emphasize that we do that not so we can pat ourselves on the back, taking pride in how busy we all are!

     I’m sure you’d agree that if God really does have a job for each of us, our first responsibility must be to find out what that job is!  To that end, the ultimate goal of the fair is to let you see all the possibilities for service there are here at Tower specifically in order to help you figure out exactly what sort of jobs God might have in mind for you.

     Moving in that direction, it’s wise for us to begin by considering God’s call to the prophet Jeremiah.  There’s a good reason for that, and it is the main point of all I have to say to you today:

We need to pay close attention to God’s call to Jeremiah,

because God calls each of us in much the same way.

     Are you ready to go job hunting with Jeremiah and me?

     Three aspects of God’s call to Jeremiah emerge here in the first chapter of the book of the great prophet, and each goes a long way to helping us hear the divine call in our own lives.

     First there is the notion of foreknowledge.

     God tells Jeremiah that His call was really sealed long before the prophet was born.  In fact He says, “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb...” (1:5 NLT).

     Now you may know that this idea of the foreknowledge of God is a recurring theme in the Bible.  Think about it.  We often say – perhaps without thinking about it much – that God knows everything.  If that’s true, of course His all-encompassing knowledge would include complete awareness of the future.  And that would obviously include total knowledge about your personal future and mine.

     One of the clearest statements of that doctrine comes in today’s New Testament lesson: “Those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.  And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.” (Romans 8:29-30 NIV)

     You probably noticed that the Apostle Paul, who wrote the letter to the Romans, clearly states there that it’s not just that God knows what’s going to happen in our lives.  The almighty Creator is not at all passive in His foreknowledge!  There is clearly a great mystery in the interaction between what’s commonly called human ‘free will’ and God’s sovereign action.  But it’s just as clear from what Paul wrote here, as it is from numerous other texts in the Bible, that at end of the day, God is in ultimate control of the future.

     So it is with Jeremiah.  God doesn’t just ‘know’ His messenger.  He goes on to say to the young Jeremiah: “Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as My prophet to the nations” (1:5 NLT).

     God knows the future course of Jeremiah’s life because God is directing it!

     And the same is true in your life and mine.  That gives us a radically different perspective than that of the unbeliever.  As we make our ways down the road of life, as we make major decisions – ‘Where am I supposed to go?  What am I supposed to do?” – all people use some of the same criteria: What am I interested in?  Where do my abilities lie?  What do my trusted friends and loved ones counsel?  And it’s certainly not wrong for the follower of Jesus Christ to take such considerations into mind.

     But as Christians we do all that under the umbrella of the ultimate knowledge that God not only has all this figured out already.  He has a specific plan for your life and mine.  That casts our responsibility in a very different light than that of the unbeliever.

     Jeremiah’s ultimate task was not to do what ‘felt right’ for him.  It was to discover and do that which the sovereign Lord of the universe had set out for him before time began.  If we are followers of Jesus Christ, so it is in your life and mine!  So first is the idea of God’s foreknowledge.  

     Second comes the notion of sanctification, and the related idea of empowerment.

     No doubt you noticed that Jeremiah is not quick to agree with all this!  He not only waffles.  Initially he flat out refuses, and makes an excuse for that refusal: “O Sovereign Lord…I can’t speak for You!  I’m too young!” (1:6).

     Here too, his response is consistent with that of others God calls in the Bible.  Many would make excuses and otherwise balk at the divine calling.  It was true of Moses (Exodus 3-4); of Gideon (Judges 6:15); of Amos (Amos 7:14-15); and of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 4:14, 20:49).

     In fairness, we certainly need to note that what God called Jeremiah and those others to do was no picnic!  The message God gave Jeremiah would often be difficult and unpopular: God was about to bring down the hammer of divine judgment on Judah, leading to the Babylonian conquest and finally to the great Exile.

     So it’s not surprising that throughout his public ministry, Jeremiah would do battle with a number of other would-be prophets with competing – and much more attractive! – messages.  That meant that Jeremiah’s job description would include being scorned and rejected, arrested, beaten, imprisoned and nearly killed.  No wonder he was not initially eager to accept the call from God!

     But in that context, two things are crucial for us to remember.  First, God Himself had sanctified the prophet for this holy work.  He says to the young Jeremiah: “I set you apart and appointed you as My prophet to the nations” (1:5).  And second, God would equip him to do the work to which He called him, empowering Jeremiah with nothing less than His own holy presence: “Don’t be afraid of the people, for I will be with you and will protect you…They will fight you, but they will fail.  For I am with you, and I will take care of you.  I, the LORD, have spoken!” (1:8, 19).

     All that too has great significance for us!  Of course the overwhelming likelihood is that you and I will never know the same sort of hardship and opposition that Jeremiah experienced.  But I probably don’t have to tell you either that we will encounter major hurdles and obstacles along the road to doing God’s work in our lives.

     Whatever challenges we may face – whether from others or bubbling up from within ourselves – it should always be a great source of comfort and strength for us to remember that God Himself has set us apart for the work to which He calls us.  And He has promised to be with us every step of the way.  Remember: God doesn’t call those who are equipped.  He equips those He calls!

     So second, there is the truth of God’s sanctification (His setting us apart), and His equipping, His empowerment.      

     Then third, there is the commission of Jeremiah.  God has some very specific work for His messenger to accomplish.  The Lord says, “You must go wherever I send you and say whatever I tell you…Look, I have put My words in your mouth!  Today I appoint you to stand up against nations and kingdoms.  Some you must uproot and tear down, destroy and overthrow.  Others you must build up and plant” (1:7, 9-10).

     Over his long prophetic career, Jeremiah would see it all.  He started his ministry during the exciting times of the righteous reforms of good King Josiah.  He ended by seeing the terrifying prophecies he had made again and again fulfilled as the Babylonians overran the little kingdom of Judah, destroyed his beloved Jerusalem – even the holy Temple of God – and killed most of her people, taking large numbers of the survivors into the horror of exile.

     God is not likely to call any of us to do anything nearly so dramatic!  But know this: He has work for you to do that is every bit as specific as that to which He called Jeremiah – based on your particular abilities, your training and interests and opportunities.  Know this as well: The work to which He calls you is not one iota less important than the commission He gave to Jeremiah 26 centuries ago, because it is kingdom work – God’s  own work.

     Let’s focus just briefly on God’s call to us.

     How do we know that God has work for us to do?  That’s a fair question!  We often emphasize – and rightly so – that we are saved by God’s grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.  But the Bible teaches us just as clearly that if our faith is real – if in fact it’s saving faith – then we will inevitably bear the fruit of good works.

     The Apostle Paul writes: “For we are [God’s] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).  He says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13 NKJV).  And our Lord Jesus Himself said to His disciples, “As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21 ESV).

     No honest follower of Jesus Christ can ever question for even a minute that God has work for us to do!

     This fellow is driving down a lonely country road one day when his car gets mired in a deep mud hole.  Just about the time he figures out that he’s really stuck, he’s greatly relieved to see a farmer riding by on his tractor in a field alongside the road.  And the guy is only too happy to accept when the farmer offers to pull his car out of the hole for $25.

     About a half hour later, the car is safely back on road and the farmer has been paid.  He says to the grateful driver, “Yeah, yours is the tenth car I’ve pulled out of that hole this afternoon.”

     The fellow is amazed.  “Ten cars?!  How do you ever find time to work your fields?  Do you plow and fertilize and harvest at night?”

     “No,” the farmer says.  “Night is when I fill the hole with water.”

           (“Laughter, the Best Medicine”®  Reader’s Digest, December 2007, page 159.)

     I’m sure you know that God has far more meaningful work for you and me to do in His kingdom!  You also know that that work takes the form of hundreds of things we each do, big and small, all across the years of our lives.

     The whole reason we’re holding our third Mission/Ministry Fair in two weeks is to help you find at least some of the ones to which God is calling you.  Let me just suggest three things for you to keep in mind about all this.

     First pray about it – in the days leading up to the fair; as you walk around Williamson Hall that day; and after the fair, about any leanings you have in response to what you see and hear.  Ask God to clearly speak to you, and to lead you to hear His voice about it all.  

     Second, go to the fair expecting to hear God’s voice, and listening intently for it.

     And then third. remember Jeremiah.  Remember that God had prepared for him – even before he was conceived! – very specific work to do.  He had set him apart for that work.  And God had promised to be with His prophet, to enable him to accomplish all that He called him to do.  The very same principles apply in your life as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

     I want to challenge you to come away from our Mission/Ministry Fair in two weeks having made the commitment to get involved with at least one new way to serve the Lord who calls you – just as surely as He called Jeremiah of old.

     Jerry Krupp and his wife Rita have worshiped with us on a number of occasions, and they are great friends of this congregation.  Jerry has helped in particular with Stephen Ministry here at Tower.

     Recently I spoke with Jerry, and he told me a fascinating story that bears on all this.  This summer Jerry got very sick – a week in the Intensive Care Unit sick.  During that most difficult time he had an arresting experience.  His illness had left him terribly weak; it affected one shoulder in particular.  At one point this very clear image came into his mind – an image of a baseball game.  It all seemed quite real to Jerry at the time. 

     He was standing at the plate, at bat.  He watched as the pitcher wound up and then threw one right over the plate.  But try as he might, Jerry was just too weak to even swing the bat.  Strike one.  The pitcher delivered again, and once again Jerry could only watch it go by.  Strike two.  Once more the pitcher wound up and threw.  And for the final time, Jerry couldn’t begin to muster the strength to swing at it.  Strike three.

     It was perfectly clear to Jerry exactly what striking out in this context meant.  It was for him a clear metaphor for death. 

     Now Jerry remembers quite distinctly that he was not terrified by the prospect of his imminent demise.  He is a believer and his saving faith in Jesus Christ sustained him through those stormy waters.  He does recall some strong feelings of regret over some family plans he would miss – and especially over the extra work his absence would make for those he left behind.

     Obviously, as close as Jerry came there in the ICU to eternity, it turned out not to be his time.  By God’s grace he is well on the road to recovery.

     But of course you can’t go through something like that without its having a significant impact on your life!  That was certainly true for Jerry.  He has long been one who has served his Lord tirelessly – both within and beyond the church.  But this compelling experience really galvanized him along those lines.  He came out of the hospital quite certain that if God had spared him, He must have more work – specific work – for him to do.  And in the days between then and now, he has set out with renewed vigor to discover and to do the work his Lord has called him to do.

     Friend, the reality is that today – even at this moment! – it’s you standing there at the plate, and it is I.  As life pitches at us one possibility, one opportunity after another; as we stand there, holding tightly the bat of all of our abilities and training and experience, what will we do? 

Even the greatest sluggers strike out a lot, of course – as do even the greatest saints!  At the end of the game, we can expect to hear those blessed words, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” – whether we knock it out of the park or we do go down on strikes – if we faithfully seek God’s will at all turns; if we give our all to doing His will once He makes it clear to us, just as did Jeremiah of old.

     Batter up!

     Let us pray.  Eternal God, we praise You for Your perfect knowledge and power.  And we thank You for entrusting Your kingdom work to us.  Please bend our stubborn minds in Your holy direction, and shape our selfish wills to Your perfect will, that we might give our all to the work You have prepared for us to do.  Please bless our Mission/Ministry Fair to that end, and use it to accomplish great things in and for Christ’s kingdom.  We ask it all in His blessed name.    Amen.