God has a plan for your life ... "Lord, what career should I pursue ... should I do an apprenticeship, go to college or uni ... where should I study ... should I marry or pursue a single lifestyle ... who should I marry ... what house should I buy ... when must I retire ... ??? God has a plan for your life. "I know the plans I have for you" says God in Jer 29:11. Can I expect God to tell me what His plans are for my life, or is that left for me to work out on my own. A God who has plans for my life but doesn't tell me what they are would be a devil.
Today we start a series which will run for the Summer break which I've called Back to Basics. These things are the "milk" of our salvation, the things we are taught when we are saved (at whatever age that may be). These are the basics and from them we then move on to the solid foods of our salvation. In 1 Corinthians 3:2 Paul writes:
Today we start a series which will run for the Summer break which I've called Back to Basics. These things are the "milk" of our salvation, the things we are taught when we are saved (at whatever age that may be). These are the basics and from them we then move on to the solid foods of our salvation. In 1 Corinthians 3:2 Paul writes:
I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready
and the writer to the Hebrews writes in a similar vein in Hebrews 5:12
In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!
God has a plan for your life, and with Him, you must work it out:
Therefore, my dear friends ... continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose Phil 2:12-13
My text today is Ephesians 2:10:
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
{This is of course part of that greater text:
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
The sentence is the milk ... the second sentence is the solid food.}
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
God has a plan for your life and today we will see that God shows us that plan by “calling” us to it. Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the disciples, Paul. We’re all called……but……God has given us a free will, therefore we can run from the call or run with the call.
God is calling you to fulfill the plan He has for you……but how do we know that a call we might hear is authentically from God? How do we know that we are not sucking it out of our thumbs?
Let’s go to the call of Moses, for there we will find four marks that would need to be present if a call is authentically from God.
Here is the first mark: The call of God is usually scary – so scary in fact that it results in what I will call the Moses wriggle, a very famous Evangelical dance. Here are the steps:
Step one (Exodus 3:11)
But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
Does Moses’ question not resonate with us? Have we not taken the “who, me?” step in the Moses wriggle?
Step two (Exodus 3:13)
Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you’ and they ask me ‘What is His name?’ then what shall I tell them?”
This step again is part and parcel of anyone’s response who has struggled with a call from God. We are wanting to cry out, “What do I say? How am I going to do it?”
Step 3 (Exodus 4:1)
“What if they don’t believe me or listen to me and say ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’”
What if I fail? It’s a question very close to everyone who struggles with God’s call. What if I'm not good at what you're calling me to do ... or what if I don't really want to live there ... or, that's not where I was planning to study. We all have dreams, don’t we? And dreams are easier to live with than failure! Moses must have often dreamt of seeing his people free. “Now Lord” he is crying, “Leave me with my dream. I cannot risk failure.”
Step 4 (Exodus 4:10)
Moses said to the Lord: “I have never been eloquent, neither in the past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”
I don’t have the gifts. How can you possibly expect me to do what You are calling me to do? Moses, like many of us forgot that God never calls without equipping, but that must be the subject of further teaching.
Step 5 leads us into the full truth of Moses’ feelings. (Exodus 4:13)
But Moses said: “Oh Lord, please send someone else to do it.”
I want out. I want out, Lord. I cannot risk such a call, such a career, such a place to live, such a husband or wife or single lifestyle, etc.
The Moses wriggle – a famous Evangelical dance? I think it is. "Lord, you've saved me, now just let me get on with my life and my plans please."
Please don’t diminish the size of the call to lessen the fear. Let fear do for you what it can do, drive you to your knees in dependence on God. God has no interest in calling us to something we can do with our eyes shut. He has a great interest in calling us to do things for Him that will deepen our relationship with Him through dependence on Him and which will facilitate His Kingdom coming and His will being done.
Please don’t diminish the size of the call to lessen the fear. Let fear do for you what it can do, drive you to your knees in dependence on God. God has no interest in calling us to something we can do with our eyes shut. He has a great interest in calling us to do things for Him that will deepen our relationship with Him through dependence on Him and which will facilitate His Kingdom coming and His will being done.
If you are doing something for God that is costing you nothing……look again. It may well be necessary to stop what you are doing and look for the one thing that’s going to deepen you and stretch you and bring you closer in dependence to the One who calls you.
So, the first mark of a call from God: it’s scary.
Here is the second mark: The call of God is usually clear. We muddy it up. We get it confused because we don’t let ourselves be gripped by the excitement and scariness of it. When we become obedient to the call, often our self-imposed confusion comes to and end.
Here is the third mark: The call of God is always relevant to God’s Kingdom purposes and to human need. This is why He has saved you. And this doesn't mean that everyone must go into full time ministry, but it does mean that that every element of your life, what work you do, where you do it, where you live, etc, is always relevant to God’s Kingdom purposes and to human need. You don't have two lives, a saved or church life, and a secular or private life. Your life is now God's, and He has a distinct and unique purpose for every life. God's call to Moses was clear and relevant: “Get my people out of Egypt.” All God's plans for all our lives ultimately relate to God’s great desire to see all people truly free and growing to their greatest potential. But……if we are to respond to human need, we need to be aware of such needs. In partnership with God we are all called to work with God, getting your hands dirty in mission, being Jesus, being disciples by getting involved, with the people and things that Jesus got involved with.
Fourth mark, and I’m not going to delve into this one, but just “put it out there.” Calls are best worked out in fellowship ... we partner with God and with each other. Moses does not need to explore the rest of the call on his own, he fellowships with Aaron and later Jethro, and later a group of 70. I’ve spoken from the heart in all of the above, but here especially I want to encourage you, as you sense and explore God’s plan for your life, to journey with someone you trust, who can advise and encourage.
[How does this all work out in the life of the fellowship? In the Church, when we as elders or as a fellowship meeting sense God calling us to something (eg re-examining AAW earlier year) we put that call out there in the notices……anyone else interested or “sensing a call in this area”……people responded……a group was formed.]
So, four marks which need to be present if a call is authentically from God:
It's scary, clear, relevant and best done/worked out in a group.
I think that’s almost enough, but let me add briefly some things we look at when we try and help folk journey with a call.
1. What gets your juices going?
2. What time is it in your life?
3. Where am I in pain? Where am I struggling? Many significant calls come through our pain. Florence Nightingale was called to nursing through the pain she felt as she cared for soldiers during the Crimean War. Many significant calls, purposes for our life, come through our pain.
So: God is constantly calling. It’s how He tries to workout His plan for our lives. Calls are scary but don’t be frightened ... rather be encouraged ... God has a plan for your life and He reveals that plan through CALL .... He does not leave us in the dark as we faithfully try and work out our salvation:
God is calling: Are we listening?
This sermon was inspired by the
the preaching of Rev George Irvine
at Manning Road Methodist Church
in the early 1990's on the same subject
