When God Calls You

SERMON: 2009-01-11--ac0910--when-god-calls-you SOURCE DURATION: 00:45:33.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: The sermon begins with exposition in segment [0]. The material concludes with a prayer (segment [377]), which is an integral part of the sermon structure. Segment [378] is merely a sound effect and should be excluded. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:42:18.780-00:45:30.960 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- In looking at this passage before us last week, I have pointed out two of three observations that I want to make. The first is that Judas was engaged in an apostolic ministry. And we saw last week that an apostle is a sent one, and the Lord Jesus took his 12 disciples, he sent them out to engage in his mission. And the purpose of an apostle is to take the gospel of Christ to other places and to other cultures and to plant churches and to lead God's people into wholeness. That was part of Judas' calling. Tragically, as we also saw together, Judas abandoned his position. Jesus didn't deliver what he thought Jesus ought to deliver. So he betrayed Jesus, and in betraying Jesus, he turned his back on Jesus, and then of course he killed himself. And so now there is a vacancy that has been created. Which brings us this morning to the third observation that I want to make on the basis of this scripture passage, and that is this. God raises up a replacement. But again, how the scripture goes on, therefore, says Peter, it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from John's baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection. In the time that we have together this morning, there are three things about this passage and this process that I want to try to call our attention to. And the first is this, the emphasis on filling the vacancy created by Judas. The emphasis on restoring the number of the apostles back to twelve. Now here's a question for you. Why did Jesus pick twelve disciples? Why not ten? Why not fifteen? If you read the gospels you discover that Jesus had all kinds of people that were following him and at one stage in his ministry, out of all the disciples that were following him, he picked the twelve, including Judas, whom he knew would betray him. But why twelve? Well the number twelve in scripture represents governmental perfection. And it's a tie back to the Old Testament. Jacob had how many sons in the Old Testament? Twelve. Out of that came how many tribes in Israel? Twelve tribes in Israel, thirteen if you count the two sons of Joseph, but Levi did not inherit and that's how you still end up with twelve tribes. And then when you get to the book of Revelation, the holy city has foundations. What's written on the foundations? The names of the twelve apostles. On the gates to the holy city, you've got twelve names also. What twelve names are they? The twelve tribes of Israel. What is scripture trying to say? Well the New Jerusalem, the holy city, which represents God's people brought to perfection in all of eternity, is founded on the revelation of the twelve apostles in their testimony to the person of Jesus. And how do you get into the city? You get into the city through the ministry of Old Testament Israel, whom God used to bring the Gentiles to salvation. So when Jesus chooses the twelve disciples, he isn't just arbitrarily choosing twelve disciples, no, he is saying I am bringing about the establishment of a new kingdom. Even as the old covenant was based on the twelve sons of Jacob and the twelve tribes of Jacob, so now the new kingdom is a combination of the old and the new. That's why, by the way, in the book of Revelation, around the throne of God, how many elders are there? Twenty-four. Why twenty-four? Twelve out of the Old Testament, twelve out of the New Testament. So when the early church here says we've got a field of vacancy created by Judas, they're not just saying well the task is so big and we can't afford to be one short, no, they are deliberately going back to the number twelve because the twelve apostles are the foundation then on which the church is built. And in that sense, the twelve apostles later on, the apostle Paul gets added to that, the number breaks down, he now becomes the thirteenth, but I guess God figures by then the point has been made, I don't know how else to explain that. God doesn't want it to be too neat because we get carried away with stuff that's too neat. So the reality is the twelve apostles are unique in that they are the foundation of the church which of course raises the whole question then, do apostles still continue today? We talked about that a little bit last week, John Calvin said many years ago, he didn't think they were, but fact of the matter is if you read carefully through scripture, then you discover that in addition to the twelve apostles which were clearly the foundation of the church, a lot of other people were also named apostles and so there's Barnabas, there is Silas, there is Apollos, there is Adronikos, there is Junia, many other names in the New Testament all of whom are called apostles and in that case they are then truly the sent ones who share in the apostolic ministry even though they're not part of the original twelve. And that has led the Roman Catholic Encyclopedia to put it this way, it is at once evident that in a Christian sense everyone who had received a mission from God or Christ to man could be called apostle, thus extending the original sense beyond the twelve. And that's why I said last week there are many Christians today who believe that apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers are all necessary functions to bring the body of Christ to maturity and as we go on through the book of Acts the Lord willing in days to come that we'll pick up some of those other offices because they emerge again and again. So there's an emphasis here then on completing the twelve apostles and then in this passage there is an emphasis on establishing the criteria to fill this position and those criteria if you read the passage carefully are three in number. First of all the passage says it must be a man therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us. That passage together with other New Testament passages has played a huge role in the discussion in the Christian church in recent years about the role of women in primary leadership. If you listen carefully to what the Roman Catholic church says one of their arguments for not having female priests is the argument from history that all the disciples that Jesus chose and then sent out to be apostles were men. And people who argue against that raise a very interesting question because remember I said earlier Junia is listed in the New Testament as being an apostle. What's interesting about Junia is that the ending of her name is a feminine ending. Now we don't know if that means she was a woman or a man stuck with a woman's name could go either way I suppose but you can see where the debate rages or has raged in the history of the church about what is the role of women in primary leadership. So in this context to fill Judas' place it has to be a man. That is clear from this passage of scripture. The second criteria then that is raised here is that this man must be a follower of the Lord Jesus for notice again it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us beginning from John's baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. Now to be a follower of the Lord Jesus of course is to be what? It's to be a disciple. A disciple is a learner and to be a learner is to acknowledge that Jesus is the Rabbi he is the master. I believe he is who he says that he is namely the son of God who has come to redeem the world and I give my life to him and I want my character to emulate his character. So not only must the person who filled this position be a man but he must be a godly man. He must be a person whose character is a reflection of the master whom he is following I'm sure he doesn't need to be perfect but he must be a disciple of the Lord Jesus and then most important of all I believe he must be a witness to the resurrection for the passage says for one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection. One of the requirements of being an early apostle one of the requirements of being one of the twelve is that you were an eyewitness to the resurrection of Jesus and the reason for that is not hard to figure out because what is the apostolic message? The apostolic message is that God sent his son into the world to die for our sins not only but to be raised on the third day as proof to all the universe that Jesus really is the son of God and that he has the power and the authority to do exactly what he said he would do and so the apostle Paul in the famous chapter 1 Corinthians chapter 15 talking about the resurrection puts it this way he says what I received I passed on to you as a first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures that he was buried that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures and when we get a little bit later on in Acts chapter 2 to Peter's Pentecost sermon then you will see that his whole Pentecost sermon focuses on the fact that this Jesus whom you crucified God has raised from the dead and if you're smart you're going to repent because he's going to come and judge you that's why three thousandth of them were swept into the kingdom almost immediately because they were smart enough to see the writing in the law Jesus is alive which is the powerful apostolic message on which the Christian church is built all around the world and that's why when people start talking about the resurrection hasn't happened or it happened you know symbolically or it was a rewrite of history by the early church it is such absolute nonsense because if Christ has not been raised from the dead says Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 then your faith is futile and you're still in your sins it's the resurrection of Jesus that demonstrates that he is the one appointed by God to make all things new and to judge the living and the dead so we have now the condition that he should be a man they established that specific procedure he needs to be a follower of Jesus he needs to be a witness to the resurrection and now they go on to establish a specific procedure and that specific procedure again includes three elements select two men that is to say pick two men from your midst to fit this criteria of being male having followed Jesus and having witnessed to his resurrection and they find two of them Matthias and Barsabbas who was also known as Justice then what they do is they pray and they cast lots they pray because prayer is a crying out to God you know what leaves in their hearts because as we all know what people look like on the outside versus what people look like on the inside how they're going to stand up under the pressure of being in pagan lands bearing witness to Jesus is a core hard issue that can only be found in the process of testing and only God knows what that is and then of course they cast lots because in the Old Testament one of the ways in which God revealed his will to his people was in the casting of the lot and that would be God's way then of indicating what his will was I find it very interesting that after Pentecost when God gives the Holy Spirit to all flesh there is never another record about casting lots and we'll talk about that someday because it ties into a number of practical issues in terms of how you do church so they established the procedure of selecting two men they cast lots after prayer and then of course they install Matthias he is added to their number and he is now officially the 12th apostle so you've got this emphasis on the 12 you've got this establishing of certain criteria that this 12th apostle has to measure up to and then they have this specific procedure which they're using to elect him to this position and there's a lot of different directions that you and I could go into at this point in time to try to make that practical but I've chosen this morning to emphasize two things in particular two lessons that I think we learn here and the first is this God's purposes carry on remember I said last week one of the tragedies I think from God's perspective is that when he calls people to share his ministry so often we fail mean sometimes we fail and we could back up that's part of all our journey and God's big enough to handle all of that but every so often somebody falls off by the wayside and seriously compromises the call of God on their lives and so you have that whole generation of Israel in the wilderness everybody 20 years and older they couldn't make the adjustment from a slave mentality that they had picked up in Egypt to a son of God mindset that God was giving them in covenant relationship with him and God comes to a point where he says listen you're not gonna make the transition so you're all gonna die in the wilderness and I'm gonna raise up a whole new generation as a matter of fact at one point God was so frustrated with the people of Israel that he said to Moses listen I'll wipe them all out and I'll make a new people out of you and it was only Moses's intercession that kept God from doing that to his own people you've got King Saul in the Old Testament chosen to be the first king of Israel picked by God himself though he knew his heart and Saul loved his own glory and honor more than he loved the glory and the honor of God so what happened he gets thrown aside and King David steps into his place Judas later on we read about Demas who at least for a season one of Paul's assistants left him because he had fallen in love with the world and I told you the sad and tragic story last week of Charles Templeton contemporary of Billy Graham powerfully converted at 21 years of age founder of what is now Bayview Glenn Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in Toronto yet began to doubt his faith went to seminary a liberal seminary that that only reinforced the questions and the doubts that he had so that at the age of 42 he gave up the faith and returned to his erstwhile love of journalism and being a media personality and as I said at the end of his life he wrote a book called a farewell to God my reasons for rejecting the Christian faith which put forth his arguments for agnosticism and here's the ending of his book now remember this is a guy who used to fill big arenas he was the Billy Graham of his day close contemporary of Mr. Graham I believe that there is no supreme being with human attributes he wrote no God in the biblical sense but that life is the result of timeless evolutionary forces having reached its present transient state over millions of years you may remember from last week I said he lost his faith because he couldn't square the discoveries of science with a revelation of scripture and throughout history you tragically have had people on the forefront of things who come to a certain stage in their life and they turn their back and the higher profile such people have been and the more publicly they have stated their allegiance to the Lord Jesus only to renounce it the greater is the tragedy and the bigger is the loss that is suffered to the church the good news is though God's never caught off guard and while from a human point of view such tragedies are awful and can put the church back a long ways the story of Judas shows that God always has replacements in the wings and so the generation that died in the wilderness they had sons and daughters that took the promised land Saul proved to be unfaithful but God already had raised up a little shepherd boy out here who proved to be a man after God's own heart though he was far from perfect and when Judas fails there is Matthias and so on throughout the course of history when one movement fails or one generation fails God raises up another it's very important to understand that because it helps you understand the course of human history it helps you understand that for example while many church splits are wrong because they're based on personality or sin or conflict or turmoil throughout the course of history there have also been church splits that have been part of God's provision to keep the church on track and to help it move forward when a church becomes apostate when it begins to deny the resurrection of the Lord Jesus begins to tolerate sins and practices which are unbiblical and all avenues have been exhausted as you're now seeing in certain aspects of the Anglican Church we saw a number of years ago with the United Church of Canada then new movements come forth even as old movements decline because you see God is going to have his people and my prayer for myself my prayer for each community that I've ever pastored is that we will be a generation that is found faithful to the calling that God places on our lives because it's easy to get all bent out of shape and say it's a lot of hard work it's costing me time and talent and treasure but you know it's an incredible privilege to be chosen by God to participate with him in the work of ministry you know sometimes we get weary and sometimes we don't want to hear another problem in the world and sometimes we just want trouble to go away but do you know that every life you touch for Christ every life that has been restored every family that is restored every aspect of life that comes under the authority of Jesus Christ is eternal in its consequences for all eternity we're gonna be there celebrating the fact that God has redeemed people from sin and death in Satan's hand and restored them to the full glory of God I know by you that's what keeps me going and sometimes I'd like to throw in the towel thank you very much and maybe you do too but it's an incredible privilege to be called of God and to be equipped by God as we'll see later on by the Holy Spirit to do this job that he's called us to you know Matthias like all the other eleven apostles ended up tradition tells us being martyred so this is not exactly a picnic that he's being called to later on when the Lord Jesus calls the Apostle Paul to become the 13th apostle he states up front how much he's gonna have to suffer for the sake of the kingdom but that's what Jesus did and he invites you and me to take up our cross and to follow him because you see at the end of the day the joy that is said before us outweighs any price that we've ever got to pay are you with me here that's what it means to take up your cross daily and follow Jesus so God's purposes carry on and then the second lesson that I want to draw from here is that apostolic credentials are spiritual in nature apostolic credentials are spiritual in nature let me try to explain that this way what is the first question that is raised if you step out to speak or to act on behalf of God what's the first question that somebody is going to ask if you start standing in a street corner preaching or if you step into a ministry position or if you start in some way sharing in the in the ministry of the Lord Jesus I can tell you exactly what the question will be who sent you the modern version of that is who do you think you are what gives you the right to tell me how I ought to live and who do you think you are thinking of yourself as God's spokesperson or thinking that somehow or another you represent I mean it's not true isn't that the question you have well that's an issue of credentialing and the more you're raised up to speak against the spirit of the age the higher your profile the bigger will be the criticism and the bigger will be the question who do you think you are so what was Moses's problem and God calls him in the wilderness and God says to him listen I'm sending you back to Egypt to Pharaoh and to your people Moses says what what am I going to tell them who sent me and then he goes through you know five excuses to try to get out of that because this is not exactly a task that he is particularly happy with and likewise throughout scripture you get Jesus himself who do you think you are claiming to be the son of God and if you read the history of the Apostle Paul it really comes home for Paul you know why because he's the thirteenth Apostle he wasn't part of the original twelve so all his ministry he was defending himself that he was legitimately called by God he always had dubious credentials even as Jesus had dubious credentials for a lot of people because they thought he was born out of wedlock and was an illegitimate child of Mary so how do you get around this issue of credentialing how do you know whom you can trust and whom you cannot how do you know who speaks for God and who does not those are basic questions because we can make a mistake both directions can't we we can embrace a false prophet or a false apostle and the New Testament is full of them and so is history today or we can reject one who does represent God when in fact we ought to embrace such a person well the passage gives us some clues into this these are the criteria again three in number number one the calling always begins with God for notice in this passage the emphasis on praying Lord you know everyone's heart show us which of these two you have chosen I happen to believe that the exalted Lord Jesus who gives the Holy Spirit and who gives gifts of leadership to the church has a place in the body for every last one of us we have all been uniquely gifted and we are uniquely called and for the body of Christ to function we have to find the niche we have to find the place that God has designed for us now that's not always easy and there are many many factors and many difficulties that come into the picture it's a very complicated thing and we'll talk about that more as time goes on the point now though is that you and I don't decide if we're gonna be the eye or the ear or the mouth or the thumb or the pinky or the foot or the little toe God sovereignly decides by his calling and by his equipping so all of us need to surrender to the belief that God is sovereign and that he knows what he is doing I'll tell you why this is difficult in the church because God often picks the last to be first and the first to be last and there is nothing more obnoxious to the human heart than discovering that I've been around church for 10, 20, 30, 40 years and I have been faithful in my little corner and some newcomer comes along and they occupy a position or they are granted elements of leadership that I have longed for and that has never been given to me now there may be a lot of reasons for that including all kinds of things that are done wrong but remember the parable of Jesus where the farmer goes to the labor market you know that story that I'm talking about and he hires this dude and he hires this dude all the different hours of the day and he all promises them an equal wage and at the end of the day the guy that's only worked for one hour gets paid every bit as much as the guy that's been there since early sun up of all the stories Jesus tells in the Bible that's the one that bothers me the most and I bet you it bothers you too because it seems so unfair fact of the matter is God can do what he wants to do and he knows what we can handle and what we cannot handle and to put us in a position of leadership that we're not called to or gifted for is just as humiliating difficult and frustrating as it is to be placed in a position that is far below our level of skill and our level of competence and so part of growing up in the body of Christ is to learn to recognize that credentialing begins with God himself he makes the choices and he makes the choices based on elements of the human heart that you or I may be completely oblivious to you with me I'm not asking you to like it I'm just telling you what God says he does why is the one chosen over the other well take it up with God because God seems to know what he's doing now that having been said second thing to point out in this passage then in that regard is that this process of credentialing though it begins with God has a very significant human element to it because in the story God uses people notice how he first of all uses Peter now Peter is the one who gets up and says folks we've got a problem we have a vacancy here and my sense is that we ought to be filling this vacancy Peter is the rock and was assigned by Jesus as the primary leader of the first apostolic team that's why the Roman Catholic Church the Pope is said to sit in Peter's seat now later on Paul takes over a lot of that initiative because he takes the gospel to the Gentiles but Peter was the one entrusted with the ministry to the Jewish people and he was the primary leader so Peter takes the initiative then they go to the community and they say all right now we're looking for some candidates you've got to pick them so they find these two and then they're the ones who pray and they lay hands on them or they lay hands on Matthias and then Matthias is ordained if you will into that particular position and here again is an important spiritual lesson yes God does the choosing God does the credentialing but God doesn't operate in a vacuum he operates in coordination with the body of Christ anybody can say well you know God called me and I'm a prophet of God and every heretic has his followers but God raises up the body of Christ to exercise discernment then whether or not that call is really God's call and whether that body ought to commission that individual because you can't exercise leadership unless it has been granted to you by the community that you're a part of so you say how are those decisions made well that's the final point that I want to make in this particular passage then is because now what happens is that there are three criteria that are used in this passage three criteria that define whether or not God is calling you let me be very quick about this and draw this to a close the first is what an issue of character remember the replacement for Judas had to be a follower of the Lord Jesus all through the New Testament whenever there is talk about leadership in the body of Christ there is a question about mature Christian character not whether people are perfect not whether people fall into sin but people who know the Lord who are strong in faith and whose lifestyle in some significant way embodies the reality of being a follower of the Lord Jesus why because as I pointed out on New Year's Day at the end of the day our success in life or in Christian service or Christian ministry is never merely a function of how talented you are or how gifted you are but of character doesn't matter how creative you are but if you can ever deliver a project on time you're going to run into trouble doesn't matter how charming or witty you are but if you cannot relate to your people then eventually that's going to sabotage who you are so the important thing is always to look for character gifting is important anointing is important obviously but character is always a primary issue somebody who is conformed to the image of Christ and who seeks to walk in faith and in humility then has this person met the resurrected Jesus that is to say is Jesus alive and real in this person's life how did Paul become the thirteenth apostle what did Paul use to defend his credentialing whenever this issue came up he says have I not seen Christ remember the Lord Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus and so the the bottom line question for you and me in that context is have you met Jesus why because you cannot give Jesus to somebody else unless you know that he is real that he is all-powerful and that he can do and will do whatever it is that he's promised as you see at the end of the day the question about credentialing is always a question of can you raise the dead and that's the third point here quickly then does God affirm your ministry how did Paul respond when people raise questions about his own apostolic ministry well he says the things that mark an apostle signs wonders and miracles were done among you with great perseverance at the end of the day if God calls you and Christian community correctly validates your calling because that's how it works God does the choosing you and I do the validating the third test is is God in it and so have God calls you to be an apostle or a prophet or an evangelist or a pastor or a teacher or a little pinky or an eye or a mouth or a little toe in the body of Christ how do you know how do you know that God has really called you and God has really equipped you because his power is demonstrated in the fruit that you bear if you're an evangelist then you will leave behind you a trail of converted people if you have a pastor's heart you will be shepherding the lost the lonely the poor the broken if you're a teacher you're always looking for opportunities to help somebody grow in Christ if you're a prophet then you have prophetic insight into a given situation and into a given people and if you're an apostle then you have a big grand vision of how the body of Christ ought to function and what needs to be done to break through the cultures of paganism to establish the church you say how in the world is this possible how in the world can this happen to ordinary men women and children well that is the subject of the next chapter because why did Jesus tell them to wait in Jerusalem because the Holy Spirit will come upon you and you will be my witnesses to the end of the age none of us is sufficient in fact none of us in the natural is even interested in being involved in any of this because we got enough trouble of our own and enough of our own lives to live and to lead but when the Holy Spirit is poured out of the church and Jesus imparts to you a portion of his anointing your life can never ever be the same and the success of the church and the success of the Christian life hinges then on knowing what that anointing is how [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:42:18.780; remove through 00:45:33.000] it works and how we can be used of [CUT] God in the building of his kingdom a day. So, let me pray. Let them flow in endless praise take my hands and let them new at the impulse of thy love take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for thee, swift and beautiful for thee. take my will and make it thine it shall be no longer mine take my heart it is thine own it shall be thy royal throne it shall be thy royal throne. Take my voice and let me sing always only for my King take my lips and let them be filled with messages from me filled with messages from thee. Take my lung my Lord I pour at thy feet is treasure stored take myself and I will be ever only all for thee ever only all for thee. (door opens) [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:45:33.000; resume after this marked segment]