Finding Your Calling

Just as in our natural families, babies grow up to become mature and to become
individuals who are responsible for their own lives and who are able to be
a blessing to other people so in the body of Christ too. God doesn't want us
just to be spiritual babies. He doesn't just want us to be busy taking things in,
having taken things in. He wants us to grow strong and tall in him so that the
body of Christ growing to maturity may fulfill the purpose and the destiny that
God has for it among all the nations of the world. The question that we want to
try to deal with tonight, if all of that is true, if God not only gives us
spiritual giftings, but if He uses even the broken areas of our lives to be a
channel of His grace to touch the lives of other people, then how do we go
about finding our very specific calling in life? That's not only a critical
question that's asked by young people when they try to make up their mind as to
how it is that they're going to live and spend their life, but it's a question
that needs to be considered by all of us as periodically. We review where we've
come from and we make plans for the future so that whatever days the Lord
continues to give us may be used for the glory of God in the most productive and
useful fashion. And that's why tonight we want to look together at these seven
verses in the first chapter of the Book of Romans because tucked away in these
seven verses is Paul's experience of God's call upon his life. And as he talks
about God's call upon his life and as we look at that together tonight, we'll get
a little bit of an understanding not only how God works in Paul's life, but
hopefully also we can deduce from that some principles that God wants to
apply in your life and in my life so that as we go on with the Lord Jesus Christ
we become increasingly aware of what is the particular niche that God is
calling us to in life so that concentrating on that specific calling that we
have our lives can be fruitful to the maximum because we are fulfilling that
destiny in life for which God has not only created us but has called us in
Jesus Christ to be his child and to live for the praise of his glory. Paul, a
servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of
God. What it suggests to you tonight that in that opening verse we have three
levels of calling that were operative in Paul's life that he understood and
that you and I need to understand and to apply to our own lives. First of all
there is a general calling that God has on the lives of all children of God. He
starts out by saying Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ. Paul, a servant of Jesus
Christ. Now if you have a Bible with footnotes then you will know that the word
servant and the Greek is really the word slave. The Greek word is du-loss you may
have heard of it before. Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ and he uses that
word very deliberately because there is a big distinction between a hired
servant and a slave because you see a hired servant has certain rights and
privileges. When you go out and hire somebody to work for you, you negotiate. I
want to work these hours and I want this kind of pay and if we can come to an
agreement then we'll have a contract together. But of one of us breaks the
agreement and I can either fire you or you can leave my employee and you can
go out and find somebody else. And even though there can be a measure of
control that is being exercised by the master over the servant in terms of
economic dependence, in most cultures a hired servant, if he's really driven
to it, is a free man or a free woman to go where he or she wants. A slave has
no such privileges. A slave is property of the master. Has no rights, has no
privileges, is told to do what he needs to do and has no way of escaping. And if he
tries to escape he can only run away and if he gets caught running away then he's
going to be in a big pile of trouble because a slave has no rights. Paul, a
slave of Jesus Christ uses that word very deliberately because you see in the
Roman church to which he was writing here the church had wrong. The vast
majority of the believers identified with what it was to be a slave because most
of them were from that economic strata of life. And when Paul here says that he is
a slave of Jesus Christ, what he is saying is that he knows he has no rights. He
belongs to Jesus Christ body and soul. He is at the back and the call of his
master and long before he can consider himself an apostle chosen to bring the word
of God to other people. He knows that he has to come to Jesus and Jesus has the
right to tell him what to do and what not to do. Paul is not an apostle because
he chooses to be an apostle. He becomes as we'll see in a few moments an
apostle because God calls him to be an apostle. But his response to the
revelation of Jesus was the crying out from his heart that said, "Lord, what
is it that you would have me? Do." And he begins by surrendering his life to
Jesus as a slave. I want to suggest to you tonight that there's an important
principle there for those of us that want to know the will of God for our
lives because you see a lot of people get confused between being a slave and
being a servant. And a lot of God's people think they can negotiate with the
Lord the terms of their surrender. You know how it goes, don't you? Lord, I love
you and I'll serve you and I'll do certain things as long as I don't have to
do this particular thing and as long as I can negotiate the hours and as long
as I can have something to say about what I like and what I don't like. And the
world is filled with believers and filled with Christians who try to negotiate
with the Lord Jesus and try to tell the Lord Jesus what it is that they want to
do with their lives. And then when the Lord won't play ball, they take their
bat and ball and they want to go home because they want to hold on to some
right of self-determination. Some right are doing with their life what they want
to do, some corner of their heart that they want to hold on to where they
continued to be Lord. And with the Lord Jesus wants all of us to understand is
that when we came to the cross of Jesus, repented of our sins and were
purchased at the cost of his blood, we forfeited all rights to our own life and
to our own future and to all of our own plans. We became slaves, bond servants as
the King James version has of the Lord Jesus Christ who has purchased us with
his blood and who owns us lock stock and barrel and who has his own plan and his
own purpose for our lives. And if we're ever going to discover the will of God,
it's got to begin by putting everything on the altar present your body, says
Paul and Romans chapter 12, as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable before
God. That's scary business. Because what if he wants me to do things that I don't
want to do? What if he wants to send me some place where I don't want to go? What
if he wants me to? I don't really think our values that I want to embrace. Those
are scary thoughts that run through the hearts and the minds of most of God's
people at some point or another. And that's one of the reasons why so often our
surrender to Jesus is so incomplete. And that's why very often times we give him
75% of our lives. We give him 90% of our lives. But then there are these these
deep-seated fears that we are afraid are going to come true if I really give it
all over to the Lord. And that's all part of the lie that Satan puts into your
life and into my life where he tries to picture a negative image of our God and
the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Because you see there's another slight
another side to slavery that we don't think of very often in terms of Western
culture. And that is that how well a slave fared was largely determined by the
qualities and the characteristics of the master. The master who calls us to his
servant is the Lord Jesus who lay down his life for his shape. And any Jesus who
dies on the cross for you and for me isn't waiting to take us and to plunge us
into the kind of ruin and misery that Satan makes makes us imagine is going to
happen if really we give our lives to him in total and complete surrender. This
Jesus loves you and me more than he loved himself. He knows you and me better
than we know ourselves. And the plan and the purpose that he has for his life is
the plan and the purpose that he knows we have been exactly fit for because it
is that plan and purpose for which he destined us. Paul said even before I was
born God had chosen and called me for the specific ministry. He said that God
chose to give me. And while the road of servanthood and the road of service
can indeed by times be very painful and difficult, the Lord Jesus provides the
grace that we need in order to carry out the calling that he has upon our
lives. Let me ask you tonight. Are you willing to be whatever it is that God
might have for you? Are you willing to put it all on the altar? Are you willing
to say, Lord Jesus, I am your willing servant? I am your slave. I'm going to
trust that you will take me step by step in ways that I can handle and that you
will lead me into things that will give glory to your most holy name and that
will build me up and make my life useful and productive in your kingdom. A lot
of people want to know the will of God for their lives, but they're not prepared
to start with a complete surrender to his plan and to his purpose. And when
that lingers in the back of our minds, then there are many things that we will
never hear the voice of God on and there are many callings that God may put
upon our lives that we will never yield to because deep down we are afraid of
what it is that God is going to make us do if we really give it all over to the
Lord. And if you confuse sometimes as to why it is that you're here and if you
wonder what exactly is it that I'm supposed to be doing with my life and ask
yourself the question, am I a slave of Jesus? Have I given up my rights of choice
and preference and all the other things that govern my life? Can I say with
Paul? I am a slave of Jesus Christ because you see only when that issue was
settled in your life and in my life as it was in Paul's life. Can God go on and
give us a revelation of the particular calling that he has on your life and on
my life? Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ, call to be an apostle, call to be an
apostle. Why did Jesus Christ intervene so very dramatically in Saul's life on
the road to Damascus? It was because from before the foundation of time God had
determined that Saul of Tarsus who we know today as Paul, which is the Greek
version of the Hebrew name Saul, was called and chosen by God to be an apostle
that is to say one who is going to be sent out all over the world to proclaim in
Jesus Christ the salvation and the redemption for which all of the world is
logging. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle at all his
life. Paul lived with a keen understanding that there was a call upon his life
that he needed to yield to by the sovereign choice of Jesus Christ. I believe
that applies to your life and to wildlife. You've heard me say before that
Biblically speaking, I believe that God calls all of his children into specific
areas of life and into specific areas of ministry. And the call may or may not
be as dramatic as the call that the apostle Paul experienced. Oftentimes it is
not. Oftentimes our call becomes evident by the gifts and the desires and
ministries that God raises up for our lives. But however it is that God calls us to
his task and to his ministry, I can almost guarantee you there will be a time
lag between the call and the fulfillment of that call when we really begin to
function in the ministry that God has for us. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle. Lot of people think that Paul became an apostle immediately
upon his conversion. And a superficial reading of the book of Acts would seem to
give that indication. He gets converted to next chapter nine. Then immediately
begins to preach in Damascus, but you will recall that preaching didn't last
very long. He had a particular knack for getting people mad at him. He had to
run for his life. They had a let him out of the city over the city wall in a
basket you will recall. Spend some time in Jerusalem. Couldn't hack it there
either because people wanted to kill him there too. Goes into the trans
Jordanian, the Arabian desert for we don't know how long. Eventually ends up in
the city of Tarzis. And it's not until Acts chapter 11 when there is a revival
that is taking place in Antioch that Barnabas now goes and finds Saul in Tarzis
and brings him back. And then it's not until Acts chapter 13 when the leaders of
that church are in prayer and in worship that the Holy Spirit says to the five
prophets who are gathered there, take Barnabas and Saul and set them apart for the
ministry to which I have called them. And that becomes the first missionary
journey of the Apostle Paul. And if you look carefully at the time frame between
his call and the exercise of his ministry, you discover that something like 13
years has passed. Of those 13 years today we know very little because you see
they were times of preparation. Saul called to be an apostle. And again there's
a principle in that that you and I really need to understand I believe one of
the problems with God's people is that when we finally get excited by the
Lord Jesus and we could capture it by his will and we turn our lives over to him
by his grace and we really want to start serving him. Then the first thing that
we want to do is we throw ourselves headlong into everything that comes our
way and we think we're ready to take on the world and we forget that if on
human terms we're going to send somebody out to represent our company and our
business we want to make sure they're trained and they know what they're doing
and our father who was in heaven when he wants to use you and me in his service
and in his kingdom. He doesn't just want to throw us out and make us swim or
float or drown. He wants to train us that he wants to equip us so that our
gifts can be developed. Our character can be established and we can be a worthy
servant of Jesus in the work of ministry that he has established for us in the
Christian life because you see it's a jungle out there that's not just a
cliche it is a battle and when we're called by the Lord Jesus to be servants of
God in whatever capacity to which he has called us some of us are called to be
housewives and some of us are called to be businessmen some of us are called to
speak or to teach the truth of God others have different gifts and abilities
whatever you're calling it is of critical importance that we learn to be
faithful in little before the Lord will place us over much. The temptation and
tendency in your life and in my life is always to run ahead of the Lord to
overestimate our own ability and to say well I'm ready to go but we're not
always in the best position to determine if we're the ones that are ready to
go. If you're here tonight and you sensed there was a calling that God has
put upon your life. There are dreams that you dream and there's a vision that
you want to pursue in terms of what it is that that you can do in the kingdom of
God. Don't just throw that out the window. Don't just think it was your own
thinking and that it's it's part of your own imagination if you're yielded to
the Lord Jesus Christ there's a pretty good chance that Jesus placed it
within your heart but recognize that it's going to take time for that to be
worked out in the course of history and what God is wanting to do is teach you
to be faithful in little. I learned to redeem the time as Paul did to do those
things that the Lord Jesus Christ calls you to do that maybe are in very
glamorous. Learn to be faithful in the areas where the Lord calls you to be
faithful even though there is no immediate payoff and there doesn't seem to be
any kind of connection between what it is that you're hoping to do with your
life and what is happening now. God makes no mistakes and many of the things that
don't make very much sense in your life today. One day you're going to look back
on and you're going to say the hand of the Lord was in it and worded not for
that training and worded not for that disciplining and for learning the kinds
of lessons that I needed to learn and those kinds of situations I would not be
able to be or to do the kinds of things that I'm doing or called upon to you
today. And you'll discover that when the time is right when God has worked in
you the necessary character the necessary patience the necessary love the
necessary compassion there will come a time when people around you begin to
recognize that God has a gifting and an enabling on your life and you'll
discover that God begins to open doors and as you begin to walk through those
open doors and humility and impatience and in a quiet waiting before God you
discover that that God is leading you to establish you in the particular
ministry that God has for your life and without becoming unduly preoccupied with
the fact that we need to know where our calling lies let me reemphasize that
part of the secret to satisfaction in the Christian life is to become increasingly
aware of where God's calling upon our life lies so that in that area we can
concentrate with our gifts and with our abilities and we can know that we
walk in the blessing of God because other people's lives are being touched by
the grace that God has given to us Paul a servant of Jesus Christ called to be
an apostle set apart for the gospel of God not only does Paul have a general
calling upon his life not only does Paul have a particular calling upon his
life he also has a very specific calling upon his life he wasn't an
apostle only in the broad sense of the word he was a very specific apostle with a
very specific ministry that was primarily directed towards the Gentiles that
you will recall was already evident in that initial call when the Lord Jesus
comes to Ananias and says to Ananias he is a chosen vessel instrument of my to
bear my name before the Gentiles and before the kings and before the sons of
Israel Paul called himself an apostle to the Gentiles Peter and the others
had a ministry to the Jews Paul's ministry was a ministry to the Gentiles and
again it's very interesting in the apostles or in the book of Acts and in the
letters of Paul to see how he comes into that ministry because you would think
that the moment he's converted in the moment now that he gets placed into an
apostleship he would begin to fulfill that destiny within his life but he
doesn't if you read Acts chapter 13 and you see there that Paul sets out to be
involved in ministry he doesn't first go to the Gentiles he first goes to the
Jews every city that he goes to he goes to the synagogue and when the people in
the synagogue reject the message then he says now God is setting me apart to
go to the Gentiles and he then begins to preach to the Gentiles who hear the
word of God and having heard the word of God begin to respond and their lives are
transformed and changed through him he says here in verse 5 we have received
grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his
name among all nations again I believe you'll find the same principle to be
true in your own life in the Christian life as in the natural life we begin sort
of as as general practitioners the field is wide open we don't know very clearly
where our calling lies we don't know very clearly what it is that we're to do
with our lives but we give it a Jesus and we say Lord Jesus my life is yours
lead me the way that you want me to go and as we follow we begin to discover the
field narrows and either by the calling of God upon my life or the giftings
that I experience in my life I discover there are many many things that I'm
not very good at and there are many things that I'm not called to do but there
are certain things that I'm good at and there are certain things that God is
calling me to do and my general idea begins to narrow into a particular calling
I become a counselor I begin to be good at entertaining company I'm a good
administrator I manage my business for the Lord and I have a vision to build
the business that gives glory to God I go in education any number of fields that
become part and parcel of that area of my life and we throw ourselves into it
we follow the kind of education the kind of training that we need to pursue
that goal with our lives and then as we work within that field of of education
or that field of of endeavor in the process of being involved in the course of
life we begin to specialize and we begin to understand this is where my area of
interest lies and that will shift from year to year to some degree until
as time goes on we begin to become more and more clear concerning God's calling
upon our lives and we begin to function more and more within the very specific
calling that God has in our life and in our experience I look back over my
own life and I see that to be very much true as of a 1213 to 14 when I first
experienced God's call on my life to ministry it wasn't a dramatic kind of a
thing it was just sort of a conviction that God placed within my heart that
has stayed with me all those many years when I first experienced that kind of
call I had my own ideas of what that would involve I made the kinds of decisions
and pursued the kind of course that I had to pursue in order for that to come
to realization when I first began in ministry ministry was sort of a general
practitioner you you do all too many things that you called upon a day as time
went on I began to discover there were some things that I wasn't very good
yet there were some other things that God was really beginning to bless as the
years have gone by I've become more and more convinced in my own life that one
of my specific callings is to build up the body of Christ to the maturity that
God calls us to be so that all together the church can grow to maturity and be
ready for the Lord Jesus when he comes in the clouds of glory your own
history will be different from mine your own walk in life will be different from
mine but I can guarantee you that if it's yielded to the Lord Jesus there are
gifts that are beginning to emerge in your life but in some cases have already
come to a far extended fruition I want to encourage you to pursue that take
some calculated chances step out try to do the kinds of things to which the
Lord calls you and as you do you discover that God's grace is there in giving
it all over to the Lord Jesus you discover your own sense of identity and you
discover that the blessing of God rests upon your life and then you can
focus in a world of busyness and in a world of confusion and doing the
kinds of things that you're called upon to do to the glory of God and you'll
have the satisfaction of being an instrument used of Jesus to bring his healing
and his touch to the lives of others and if all of that sounds still rather vague
in your own heart or in your own mind and you're not very clear concerning the
direction of your own life that don't panic or become overly concerned because
we can become so anxious to try to find it all out that that we lose sight of
the many opportunities that the Lord gives us make sure you've presented your
body as a living sacrifice begin to serve the Lord with the opportunities that
the Lord gives you and in the context of being obedient in the areas where the
Lord calls you to be obedient his grace will rest upon your life it's his job to
open the door it is his job to equip you it is his job to lead you and it's his
job to let you know that you have arrived and when you do there will be an
overwhelming sense of awe within your own heart that the Almighty God and
Father of Jesus Christ who made the whole world out of nothing she'd love you
so much that he's willing to entrust the responsibility of his kingdom to
the likes of you in me then when we come to the end of our life we can look back
and we can know that whether the things we have done have been major or minor in
the eyes of men our lives have mattered because we have fulfilled the thing
that God has called us to do the Apostle Paul at the end of his life was able to
say I have run the race I have finished the course there is laid up for me a
crown of righteousness Jesus doesn't just save us to bring us to heaven he saves
us to restore us to a life of service in the kingdom of God how he does that is
the theme of the book of Romans perhaps if the Lord gives us freedom as time
goes on we'll get into a study of that we'll begin to see how God in Jesus
Christ makes all the provisions that are necessary so that we can fulfill not
only our general caller not only our particular caller but also a very
specific caller Paul a slave of Jesus Christ called to be an Apostle set
apart for the gospel of God to God be the glory