God's Calling for You

In verse 15 it says, "but as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct".

I was talking to my son Stephen at college one day and I've resisted 'called waiting' because I just don't like to interrupt phone conversations with people but we have it now. I heard a little beep and I've actually got technology advanced enough that I actually know how to cut in on the other phone call and check it out. As I was expecting a call from someone else, I told Stephen I had a call so I checked that out and heard this pause and I've learned this may be a telemarketer and they said, "is Mr. or Mrs. Fowler home". I couldn't think of something real snappy to say and I just said, "No, Mr. or Mrs. Fowler are not at home right now", so they said they would call back at another time. But you know, if I had told Stephen I had to take this call from the telemarketer - I'm sorry but this is important - I wouldn't be making him feel good. But you know, if you got home today and on the answering machine there was a call from God, that would be something different. Or, another way to put it is that you checked your 'call waiting' and the Lord wanted to talk to you, I think the other person could wait, don't you?

God truly does call us - He wants to speak to us. One of the great joys today is celebrating Confirmation Sunday when we come to Christ; God calls us to serve him and to live for him. It's an abundant life. No, it's not a promise for an easy life - that's not abundant living. It's a life full of serving him and using the gifts and the graces he's blessed us with....he's made a great difference.

I want to share with you four words, the first letter of each one spells CALL.

The first letter is C which stands for Christian. You want to hear God's call and you certainly need to give your life to Jesus Christ. Peter knew that. He was a fisherman and when Jesus called him, it was deliberate, it was definite.....'come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men'. That's the way Peter was approached. Peter was a strong, forceful type of personality. He was the type that would actually get out and walk on the water, following Jesus. Apostle Paul came in a very dramatic fashion on the road to Damascus. One of the things that we'll find historically is that the church has asked people to come to the life of Christ gradually. Not only do we have confirmation classes but the church has historically had classes to help people understand the nature of the Christian faith.

John Wesley, in his own estimation, was a great awakener and that's why when people would be awaken to the faith, he would get them into class meetings around other Christians so they could learn about the faith. In that way, when they made that decision in God's timing and God's way, they could really understand what it took to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

The Alpha course at Smith Memorial and at Boone, is a ten or twelve week course of just the basics of Christianity. I remember when I first saw that on my desk I thought why would people want that? It's one of the most popular courses in Christianity in America today. There are so many people who have not grown up with any church background that they need time to ask 'who is Jesus', why did He come, what does it mean to be a Christian'?

C is Christian - the main thing that we come to him by faith and by grace to receive him into our lives.

A is to make ourselves available. Peter certainly made his boat available when the Lord wanted to preach and he would say, 'you can use my boat'. I remember when Bishop Alan used this as an illustration as a way of "I'm just going to try to live my life and give it back to him and use it how ever He wants it to be". In fact, he shared that he did not want the appointment before he became a bishop. I believe he was editor of one of the Christian periodicals.

Two of the greatest preachers are D. L. Moody and Charles Spurgeon. I think people who have made themselves available have made a great influence on their lives. Moody was led to Christ by his Sunday School teacher who came to the shoe store and was compelled to share Christ with this young man. You've heard the phrase, 'God has yet to see what can be done to a man that will be fully consecrated to Him.' I will be that man but the member of the Sunday School class made himself available to share Christ with him.

Speaking of Charles Spurgin - this is why I always try to have church even in bad weather. Charles went to church on a very snowy Sunday and the preacher could not get there. The lay speaker got there, got the stove going, and he was the only one there. This 16 year old boy came in. He didn't say "we're not going to have church", he got up and preached the best he knew how and shared Christ and Charles Spurgin gave himself to Christ in a service with two people. The lay speaker felt if a teen age boy comes to church, we're going to have church.

Make yourself available to the Lord and you will hear his call.

The first L is Learning. Peter had a lot to learn. There is a lot to learn, being a Christian. Peter learned about forgiveness. He denied his Lord three times but he learned about grace and God forgiving him and giving him a new role. He learned a great deal about faith and trusting Him while he was imprisoned. He also learned about God's grace being brought - people in Acts, chapter 10, verse 13, when he had this vision......Rise, Peter, kill and eat and and low and behold, Cornelius, a Roman centurion, was sending for him to come and share the faith with us. Peter's life is not perfect, didn't make any mistakes and never sinned. It was a life of someone that learned the lessons of faith and how they were used by God. He learned that so much of God is teaching us for the benefit of others, to be used in sharing the gospel

The last L is Loving. That is especially what it means to be holy. When Peter was saying that being holy for the love is being holy - some 600 times the Lord is described in the Bible as being holy. The translation would be, be loving. That is that often times we are thinking of what God's calling means - I need to be concerned about what I do for a living, where I'm going to go to college and things of that nature. That is important but what God is most concerned about is the kind of character we have. How loving are we? How are we going to be remembered when people speak about us?

Peter was obliviously a great preacher. Three thousand people were converted at his first sermon on the Day of Pentecost...that's pretty good. He was a great leader. But you read first and second Peter, you see a softening of this man. This is a man that can write very effectively about LOVE. In John, Chapter 21, when Jesus appeared to him, he served breakfast, and he asked Peter three times "do you love me". Each time, he responded, "yes, I do".

God is most concerned in his calling that we love Him and grow in that great commandment, "to love the Lord, our God, with all our heart and soul and mind and strength" and Jesus also said, "to love your neighbor as yourself".

C is Christian A - to make ourselves available and L is for learning and L is for loving.

Let me close by sharing about our oldest member who went home to be with our Lord, Monday. Her name was Mary May. She was 101 years old and four months. Dec. 7th, 1900 - and I don't think there's anyone here that remembers that very well. She wrote a book Safaris in Retrospect especially describing her life as a missionary in Africa. I get nervous just thinking about a 20 something woman leaving here, going to Africa as a missionary with the crocodiles, snakes. That is enough right there but she talks about what it's like to travel at night in the dark, on a bicycle, worrying about leopards. I worry about stuff but I don't worry about leopards, at night. This is a woman who was a caring and compassionate lady, a lady of great faith. She especially cared for those in the orphanage there. She wrote that the work with the orphans is a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate her early Christian training of love and caring for little children. God forbid that we should abuse their trust and to plant in their minds and hearts the wrong principles. They must live among all the villages and learn to get along with their own people. We cannot take them out of this but we prepare them in a small way to live like Christians in spite of it. We can just try to bring them into his love.

She wrote this poem, Motherless Babes in Africa

In this land of romantic beauty under blue and tropical skies,
Contrasting gorgeous profusion,
We hear motherless, babies cries,
Like heart rhythm and tom-toms in the land of music and throbs,
But through all the singing and dancing come the sound of children's sobs,
The wail of a starving beauty who can't pacify,
Comes to our ear with the pleading and our heart cannot pacify.
Let us turn their cries to laughter when Christ shall rule in the land,
Food and love will abound in plenty provided by His mighty hand.
The lives brought from death and destruction
Into paths where his feet have trod
In the eyes of these African babies,
We too shall draw closer to God.

Mary, who was not only gifted as a missionary, as an artist and a writer, loved God and followed his call.

Do you hear his calling? Answer his call. Discover that abundant life as God wants to use you to serve him.

Let us Pray;
Father, we thank you for your amazing grace, saved us by faith and we thank you for your call to serve you...to give us courage, grant us wisdom. Give us the power of your holy spirit as we seek to be your ambassadors....as you seek to make your appeal to us, as we hear your call and seek to obey it. We pray in Jesus name. AMEN.

First United Methodist Church

Lenoir, North Carolina

© First UMC Lenoir