Scripture: Mark 8:36; Romans 1:1, 7; 1 Peter 2:9-10; 1 Thessalonians 4:7
A Day That Changed Everything
About the time that I got my driver’s license, I experienced a single day that changed the whole direction of my life. Ever since I was a little kid growing up in school, I only had two plans, one was to become a professional soccer player, and if that didn’t work, I was going to become just like my dad and just like my big brother by becoming a Badger. I was going to the University of Wisconsin, Madison to become a Wisconsin Badger, just like my dad did many years ago, just like my older brother, Chris, did. And I was going to major in business just like my father did, a businessman just like my older brother Chris did, a businessman. That was always my plan until, sometime in the middle of my high school years, one day changed everything about my life.
I was sitting in bed, I was reading the Bible, I was in Mark 8, and I came across these words that Jesus spoke, quote, “What good is it if a person gains the whole world, but gives up their soul?” You know, I’d heard and read those words before, but there was something about those words on that day that smacked me in the deepest part of my heart. I started just to fast forward and process all the people who were chasing temporary things and giving up the eternal gift that Jesus offered. I thought of friends and family members who were all about school, and education, and jobs, and a relationship, and marriage, and kids, and making money, and traveling. All good things but because of those things had forgotten about the best thing, the thing that lasts forever. What good is it if a person gets everything this world has to offer, yet gives up their eternal soul and their relationship with Jesus?
As I thought about those words, a thought popped into my head and into my heart that I had never thought or felt before, I should become a pastor. I should tell as many people as I can as, like, a full-time job that as good as all the things of this life can be, what Jesus offers you is infinitely better. I should plead with this world to not give up their soul, but instead to seek first the kingdom of God and the love that we find in his son, Jesus. In that moment, I went from being a businessman, Badger, to the steps that led me right here to becoming a pastor. Actually, crazy coincidence, I had no idea how to become a pastor. So, I went to my church the next Sunday, I walk right in the entry way doors, and what is waiting but a sign-up sheet to tour a Bible college. And I said to my pastor, “Well, what’s that?” And my pastor said, “Well, that’s where you go if you want to be a pastor.” And I told my pastor, “Well, I want to be a pastor.” And my pastor said, “Since when do you want to be a pastor?” And I said, “Since Thursday.” And so, I signed up, I dropped my roommates for UW Madison, and I went to a school where I knew no one, I met a young woman named Kim, we were married after graduation, two daughters later, sixteen years into ministry, here I am. It was that one day, that one passage where something changed within me and changed the whole course of my life.
Does God Still “Call” People Today?
Now, I tell you that story, not just to remind you that the word of God can do crazy things in your life. Sometimes it’s one devotion, one passage, one sermon, God can change your mindset, change your heart through the power of his word. I would love to talk about that, but instead today I want to ask this simple question. On that day when I read the words of Jesus, did God “call me”? Somehow in my bedroom with that open Bible, was the Holy Spirit moving, guiding, leading me to a new — Did God have a plan and a future for me? Was that the moment he invited me to a whole different kind of life? And how about you? Are there moments when you just, I don’t know, feel different, see things different. An idea pops into your head; a passion pops into your heart. Can you say that that’s God calling you?
In the Christian church, we hear people say that a lot. In fact, I just heard it a few days ago from a member of our church. You know, “We felt like God was calling us. I felt like God was calling me to be a missionary. I felt like God was calling me to foster care. I feel like God is calling us to adoption. I feel like God is calling me to quit my job and pursue my passion. I feel like God is calling us to live in this city, to live in this neighborhood, to do this work, to pursue this thing.” Christians say that a lot. And it’s a pretty exciting thing to think about, isn’t it? That somehow, if you could hear that call that comes from above, that God would have this specific thing that he wants you to do. That God wants to take all these plans that you have and just, like, shift you to a new life where you know you’re stepping into the plans and purposes of God. That what you do is, like, written in his book as some divine higher calling. That’s exciting to think about. That God, just like he has for me, has a specific call upon your life.
But I want to examine that today, because that’s kind of a confusing thing that Christians say because how do you know? Like, how do you know when you’re passionate about something if that’s just your heart or it’s the heart of God? How do you know when you feel interested in something, whether it’s a major, or a new city, or a business, or a non-profit, or working with children, how do you know that that’s literally coming from up there and not just in here? Can we say with all absolute confidence that we have a call from God? Now, that’s the question I want us to wrestle with today.
Searching Scripture for Answers
And I had a lot of work to do to try to answer that question. You know, whenever I’m trying to figure out if something is biblical, I open up this Bible search engine on my computer, I open the search bar, and just type in all the related words and hit enter, and I see what happens. Because when I do that, then I know it’s not our church tradition, it’s not just contemporary Christian culture, like, this is what the word of God says.
And so, that’s what I did. I typed in the words, “Call,” “Calls,” “Called,” “Calling” into my Bible search engine and I hit enter, and I did not realize how much homework I was about to give myself. Seven hundred and fifty-four Bible passages use the words “Call, calls, called, or calling.” I read all of them for you, you’re welcome. It overwhelmed me. I thought about quitting about six times. I needed an extra cup of coffee, but I got it from passage number one to passage number seven hundred and fifty-four. And as I started to pray and process, here’s what I discovered.
I discovered in the Bible, when we talk about this subject, there are four key things that you need to remember. First of all, there is a caller. Normally that’s God. The God who’s calling, the God who is speaking. Sometimes Jesus would call out to the crowds when he would preach, sometimes Jesus would call someone by a name when he would give them a brand-new identity. Sometimes a call was an invitation to something, right? So, there’s a caller, God. Second, there are the called. The people that Jesus was speaking to, the people who are receiving this name or this invitation from our heavenly Father. The caller would speak to the called. And he would do so, third, with a calling. There was the act of speaking. A literal message that he was giving. He’s not a silent God, but the caller is calling to the called. And finally, there was the call itself. The content of the message. The actual name that Jesus was calling a person.
After reading 754 Bible passages, every use of the word call or calling in the Bible, I learned this. That the caller is calling the called with a call. Here’s a less confusing way to say that. God is speaking to you with a specific message. Instead of just zipping his lips and making you guess about the most important parts of life, God is the kind of God who calls to the called. There is a calling and it contains a call, a specific message that God has for you.
And now, here’s the cool part. As I thought about that, what messages does God speak when he speaks to us? I found that in these same passages, the call of God answers the two most fundamental questions that all of us are asking, “Who am I?” And “What should I do?” At the end of the day, who am I? Am I a person that matters? Am I a person that’s worthy? Is there any point of living? Who am I and what do I do? I don’t want to waste my life just scrolling on social media binging the next series, I want to do something that matters to God.
I want to show you in the next few minutes that all these passages about God’s call will answer the two biggest questions that exist in your heart, who are you and what should you do? I’m going to call this the “capital ‘C’ Call” to a Christian identity, and a “lower ‘c’ call” to Christian activity. Who you are, what you should do. Identity and activity.
The Capital “C” Call: Your Identity in Christ
Let’s start with that first question, the capital “C” Call. Who are you? What is your identity? I found passages like this one in the book of Romans. The apostle Paul said, “To all in Rome who are loved by God and,” say it with me, “called to be his holy people.” And in the past, when God preached to them this message, this invitation about Jesus, he called them to not just be good people or Christian people, but to be holy people. God spoke to them this message inviting them to believe in Jesus. And when, through faith, they accepted the invitation, by the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, they were called a brand-new name, holy, instead of just sinful, broken, weak, human people.
In a few pages later, the apostle Peter picked up on that same theme, but he expanded it. He said this in 1 Peter 2, “But you,” you who believe in Jesus, “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of the God who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” So, who am I? And who are you? At the end of the day, it’s not, “I’m a pastor,” or “I’m a nurse,” or “I’m a mother,” or “I’m a whatever.” No, at the end of the day, what Christians can say as we look ourselves in the mirror is that, “I am a holy, chosen, royal, saved, justified, redeemed, child of God.” I might do these things, I might have this activity during my day, I might do it well, I might fall on my face, but I can look in the mirror and not be disappointed or disgusted because I know who I am. God called me out of the darkness of despair and self-loathing and gave me a new identity as a Christian, a child of God bought by the blood of his son.
So, every Christian from the most mature among us to brand-new believers, every Christian is called to a common identity. By the grace of God, it’s what we share as children of our Father in Heaven.
682 Names: What God Really Calls You
A number of years ago, I did some research to try to figure out what God calls me, and what God calls you as a Christian based on the names that are found in the Bible. I read through the New Testament from Matthew 1 to Revelation 22 with two highlighters in my hand. I wanted to highlight every kind of negative honest thing, “Hey, you’re still a sinner.” Jesus said, you know, “You of little faith.” Sometimes we’re weak or we’re broken. The Bible’s honest about our humanity and our sinfulness. I highlighted all of those. And then I had another highlighter when God calls us these really amazing things because of Jesus like Peter mentions, chosen, royal, holy, God’s special possession. I highlighted those too.
And by the time I got to the end of the New Testament, there was a total of 682 names that God calls Christians. So, my big question was how many negative things does God call Christians who struggle every day with sin, and how many positive things does he call us because of the death of Jesus? I mean, if God would say, “There’s about 600 things I find wrong with you, but because of Jesus, you’re still holy and forgiven,” that would be gracious of God. But in my research, I learned that’s not how the deck was cut. I thought, well, maybe if God was half and half. That would be awesome of God to do, but that’s not what the research said. How crazy would it be if God only had 25% bad things to say but because of Jesus, three good things to every one bad? That would be insane. But it turns out the Bible is better than that.
I learned that only 72 times does the Bible say anything bad about Christians. When the New Testament writes to the broken sinners in Corinth or those struggling with all sorts of stuff in the ancient city of Rome, when Jesus with his very, very flawed disciples spoke to them, the Bible, on occasion, would call them things like Paul called himself, “A wretched man” as he struggled against his own sinful nature. But for every one time that God said this, nine times, six hundred and ten to seventy-two, the Bible would call us children of light and the pillar of truth, raised with Christ, a model to all believers, we are free from accusation, children of the promise, spiritual, alive in Christ, useful, we are very dear to God, we’ve been made perfect by the blood of Jesus, we are his body, a new man, his bride, we are saved, sanctified, justified, redeemed, holy, royal, chosen, and so much more. Six hundred and ten times to seventy-two. Ninety percent of the time when God looks at Christians, even Christians who are deeply struggling with sin, he identifies them by the amazing things that Jesus did for us.
If you struggle with looking in the mirror and not being thrilled by what you see, don’t forget the call of God. The God who hates sin even more than you do, who sees and remembers more than we do, he has still chosen, by the blood of Jesus, to call you something new. You can beat yourself up one time, the Bible will allow that. As long as you overwhelm that message with who you are because of what Jesus has done. Don’t miss your call. It’s not a whisper, it’s not a nudge, it’s not some nebulous dream you wake up and try to remember. God wrote a whole book, a bunch of books, so that you could have in paper and pen this common identity that every Christian shares. Because of Christ, Christians are called to a common identity as beloved, holy, chosen, children of God.
The Lower “c” Call: Your Unique, Holy Activity
But what about the unique call that God has for us? A lot of those 754 passages talk about our Christian identity, but others have something that’s a little more distinct. For example, the apostle Paul, formerly known as Saul of Tarsus, in his opening words to the letter to the Romans, writes this, “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle.” But what the Bible actually says, in my opinion, is so much better. Let me show you one example from 1 Thessalonians 4. The word of God says, “For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.”
Show of hands how many of you have little kids in your home still in diapers? A bunch of you. When you smell that diaper, I’m talking to you too, gentlemen. That is a holy calling from God. Right? When you don’t act like you didn’t smell it so someone else takes care of it, but you jump into action with tenderness and compassion and service, and you serve the people with the dirty work of being parents, that is literally the holy life that God has called you to. When you go to school, right? And there’s that kid who just doesn’t fit in, sits by himself, counting the days until the school year is done. And you, like Jesus, go to the margins and the outcast, and you sit down, and you speak, and you listen, that is a holy calling and that work matters. I will not be there at your school. 99.9% of our church family will not be there at the table, but you will be there. And when you bring maximum Jesus to that moment, that is the higher calling that God has placed on your life.
When you’re dating someone, or you get married, and you learn what their love language is, do they want words or physical touch? Do they want time or gifts? And you prioritize speaking that love language, that’s literally the calling that God has given you, and that work matters so, so, so much. When you go to work, and the boss doesn’t have to worry about you. When you don’t add stress to the burden of leadership because you show up on time, you do your job, you talk to people you’re frustrated with instead of talking about people that you’re frustrated with, not an easy thing to do. There’s a holy calling that comes from God. When marriage isn’t a fairytale, and you’re struggling, and thinking, or speaking about a separation, but instead you double down on your effort to show love, and respect, and serve, and try to breathe the life of Jesus into something that’s barely hanging on. That matters just as much as the sermon that I preach.
Do not think that there is just a tiny percentage of people who have some higher calling. God has called every Christian to live a holy life. Yes, every Christian is called to a common identity, but every Christian is also called to a unique activity. It’s from God and it’s just for you. My daughters will only have one biological father. I have a call. My wife only has one husband. That’s my call. To shepherd you well with grace and truth is my call. To love the guy who walks in front of our church well, that is a call. Every moment where you bring maximum Jesus is a call that comes from God.
The Priesthood of All Believers
500 years ago, most Christians forgot that fact. If you love church history, you might know that back before the days of the Reformation, lots of people thought that if you were a priest or a pastor or a monk or a nun, if you preached or taught the word of God or spent all your days in prayer, that was some sacred, beautiful thing. But if you were a farmer shoveling stuff in the field, or a milkmaid stooping down under a cow, or a cobbler fixing a lopsided shoe, or a blacksmith hammering away, sweating through the day, well nothing sacred about that. Until a very stubborn and passionate German man rose up in the 1500s, his name was Martin Luther, and he said, “Nein. That’s not true.” He had read the Bible, and he restored to the Christian church what some people now call the priesthood of all believers.
Luther was trying to say that if you think only priests have an important job, you need to know that God, 1 Peter 2, calls every Christian a royal priesthood. People who have close access to God, who bring sacrifices of a holy life, what the average person does on the dirty streets of 16th century Germany mattered as much as what was happening in the churches of that time.
Luther said, if you make shoes, you don’t need to write a Bible passage on the bottom. That doesn’t make you a Christian worker. Make a good shoe. Let people be comfortable as they serve and slave away at their jobs. That is a high calling. Be the farmer who does the hard work, that grows the food. That is the answer to the prayer, “Our Father in Heaven, give us today our daily bread.” That is a higher calling. And if Martin Luther were here today, he’d say the same thing to you. And those of you who are holy, and chosen, and royal because of Jesus, I want to remind you that God says the same thing. Step into that room, that school, that home, that car, whisper to yourself, “Maximum Jesus.” Live a holy life. It might seem small to you but one day you will find out, it is not small to God.
God, thank you for a holy calling. What we do today matters. It might never end up on TikTok, or Instagram, but angels will notice when we live a holy life. God, the good things that we do today will not save us. That’s all Jesus, it’s all grace, it’s all through faith, it’s all a gift that comes from you. But the good things that we do to imitate our Savior, Jesus, will bring incredible good until that day that you call us home. So, heavenly Father, help us to see that calling, to step into it. May your Holy Spirit produce the fruit that we need to be like Jesus in those moments. I pray heavenly Father that our marriages are a little bit better, that our church is a little bit closer, schools are a little bit kinder and that our workplaces are a little bit better because we remember that you have a unique calling upon our lives. Help us to believe it, help us to embrace it, and by your power, help us to do it. We pray this all in the mighty name of Jesus. And all God’s people said, amen.
