Sent...Into Your Calling (Week 2) | Mother's Day

Scripture Reading: John 19:23-27

What does it mean to be “called”? On this Mother’s Day, we explore how God places people into our lives on purpose—and calls us to love and serve them. But what happens when we feel like we’re not enough? Looking at Jesus’ care for His mother even from the cross, we’re reminded that our worth is not based on how well we perform our roles, but on what Christ has already done for us. This is Week 2 of “Sent.”

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

In Matthew 28, Jesus said, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. He calls you to be that disciple. To hear his word, to receive his promises, to repent, to believe. That Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And that by believing you have life in his name. Now here are the good news of Jesus for you. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Last week we started a series and it's called Sent. We saw the risen Jesus meet with his disciples in a somewhat ordinary place. They're out fishing on the lake, and he calls to them and tells them to put the net on the other side, and then he meets them. They come to shore, he meets them, he feeds them, he forgives Peter there, and then he sends them from there, from the shore, out. And he tells them to feed my sheep. He met them in ordinary life. And that's where he meets us to in ordinary life. He feeds us with his gifts. He forgives us through his word, and then he sends us back out into those everyday places and people that he has already placed in front of us. And that raises the question: where exactly is Jesus sending us? Where exactly is Jesus sending me? Again, when most Christians hear this idea that we're sent, we think of this idea of movement. If Jesus is sending, we're going to go somewhere. And if we're going to go somewhere, it's probably going to be far away. There's going to be some distance. And if we go somewhere, we're going to be sent on some kind of adventure. And if it's some kind of adventure, it's probably going to be something big because Jesus is the one sending us. And so we imagine those big opportunities. We imagine the mission trips and the youth events and the projects, the disaster relief efforts. We imagine starting a church plant like Beautiful Savior was 25 years ago. That's what we imagine. And so we envision then because Jesus is going to send us to these big dramatic places and moments, we imagine we're going to have a story that we're going to be able to tell following these adventures. But most Christians are not primarily, and that's the key word, most Christians are not primarily sent far away. Most Christians are primarily sent into their vocations. Again, you may be sent occasionally far away, but most occasion, most on most occasions, Christians are primarily sent into their everyday life. Because the thing is, that's where God does some of his best and most important work, is in your everyday life. The word, as I mentioned, is this idea of, it's this word vocation, which is not to be confused with vacation. You'd be surprised how often vocation and vacation are confused. But vacation is the opposite, really. Vacation is when you take a break from those daily responsibilities, from those particularly prickly people. You want to break from them, so what do you do? You leave and you go somewhere because you need to get away. And then there's vocation, which is the complete opposite, where God sends you to those particularly prickly people to love and serve them. The word vocation comes from this Latin vocatio, and the word vocatio just means calling. And you might not think of it like that, that the things that you do every day that God calls you to them, but He does. And historically this became incredibly important during the time of the Reformation. For centuries, many people believed because the church taught it this way, that the only way you could really give God glory and honor is if you set aside all those daily responsibilities and you took up something more important. And that more important thing would be serving the church specifically. I'm not going to say that today because that's not what vocation's all about. And so, in order to really, during the time of the Reformation, in order to really serve God, what you had to do is you had to give up all those daily responsibilities and you had to become a monk or a priest or a nun. You had to give your life, you had to dedicate your life to the church. And Martin Luther pushed back against this idea because he saw that this, these daily vocations, were the places where God was most at work, where he did some of his most important work. And he saw that God actually serves children through their parents. That's where he serves them the most. And God actually provides daily bread, something we talk about in the Lord's Prayer. He does that most through workers. And God cares for your neighbor most through the people around your neighbor, and that's probably you. Luther famously even said that a mother changing a diaper was more important than a monk that would spend all day praying and all day in scripture, but then would avoid the important work of caring for their neighbor. Because those everyday responsibilities like motherhood and parenting and being a good worker, those were not afterthoughts. Those were not secondary works for God, but those were the places where God was at work. And so God sends us, He calls us, that's the word vocation, He calls us into these everyday responsibilities, these everyday relationships to serve and love the people around us. And yet, even if that's true, our vocations are difficult, aren't they? Vocations are incredibly challenging. I'm gonna look at three ways why our vocations are challenging. The first is that uh our vocations are difficult because they're ordinary, they're mundane, they're plain. Part of the reason we love mission trips and service projects and these big visible acts of service and love and mercy is because they feel exciting. Again, those things are good, by the way, they matter, they're important, but they also have something that our daily, everyday, ordinary vocations do not. They have a beginning point and they have an end point. When you go on a mission project or a mission trip of sorts, you know that mission trip is gonna be seven days long or 14 days long. There's a beginning point and there's an end. You'll be able to wash your hands of the whole thing as soon as you're done. And there's something appealing to that. We also know that there are clear, visible results. If you go to another country to create a garden or to put fresh water in or to build a house, when you're done, you leave most likely with those results that you can see. And that's not the case with our everyday vocations. They carry a sense of adventure. You're gonna be sent to somewhere that maybe you've never been before. People you've never met before. There's excitement, there's enthusiasm, and then you're gonna come home, and you're gonna come home with stories of people that you met and pictures, they're gonna be able to show everybody, and then people are gonna say, Wow, look at all the amazing things you did. You sacrificed your time. Look at all that you were able to accomplish in just this short amount of time. That's amazing. And so you feel like you accomplished something meaningful. But changing diapers and doing it for the thousandth time, I think we can all agree there's nothing really appealing about that. And there's nothing adventurous about going to work on Monday morning. You don't hear people say, I'm going on an adventure tomorrow, I'm going to my job. People don't talk like that. And staying faithful in marriage through difficult seasons, that's not glamorous, is it? It doesn't make headlines. And making dinner, another meal, or driving the kids to one practice and then another kid to another practice, and then cleaning up the kitchen and the house day in and day out, again and again. That's not appealing. It can instead be repetitive and mundane, and it doesn't feel dramatic, it feels boring. And so what do we do? We equate ordinary with meaningless. And we have this tendency then to think that this important things that we do in life are not the everyday stuff, but it is the bigger stuff that we do. That we have more responsibility and more important work to do. And so we believe that the everyday stuff is insignificant. And then we believe because we think it's insignificant, then it must be insignificant and unimportant and less valuable to God. The vocation says that those people and those responsibilities matter an awful lot to God. By the way, that's why he sends you there. Because they matter. And they matter to the people that you're called to serve and love and care for. Again, the world says that if it's important, if it's significant, if it's valuable, if it's meaningful, you'll know. You'll be able to tell. And so that's what we look for. And the vocation says that sometimes God does send you on those trips and they're great. But most of the time, God's not sending you to another country. He's gonna send you to your own house or to your own street or your own block, to your own neighborhood. He's gonna send you to your own kitchen table. Why? Because there are children there. Because there's a spouse there, because there's a hurting family member there, and the neighbor that lives next door, he needs or she needs someone to care for them. And they're lonely, and you're their neighbor. So you're the closest person in proximity or the closest person in relationship to them. And those ordinary places often become places where Christ is actively working, and he's working through you. He's working through that parent who's praying by the bedside with their children, or the husband that is quietly remaining faithful, or the wife who's forgiving her husband again and again, or the worker who's choosing honesty over dishonesty, even though dishonesty is often much easier, and it often produces greater results and greater promotions and a greater future. And it's harder to be honest. The challenge with being faithful day in and day out in our ordinary, everyday lives in our vocations, is that there's no spotlight, there's no applause, there's no viral story that goes on social media. And yet, these are some of the holiest moments of life. Because vocation might feel ordinary, but it is certainly not meaningless. Vocation is difficult. It's difficult because it's so ordinary, and when it remains ordinary for so long, day in and day out, that leads to the second thing that makes vocation difficult is that we don't see the results, and we certainly don't see the immediate results. You raise children, and you do that for years and years and years, and then you might see the fruit. You might see the result of that. You work faithfully at your job for decades, and you wonder, what am I accomplishing? What is being done by me being here year after year after year? You serve people around you regularly, and you never get a thank you for the fact that you think about them and you care about them and you love them. Day in and day out. And so sometimes you wonder, is my vocation, are my vocations and the way that I'm serving them, are they actually making a difference? And that is especially true when it comes to being a parent, and especially true when it comes to being a mother. Because there's no instant results, there's no scoreboard, there's no final report card that says, all right, you did it, you succeeded. And so vocation requires you to trust, you to trust that even in the day in and day out, God is still at work, and even when you can't see the results, he is still underneath it and accomplishing his purpose. Being a parent and a Christian is a lot like farming. Um, long before the harvest, the farmer puts in a lot of work. They till, they plant the seeds, they fertilize, they water, and they do this continually over and over. And then eventually the harvest does come. But it takes a lot of effort over a long period of time. Long before you see the results and the fruit of your kids, you see their maturity. You teach, you model, you have conversations, you talk to them about Jesus, and then eventually you get to see, oh, what kind of adult have they become? What kind of Christian have they become? Being a Christian is the same thing. Long before you see the people around you change in any noticeable way, you love them, you serve them, you tell them about Jesus, and then you just wait and hope that it makes a difference. And yet, God said he's working in that, even when you don't see the results day to day. Vocation feels ordinary. We don't always see the results, but that's what makes it difficult. And yet, neither of those compare to the hardest part of vocation. The people. The people are the hardest part of our vocations. Uh because uh people, we know all about them. We know the people that are around us, and we know the people that we are called to love and care and serve. You know your spouse, you know your children, you know the people that you work with, you know the people that you go to school with, or the kids, the people that your your kids go to school with and their parents, you know them. That's what makes it tough. Because you know their selfishness, the selfishness of your spouse. You know the disobedience of your children, and you correct them about it on a regular basis. You know the cruel words that that person spoke to you. You know the unforgiving nature of your parents and how they can be unforgiving at times. You know that person's attitude and that person's shortcomings or the way that that person failed you. In fact, over time, in vocation like this, it becomes more difficult not to notice, not to remember all of these things and replay them over and over again. By the way, many people imagine that pastors and their families somehow uh live different or above some of these ordinary struggles. But if you spent any time with Pastor and his family outside of Sunday morning, you would discover that it's not any different. You would discover impatience, and you would discover stress, you would see the same arguments that you had on the way to church today. Well, I was here early, so we didn't have them on the way to church today, but we're gonna have them, we'll probably have them at some other point. Uh and by the way, uh, these are not just, oh, you'd see it in my family. You'd see it in the pastor, too. You'd see the sin. That's so obvious. Uh I wish I did, my wife wishes I did, uh, but I did not graduate from the seminary with an H-O-L-Y degree. That would have been great, but I didn't. Uh and so you'd see the same things that you see in your vocations. And by the way, it's easy to notice this. Again, people are the hardest part, and it's easy to notice these challenges and the struggles and the failures of the people around you, but just as you're noticing it and seeing it, they notice it in you the same. And all that affects how we look at and see and live in and go to our vocations. Because it's easier to love people from a distance. It's easier to love people for seven days or 14 days, or you go to the grocery store and you can love the cashier for about 30 seconds. That's easy. That's really easy to do. It's harder to love people when you know their flaws and you know them maybe a little too well. You know what they said. You know how they treated you, or how they treat others. You know how selfish they can be. Even if they disguise it really well for everyone else, you still see it. You know how exhausting they can be and how emotionally draining they can be. You know their habits, you know their idiosyncrasies. And over time, that kind of familiarity with the people around us slowly makes it hard for us to love and to serve and to have compassion on the people that Jesus has called us to serve most. Which means that vocation is not about perfect people serving perfect people. Vocation is about forgiven sinners, living among forgiven sinners, forgiving sinners. That's what vocation is all about. Uh which brings us to one of the most beautiful scenes in Scripture. Jesus is hanging from the cross. Don't lose sight of the context of this scene. Jesus is hanging on the cross, and he's preparing to accomplish the salvation for the entire world. And standing nearby at the foot of the cross is his own mother Mary. His own mother that carried him in her womb for nine months. His own mother that scripture says wrapped him in swaddling cloths and placed him in a manger. She held him, she raised him, she watched him grow. She, as scripture says, treasured up all these things in her heart. And now she watches her own son die. And while preparing and bearing the sin of the world, Jesus fulfills his most basic vocation because he knows that's what his mother will need. By the way, Jesus is acutely aware of his own mother's failings as well. And Mary had her own failings as well. Scripture doesn't tell us, but we know that to be true. And so she had her own failings as well. And Jesus loves her anyway. He says to his mother, Behold your son. And to his beloved disciple, he says, Behold your mother. There on the cross, Jesus is still caring for his own mother deeply. Even in suffering, even in death, even while redeeming the world, he doesn't abandon his vocation. And what Mary experiences here reflects so much of what motherhood is all about. Loving deeply, sacrificing, and sacrificing often quietly. Carrying burdens, your own, the burdens of your kids. Treasuring moments, the great moments, but also the challenging ones as well. Sometimes suffering. Suffering because the people you love are suffering. Your children are suffering. It's hard to watch your children suffer. But what Mary sees on the cross is not only her son. It's her Savior. Because the cross reveals something that is essential about vocation. That your salvation is not found. It's not dependent on how perfectly you fulfill it. It's not dependent on how perfectly you fulfill your calling to the people around you. Not as a mother, not as a father, not as a child, not as a student, not as a worker, not in any of it. Because every vocation eventually exposes our own shortcomings, our own failures. It exposes our impatience. It exposes our selfishness. It exposes our absence, our harshness, our exhaustion. It exposes the moments that we fail. We fail to love the people that we are called by God to love. And so if our salvation, if our standing before God depended on our fulfilling of this vocation perfectly, then none of us would stand. And so what does Jesus do? He does. He fulfills his vocation perfectly. He perfectly loves. He perfectly serves. He perfectly sacrifices himself for others. And then he gives it. Which means that vocation. Vocation now is this ordinary place. It's plain, it can be mundane at times, and it has these daily responsibilities, but it's ultimately about where forgiven people, that's you and me. Forgiven people live in what they've already received in Christ. We live out of that good news that you are forgiven, that I'm forgiven. And that we're sent then into those daily vocations. And maybe that changes how we see our everyday, ordinary life. Maybe the bedtime prayers, whether they're prayed together or separately, maybe those prayers matter. And maybe the conversations that you have on the way to school or in the car on the way to the sports, maybe they're more important than you realize. Maybe those ordinary acts of love and service and care and checking in with the people around you, maybe those aren't ordinary at all. Because they're not places that Jesus sends you far away, but he sends you right there, right where you're at. Your home, your family, your workplace, your neighborhood, your daily callings, your vocation. And he's working there. Your vocation matters. Monday matters. Tuesday matters. Wednesday matters. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, they matter. Sunday, great day. But it's not the only day that matters. Because tomorrow you wake up and God's going to send you. Where's he sending you? Everywhere. Everywhere you go, God is the one sending you. And that's comforting because that means he is also at work. And he's accomplishing his will and his purposes.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

So, Christian, go. You are set. In Jesus' name.

unknown 26:07

Amen.