Bobby Dagnel: what i would do this morning is uh and this is i think something we have to do every so often is to have these little touch tone touching moments so where we are touchstone moments where we go back to the call of god upon our life what that means and the implications of that and to go back to that uh point in time where you made that cognitive choice and determination to commit your life to Christ and that transformational moment that really redirected the course of your life, the trajectory of your life and the implications of God's call upon your life and because sometimes I think we can easily lose touch with that, the wonder of that moment, the magnificence of that movement, the power of that moments as well so I want us to recall call our call this morning i'll start out by telling you a story about a young seminarian who was uh fearfully um you know shaking quaking um dreading his first sermon he was a young seminarian never really preached a sermon before and this little church had invited him out and with great fear and trepidation he goes out there and so he decided to use as his sermon text for his very first sermon, the story of Zacchaeus, that wee little man. And so he stood in the pulpit after the music had ended. He went to the pulpet, introduced the text. And he said, what I want to do is to share with you this morning, three things about ZacchaeUS. He said, the first thing we know about Zacchaeus is that he was a little man, he said. I've never felt more little in my life.
Bobby Dagnel: life he said the second thing we know about Zacchaeus is that he was in a tree he said I've never felt more up a tree than I feel right now he said The third thing we knew about Zaccheaus is that He made haste and came down and that's what I'm going to do right now and he went and sat down and That Was It that was the sermon now I'm fully aware of the fact that there is no such such thing as bad short sermons. I think we all agree on that. I can somewhat relate to that story. I grew up with a phobic fear of public speaking. I would take zeros on book reports in school from middle school to high school. And all these English teachers wanted you to do book reports. I could do the book reports, but I just refused to do the oral reports. I didn't mind being a class clown in the back, but I was not going to stand up in front of a class, be the center of attention, and do something like that.
Bobby Dagnel: I just had this terrible fear. In fact, one of the strategies I had in overcoming that fear, I thought if I'm going to be forced to do it, because what these English teachers would do, I don't know if we have any educators in here, but like they would talk about the book report, I'm gonna give you a list of books to choose from. and that list was passed down aisle to aisle and you circle the book that you were going to do so sports were my life and so I was always looking for a sports theme in the title of those books and so i'm perusing through that list of books in high school and i'm looking for something anything that's related to sports and I there it is there's the title catcher in the rye I was a catcher so I thought well catcher in the rhyme let me tell you that has nothing to do with baseball whatsoever and of course a lot of layers to the catcher and the rhyme to have to do that in a book report and then present it but I did take a zero in the oral report so then we have to memorize a poem and present it again I'm looking for a sports thing I'm going down through that list some kind of poem related to sports and there it is boom on first looking into Chapman's Homer that has nothing to do with baseball it's about Homer and the great poet and so I fumbled the ball on that one as well so I can relate to this this idea of struggling with with a call that God places upon our life but what we need to understand is that when it comes to a calling this is not something that is for an elite few that every one of us that consider ourselves to be followers of Christ we we've experienced a call the biblical understanding of the idea of a calling is not for those who just pursue vocational ministry when we rightly biblically understand the call of God then we would know that at that moment of conversion where you make a choice and determination when god's spirit is stirring in your heart calling you unto him to follow him to be his disciple that is a calling your initial response to the call of christ that was a calling in your life in the course of your day when you struggle with choices and decisions determinations about your life whenever you look at issues in this complex world in which we live when we're asking ourselves the question how would Christ respond to this in the light of scripture how should I should I as a believer and follower of Christ as I'm interpreting circumstances and world events as I am interpreting those things through the prism of scripture what is an appropriate response and understanding and worldview for me well that is the calling of of God's Spirit upon you. He guides, He instructs, He leads, and He also empowers. So I want us to take a closer look at this, this idea of the call of God upon our lives. It may seem very simple to you, lacking in profoundness, but I think it's one of those things that we have to revisit visit so that we will be inspired in whatever our present state, whatever our present station in life, that it might compel us forward, motivate us forward all the more. The first thing, notice in verses 1 through 3, the first thing I would say about this call of God upon our life is in regard to the priority of your calling the priority of your calling now paul writes this to the churches in ephesus he says therefore i the prisoner of the lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling worthy of calling with which you have been called with all humility and gentleness with patience bearing one another in love being diligent to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace now now notice that that Paul is writing collectively to the churches in Ephesus this isn't a word this isn'T a sidebar to a select group of people this is the totality this is this is every believer in those in those churches that would populate the universal Church of Ephesus it is to all of them that I want you to consider well the calling with which you have been called now in in the Greek what's translated here is calling and called the root word is the word kleitos if you were to examine the the etymology the history of that word kleetos it originally had to do with an invitation specifically it had to do with the invitation of a king and so as the Spirit of God moves upon our heart where it whether it's calling us into a relationship with him whether it called whether he is calling us to salvation in that relationship with Him whether he calling us to make choices and decisions that reflect the likeness of Christ thing that that is the invitation. That's the invitation of the Spirit of God who moves upon us, who moves upon our hearts and minds and leads us to make choices and decisions that would reflect that relationship that we have with him. Now of first importance, I would bring to mind that when we talk about this invitation and when we talk about this response that we offer to God by the invitation of His Spirit, that when we accept that call when we respond to that call or invitation that you and I are born as babes in Christ Jesus. When we begin the journey of faith when we make that initial response to the call of God's Spirit, the invitation of God's Spirit. At that moment of conversion, we are spiritual infants. We aren't automatically mature in Christ. And in fact, I would say that in any healthy congregation, in any healthy gathering of believers, you would have those that are young in the faith, and you would had those that were old in the face. And when I speak of oldness in the faith, maturity in the fate, that has nothing to do with biological age. I pastored for 40 years and i can tell you that spiritual maturity has nothing to do with age and i think we need to remember that because sometimes those that are older in the faith and mature in the faith that sometimes they are frustrated with those that ARE YOUNGER IN THE FAITH when a healthy congregation is going to have those that Are BOTH YOUNG IN THE FAITH AND THOSE THAT ARE OLD IN THE FATE THAT MAKES SENSE SO NONE OF US ARE BORN FULLY mature where none of us are fully born in the full likeness of Christ Jesus one of my favorite stories examples I would give you this several decades ago now it seems like yesterday to me but the Dallas Cowboys had a cornerback cornerback by the name of Charlie Waters some of you will remember Charlie Waters he played college ball at Clemson University under Charlie Pell Charlie Charlie Pell was a very colorful, old-school type of coach. And I heard Charlie Waters one time tell a story that they had gone into practice one Tuesday.
Bobby Dagnel: They had Mondays off, went to practice on Tuesday. And as they begin that week in the middle of the season, they were without their first and third team quarterback who had already been lost to injury. So they go into that week, that game week on Tuesday with their second, fourth, and 15 quarterback.
Bobby Dagnel: 15 quarterbacks, a true freshman. Most rosters today have five quarterbacks in college football. They start practice, 15 minutes into practice, that second team quarterback who is now first team quarterback, he goes down with a knee injury.
Bobby Dagnel: So now they're left with a fourth and 15 quarterback, they practice another half hour. the fourth team quarterback who's now the first team quarterback goes down with this with the shoulder separation and So now the only quarterback on the roster for Clemson University is a fifth string quarterback true freshman Charlie Pell blows the whistle and stops practice He has the team come insert take a day and circle up around him he didn't ask the 15 quarterback this young freshman who's like a deer in the headlights right now he asked him to come up here and stand by young freshman makes his way up there and charlie asked him coach pell asked him he said young man i want to know if you believe in magic he said well coach uh i guess so he said we'll good and he waved his fingers at him like a magician and said poof you are now a starting starting quarterback at clemson university now i wish it was that easy in the life of faith but it's not magical it's not instantaneous the priority of this calling that that is ours in christ jesus is something that is fully accomplished over the course of a lifetime paul wants these people this this congregation, whatever tensions they might be living with. He wants them to understand that it's everyone in our midst that has experienced this calling of God. It's not an elite few. It'S not a select few. IT IS ALL OF YOU THAT ARE A PART OF THIS BODY OF CHRIST. A second thing that Paul alludes to in this is the gifts of your calling, not just the priority of your calling but the gifts of your calling he expresses it this way in verses 7 and 8 he says but but to each one of us again nothing exclusive about this very inclusive but to each one of us paul includes himself i'm a part of this of what god is doing in our midst with these grace gifts and grace is the word charis here anyone ask you if you're a charismatic i i i'm not ready to give that word away to others i say you bet i am because i i'm i'm indwelt by the spirit who gives gifts these charis gifts these grace gifts notice again verse 7 but to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of christ gift that is the fullness of salvation but to to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift therefore it says and Paul quotes Psalm 68 18 he's talking using some imagery here the metaphor some imagery of a conquering king uh who's returning home here when he ascended on high he led captive the captives and he gave gifts to people now what he what Paul is saying here in this verse it's vital to our understanding as a congregation to have a to have an appreciation of the uniqueness the uniqueness of gifts that are in this very room that somehow in this mystical experience between god god's spirit and a particular congregation there there are gifts in this congregation here that are fitting to our providential purposes of god in the respective worlds into which we would be dispersed after this service there's no superior gifts there's no lesser gifts you know i think our tendency i think human tendency is and this is certainly outside the teachings of scripture but i think from a human perspective what we tend to do when it when when we think about gifts and this is a sorely neglected subject in the church especially in the western church but our tendency is to ascribe a greater giftedness or a greater hierarchy of importance maybe to those who stand behind the pulpit when in fact scripturally i can probably make a greater argument that of greater importance isn't the one who stands behind the pulpit but the one who's dust who dusts the pulpit for the one who does the lesser work you know Paul would say in a in his letter to the church at Corinth in chapter 12 and verse 22 I think there's a great response of Paul in light of our tendency of the way we're tempted to think about gifts he says on the contrary it is much truer that the parts of the body which seemed to be weaker or necessary that it's in the in those in the life in the community of faith it's those that are seemingly doing the lesser things that are more important most of us in here except for a few remember well the assassination attempt of then president ronald reagan in 1981 everyone remember that what was interesting about that that event that year that assassination attempt is that the federal government continued to function the president of the united states most arguably arguably the most powerful man in the world is shot he's hospitalized he's infirmed and the federal department continues to function as if it never happened in that same year the sanitation workers in philadelphia went on strike in seven days that city was brought to its knees now we would naturally think that the president of the united states is far more important but it was the sanitation workers that proved to be indispensable that's what paul is saying in the life of the church that every gift every person person experiences and is given a gift entrusted to them for the edification and the building up of the congregation now here's the confusion that many have when it comes to spiritual gifts as a pastor i used to have individuals who would seek counsel about pastor i just can't figure out what my spiritual gift is what god would have me to do and how god would help me to serve two possibilities that I that I see in scripture one is that your spiritual gift is something for which you have a natural inclination maybe you have an actual inclination for for music you've studied the craft you've worked at the craft it's something that that is close to your heart say for Catherine it was a gift of music I don't but then you become a believer and follower of Christ and you decide you know what what, God has given me this gift of music, and it's almost like you baptize something that you've already loved, and you dedicate that and commit that to God's service. So it can be something for which you have a natural inclination, but it can also be something for which you may have no inclination. In fact, you may Have an absolute fear and dread of what you have a sense god is calling you to do you know that first sermon i ever preached i had a three-week lead time when i was invited to preach at a mission church i had a mentor that told me how to prepare a message you know and and man i prepared you know i'm nervous i'm scared to death i'm up sick the night before uh you know in the bathroom and i'm just i'm just sick as a dog just the nerves the anticipation of this and i had a three-week lead time to get ready i had uh i had seven page manuscript that i had memorized you know this pastor had told me you know the ideal sermon is 20 minutes long so i had this thing down to 20 minutes packed and you know and i'd practice in front of the mirror this as a young man and had it down and i get to that that mission church and i stand to preach and in seven minutes i'm I'm done. And I didn't leave anything out. Not a single word. I think I took one breath at the start and I never took another one. But in seven minutes, I not only preached that sermon that I prepared, I told those people everything I knew about God in seven moments or what I thought I knew about god. But I knew that he had called me to this. And we have this sense of calling.
Bobby Dagnel: a part of that is we have to work we have to labor we have because we've been entrusted with this gift from God we have to nurture that we have to develop that we have to pursue that and it's something that we owe to one another because he has given you a gift that I don't have and he's given to me a gift that you don't have when we are pursuing it with that passion it's when this church congregation is best serving the community in which it finds itself self third thing i would share with you is the necessity of your calling paul says in verse 11 and he gave and he give some now this is some uniqueness to our gifting and he gave some as apostles some as prophets some as evangelists some as pastors for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry for the building up of the body of christ that building Building up is a key word here. It's the same word that's translated in other, the root word is the same word that is translated in another place as edifying. 1 Corinthians 14, Paul talks about spiritual gifts in the sense of what edifies the church. It's not just this subjective emotion that says, well, this is what God is telling me to do. And, you know, tragically in today's culture, especially again, once again, the Western church, we have forsaken our private altars and we have made our corporate altars we have made this into a place of our our where our private altars should be we think the corporate worship is our own personal playground and that's what paul was dealing with with the church at corinth you know there were churches there were individuals in the life of that church that were making the claim well this is what god is telling me to do and it'd become a very disorderly a very disruptive kind of of of behavior and their argument was this is what god is leading me to do what paul says is you need to measure that subjective feeling against an objective reality and that is the question of does this edify the church does it build up does it built up the church does the corporate body in worship when you sense that you are being led to do something is there a corporate benefit to this where the congregation together is lifted up and lifted there and lifts their eyes to the father or is it just drawing attention to you but every every gift is is of necessity this is not a prescriptive list when it says here and he gave some his apostles apostles prophets evangelists pastors and teachers that is not an exhaustive list because any any giftedness that you have if it is something that edifies and is of benefit for the building up of the church the body of christ paul said that's just that's a spiritual gift the church is edified by that which brings us to a final thing that paul would have us to consider and that is the unquenchability of your calling the unquinchability of of your calling that this is something that that that is never never fully satisfied that you never reach a place where you say i i have arrived in in the life of faith but if we truly understand scripturally that is if we have a scriptural understanding of this idea of god's calling we have this continued insatiable appetite for how god would have us to grow in this calling in our ministry that he has entrusted to us notice he says in verse 11 and he gave some or verse 13 excuse me he's talking about the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry for the building up of the body of christ until we attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of god to a mature man tell us that full purpose for which we have have been designed to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ you see how that you got to have an unquenchable appetite because you never arrive to this as a result we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine by the trickery of people by craftiness and deceitful scheming but speaking the truth in in love we are to grow up and again it's perfect tense continual and ongoing grow up in all aspects into him who is the head that is christ so paul is saying we never arrive that in the life of faith there needs to be within us a kind of restless dissatisfaction oh and the in the The uncomfortable nature of growing up in Christ Jesus. These uncomfortable tensions of growth. You need to be comfortable in that.
Bobby Dagnel: You need be comfortable being uncomfortable. And I would say just from personal perspective. That being comfortable. That being at a comfortable place in the life of faith.
Bobby Dagnel: That is the greatest enemy you will face. In your relationship with Christ. is being comfortable so every church I left every pastor I left I left because you know what a lot of people don't understand is pastors have their own personal walk and journey as well it's not just pastoring a church but it's your own personal faith journey and each time when I left Tempt Hill Texas when I Left Nederland Texas I had come to a place I recognized where I needed I needed an Abraham experience. I needed to go out into a place of not knowing.
Bobby Dagnel: I needed to be uncomfortable. Because on those previous two pastorates, man, I tell you what, things were hitting on all cylinders. Everything was comfortable. It was predictable.
Bobby Dagnel: It was manageable. Which all three of those are foreign to the life of faith. I needed discomfort i needed to go to a place not knowing paul says that's the kind of unquenchable spirit we should have this curiosity that should be ours in the life of faith walter isaacson is a professor history professor at tulane university in new orleans he's written a series called the intellectuals and has written biographies on Leonardo da Vinci Benjamin Franklin there's a great great many of them Einstein but there's like five or six of these biographys that that he's written and in reading those biographied there was a common theme that I identified for each one of those great intellects there was there was within each one of them an insatiable curiosity an insitiable curiosity for figuring out the world around them and in reading that i thought you know that that's that's what we should desire as believers is in this kind of insatiability curiosity a restlessness for the things of god that keeps us pressing forward into the unknown. Steve Jobs was another one of the biographies that Walter Isaacson wrote. Interesting story about Steve Jobs when, it's hard to believe this, but Apple Computer was once a very fledgling community. And when Steve Jobs was trying to recruit, some of you may know this story, he was trying to recruit in the early 80s john scully who was the ceo of pepsico to come from new york to california and help him get apple computer up on up on the tracks and rolling forward and and scully didn't want to he didn't wanna leave new yorg and you know they're negotiating back and forth and you know he scully would accept and then he would turn it down i just can't do it i don't want to relocate my family so if you've ever been in those kind of negotiations those high capacity negotiation becomes very frustrating and and finally Scully threw out what were then very outrageous numbers it seems very modest now but Scully throughout this number he said okay I'll relocate he said he paid me a million dollars a year salary paid me $1,000,000 signing bonus and $1 million severance without hesitation Steve Jobs said that's it it's yours Scully vacillated again called him back a week later and he said I want all of that that I mentioned I want that just to be an advisor and to stay in New York but Steve Jobs asked him a question that John Scully said changed the trajectory of his life forever he said John let me ask you this he said do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want to change the world he said I want to change the word he said that I'll see you in California I think we all come to that place in the faith journey where we have to ask ourselves am I comfortable where I am am I too settled in the face and the calling that God has placed upon for my life and that's why we each one often have to recall our calling let's pray together our father how grateful we are to be a part of your purposes of this great salvation that you are accomplishing and that through this great plan that you are achieving and accomplishing that you have chosen to do it through your people you have chosen to call a unique and a particular group of people who would be your disciples and your messengers who would bear testimony to the inbreaking of the kingdom of god the lord we each one might have a renewed perspective this morning on the uniqueness of that calling calling a calling that we each one share who named the name of jesus as lord and savior so father i pray that for each one of us these words might be something that would rewaken rekindle and refire that desire to follow after you into a place of not knowing in jesus name i I pray, amen.