Called & Fashioned for His Purposes 1
Abraham
Genesis 12:1-9
You become a Christian. Get baptised. Over the years of journeying with Jesus you develop and mature in your faith and relationship with God and His people, You seek to share this precious relationship with others: family, children, friends. You serve as you are called upon to do so. Your days end here on earth and you go to Glory and spent all eternity with Christ. Is that all there is to it? Am I missing something?
I believe the answer is a big YES! All through Scripture we see character after character, ordinary person after ordinary person called to do something for God and in responding to that call they were changed, transformed, and were able to do far more than they could ever have dreamed of. I too recall my Call to be a Pastor and the absolute trepidation I felt as I responded back in 1978. Called & fashioned for His purposes is a short August series to help you and I continually respond to His Call and claim upon our lives.
Abraham is a great example for us to start with. Here is someone who was in our terms quite comfortable, and at 75 would you want to make a new start? However the call of God comes, not at our convenience, and he chooses to respond. There are some fascinating steps or principles in the account we read which are instructive:
1. Leaving to go: you will never go anywhere until you take the first step. For the Christian that’s at the very heart of the life of faith: journeying from that initial encounter with Jesus, journeying with Jesus, and journeying towards meeting the Father face to face. The New Testament elevates Abraham to the Father of Faith. Leaving for most of us is not as physical as it was for Abraham but it is as challenging.
2. Knowing that God Calls and then that God does all He wants done in and through you on the journey of faith is a huge encouragement. As 1 Thessalonians 5:24 has it: the one who calls you is Faithful and He will do it! So to Abraham God says: I will, I will, I will…….
3. The blessing that flowed through Abraham’s obedience was a blessing he never experienced but his offspring did: read v7.
If we truly want to leave a legacy of faith into a new generation: especially our offspring we can do no better than respond to God’s Call upon our lives.
God called Abraham and he chose to respond: the rest as they say is history. What is God calling you to, what is God asking you to leave? This is not spiritual rocket science: His Call will be right for you and fit your personality and gift. It will often be at a price and yet the rewards of obedience are immeasurable. As I contemplated God’s Call in 1978 I realised that it would mean giving up any chance of ever owning my own property, and that I would not be able to provide for my future wife and family in material terms as adequately as others around me. However the world’s measures are always the worst ones to rely on and in the things that really matter the Lord has always provided and honoured His Call upon us. Calling however is not just to full-time service of all kinds, it can be to work in Oasis Cafe, praying for Healing on the Streets, train as a Street Pastor, become a school governor, care for an elderly friend, etc. etc.
So let me offer you three challenges of Calling from Abraham’s life and explain how the Lord will fashion you for His purposes in and through your response.
1. You and I need to step outside our comfort-zone.
That’s in essence what Abraham did and we need to do it too. Our comfort-zone is just that: anything that enables us to switch on our spiritual autopilot and stop moving on with God. You can be in such a place in the first year of your Christian life or the fifty-first year!! It seems a good place to be and we feel safe, and the Devil rubs his hands together and says: Hallelujah! I don’t need to do anything more with them. Following Jesus today whilst good and desirable could not I think be described as comfortable: why? Because you and I have said good-bye to the world and chosen to live in a new paradigm called the Kingdom of God here on earth. In John’s words: we are not of the world but we are in the world. The cost of discipleship can be a tough one to pay but my experience says the blessing of seeing changed lives as a result more than repays. There is however a benefit only you will realise as you walk forward in faith, in step with the Spirit: it’s that you will be being changed from Glory to Glory. Christians ought to be able to look back every so often and see how God has changed them: softened their hearts, given them more grace, enabled them to do the ‘impossible’, and so much more. You see God’s ultimate purpose is to purify and prepare His people, His Bride, for the return of the Bridegroom, Jesus. Our response to His call is His green light to get to work on our salvation (body, mind and spirit) whilst engaged on the task He has given us.
2. You and I need to raise our eyes to God’s horizon
Abraham’s story continued: in Chapter 13 he mutually separates from Lot, his nephews’, household but in Chapter 14 he goes on his first rescue mission for Lot. God’s Call never cuts across family responsibilities. So to Abraham in Chapter 15 where we see God speaking to him and reassuring him that his descendants would be like ‘the stars in the sky’ (15:5) or later described as ‘grains of sand on the seashore’ (22:17). Without Vision the People will perish says Proverbs 29:18 and its true: Christians and Congregations who have taken their eyes off the destination to which they are travelling lose energy, focus, and faith very quickly. St Andrews’s own story since 2001 has been based on a vision to create a dynamic Body of Christ community on this route into the city. Vision has had to be constantly refocused, restated and refreshed. So how does this speak to me as an individual you say? Visionary Congregations are full of visionary people: we need always to be open to God speaking to us in “dreams and visions”. Young men will see visions, old men will dream dreams, says God, when I pour out my Spirit. So perhaps you need to take a step back from what you are doing and allow you eyes to rise up to a new and fresh faith horizon of God. Wouldn’t you rather be fashioned by calling and vision, than stuck in a spiritual rut that goes nowhere?
3. Being prepared to let go of your ‘Isaac’
In responding to God’s call Abraham faces the ultimate test in Genesis 22. Is he prepared to let go of Isaac, even sacrifice his own son, if that’s what it takes? Now we all know that in the end he didn’t need to. God provided a lamb, as later 1400 years He provided the Lamb of God, but the principle is that Abraham was prepared to let go, and let God have full control of his life. That’s what calling requires and the benefit of such obedience is being fashioned for his purposes. What’s your Isaac: again for 99% of us it’s probably not going to be a person: maybe it’s a commitment to something else (worthy and good), maybe it involves a real sacrifice of time, or profile, or even reputation (with some not understanding). Whatever it is we need to be able to genuinely say to the Lord: ‘in the words of the song’ Here I am wholly available!
Fashioned for His purposes.
Christianity can never be an academic exercise: it’s about God restoring in us his creative intention from the beginning. The picture of Eden prior to the fall is one of Adam and Eve walking in the Garden with God in the cool of the evening and it’s a beautiful one. This side of the return of Christ we won’t see that but that’s the goal, the vision, of the Kingly rule of God that we are working towards. So you and I can never say we are the completed article: just a work in progress.
So Calling is the crucial ingredient in this process: whether Abraham, you or me?
Let’s give Paul the final say as we ponder our calling this day: “For we are God’s workmanship (work of art), created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” So Church, hear God’s call, and get doing!!
Pastor David
August 7th 2016