God’s Calling

Just about everything that the Bible teaches is included, in one way or another, in the first three chapters of Genesis. And that makes sense. God is creating everything from scratch. As He does that, He explains it all. He defines everything. And that includes the climax of His creation, humanity. So, in our text, God is defining you. He is explaining what you and all the rest of humanity are to be doing and how you are to do it. And that’s what I want to talk to you about this morning. The key question of the sermon is this: How does God define how you are to live? And the answer is not complicated. It’s all about this basic idea of God’s calling. God has called each of us to a certain kind of life. I’d like to help you to understand that a little better so that you might fulfill the calling He has given to.

Our text is Genesis 1.26-31. Please listen as I read it.

God, here, defines what it means to be human. That’s just another way of saying that in our text the Creator is commanding us how to live. His commands are grouped into two categories. The first is, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth…’ Adam and Eve were to begin the process of populating world. We’ll set this aside for now and look at it another time. It’s the other category that I want to deal with this morning. ‘… subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ This is all about exercising authority over the rest of God’s creation. Two words stand out here. The first is ‘subdue’. Humanity is to subdue creation. This word implies an unruliness. It suggests the image of grabbing hold of something and pinning it to the mat. The other word is ‘dominion’. That English word comes from the Latin word for ‘lord’. Humanity is to exercise lordship over the rest of creation. We aren’t to do this as tyrants but as wise rulers. This makes a lot of sense once you realize that God built into His creation lots of potential. Our calling is to take the potential that is there and turn it into some real benefit. Some examples: taking the sunlight that pours down every day and changing it into electricity using a solar panel. Or taking some rock out of the ground, separating a part of it from the rest, and making that into a steel girder for a bridge. Or taking some of that steel and forming it into wires to make a piano and some beautiful music. God created humans to take what is a potential and make it into something of benefit. So, that ‘subdue and have dominion’ is all about taming creation and being creative with it.

Now, God didn’t give us this calling and then leave us to our own devices to try to accomplish it. He has equipped us for His calling. He has given us the resources that we will need. Some of them are within us. This is about that important label ‘image of God’. He has made us in His image which means that we are like God in different ways. Here, one way in which are like Him is in our ability to be creative, to grab hold of some potential and turn it into something of benefit. Other needed resources come from outside of us. That’s what God’s comments about food are about. There are things not built into us that we will need. God creates out of nothing. We can’t do that. He depends on nothing outside of Himself. We are so very dependent. So, He provides the materials and the energy we need to fulfill His calling.

And what is the goal of all of this? It is to discover the potentials of creation, tame and be creative with them and then to be amazed at the wonders of God, built into all of this. Fulfilling our calling leads to worship. We do what we do to make God look as good as He really is, first to ourselves and then to others.

Now, I’ve just described you. I have explained what it is that God has called you to. You are to tame and be creative for His sake. And your Creator has given you the resources that you need to accomplish that.

Now, we need to get more specific. No one person can do all of that taming and being creative. It’s a group project for all of humanity, and we are all given a piece of the action. So, God calls each of you to specific aspects of this taming and being creative. Part of the slice given to Adam was agriculture. God, likewise, calls each of you to some slice of the big picture. There are examples of this in the Bible. Let’s start with Paul. This is how he describes God calling him. ‘… he who had set me apart before I was born… called me by his grace.’ Paul was called by God to a particular slice of taming and being creative. There are some who will hear this and say that that’s all well and good for religious callings, like being an apostle or a preacher. But it’s different for the rest of humanity. Well, what about Bezalel? ‘The Lord said to Moses, “See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft.”’ Bezalel wasn’t called to be an apostle or a preacher. God called him to be an artisan, a craftsman. He was to build the Tabernacle. And just as God called Bezalel He calls each of you. There are those, however, who will still think that the idea of calling is still limited to the religious. After all, Bezalel was called to build the Tabernacle. So, let’s try this from 1 Corinthians. ‘Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.’ Paul isn’t writing about apostles or preachers, or even church architects. He’s writing about all Christians. He’s writing about you. God has called you to a certain kind of life.

It is helpful to note that in the larger context of that last passage Paul specifically refers to slaves. He is telling them that God has called them to that life. They are there not because they chose it. But in God’s providence that’s where they are. And that adds to our understanding of God’s call. Not only are all of us called by God to a certain kind of life, but sometimes this comes about not because of our choosing. Just as none of those saints to which Paul was writing chose to be a slave, none of you chose to have the parents that you do or to be an American citizen or lots of other things. There are parts of God’s calling that are yours by your choice and other parts that are not.

God has called each of you to a life. He has given to you some aspect of taming and being creative. He has provided the resources that you need to perform His calling. So, as you look at the different things that you do, they are all to fit together as the life to which God has called you.

Now, I find this very helpful. We all can say, ‘God has called me to this life.’ As a result, we all can have a sense of dignity when it comes to the different pieces of the life that God has called us to. It doesn’t matter what people think about what we do or where we live. God has called us to these things. It also works the other way around. We can have no pride especially when we compare ourselves to others, thinking our situation is better. Rather we are to say, ‘God has called me to this life and him to that life.’ Out of all of this comes contentment.

Viewing your life in terms of God’s call also means that you can succeed. You can fulfill His calling because He has provided all that you need to do that. He has given you the resources, some from within and some from without. So, it is impossible for you to be called to a certain kind of life and not be able to fulfill that calling. That doesn’t mean that fulfilling His calling will be easy. But it does mean that it will be do-able. I think that that gives a great deal of hope.

One more thought here. Since it is God who has called you to the life you lead, then ultimately you are accountable to Him. So, it is good, from time to time, to ask yourself, ‘How am I doing at fulfilling God’s calling?’ Or it may be better to say that it’s good from time to time to ask God what He thinks about how you’re doing when it comes to fulfilling His calling.

Now, this is where I need to tweak things. You may have noticed that I’ve left out an important factor in all of this. I’ve left out sin. There’s a reason for that. There was no sin when the events of Genesis 1 occurred. Sin doesn’t show up until Genesis 3. But, we, of course, live after the advent of sin. And that, to be sure, affects everything that I’ve said. Sin messes things up. It always does. It messes up everything about God’s calling. For one thing, there is the problem of rebellion. God calls each and all to a kind of life, but we all start with a defiant, ‘No! I don’t want this kind of life. I want that kind of life.’ Rebellion against God’s calling. And that will bear its ugly fruit. For some it will be discontent, or to translate what might be a church word, being grumpy about your life. Others will suffer confusion about how to live, especially when it comes to making decisions. How can you make a wise decision when the one right choice, what God calls you to, is automatically ruled out at the beginning? And then there is hopelessness since that person is cannot get what he is hoping for, a life without God. Someone trying to define his own life always faces messy consequences.

And that’s why Jesus has come. He has come to redeem lives. That includes restoring the broken relationship between that rebel and the God who created him and calls him to a good life. So, there is forgiveness. But change is also a part of redemption. Here, the change is about submitting to God’s call instead of being a rebel. But wanting to submit to God’s calling and knowing what that means are two different things. So, Jesus’ work of redeeming lives also includes guiding someone into that life that God has called him to. A favorite couple of verses fit here. ‘Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.’ These verses create a picture. There is this little child, and his father is holding his hand as they walk together. The child doesn’t need to know anything about where he is going or how he is going to get there. All he needs to do is let his father hold his hand. It’s up to his father to get him where he is supposed to be. From time to time I put myself into that picture as the little child, and I find that so comforting. It’s good to be reminded that I really don’t have to know much of anything. I can relax and just let Jesus lead me. And that’s what He does for us all. He leads us away from a foolish and frustrating life that we have defined on our own terms, and into the beautiful life that God has called us to. And the culmination of all of that is ‘glory’. In heaven there will be no sin, and all of us will be living the kind of life He has designed for us.

But we are not there now. Jesus’ leading is a process. So, we still deal with how sin messes up God’s calling for our lives. And there are times when you can feel that something is wrong. It’s all supposed to fit together. But one slice of your life is in conflict with another. The intended harmony of the parts just isn’t there. One classic example is the pastor so caught up with his ministry that he neglects his family. Now, the slice of his life labeled ‘pastoring’ is not evil. Neither is the one labeled ‘family’. But it is clear that something is wrong. And here is the key question for that pastor: ‘What is the life that God has called me to?’ It may well be that God has called that man to be a pastor. Or not. But it is absolutely clear that God has definitely called that man to be a husband and a father. And the reason is clear. In God’s providence, he has a wife and children. His sense of being called to the ministry is changeable. His calling to be a husband and father is not. There are some pastors who need to make some serious changes when it comes to their sense of calling to the ministry, to the point of maybe not being a pastor, so that they can fulfill God’s obvious call to be a husband and a father.

There are times when large changes need to be made so that all the different parts of the life that God has called a person to fit together in harmony. And when someone in that situation hears the lies, ‘Well, change is a good idea, but it will never happen. It’s too hard to make those changes’, he needs to remember that Jesus has come. He has come to redeem so that we can enjoy the life that the Father has called us to. He provides all we need for that to happen.

The world out there knows nothing of this call of God on your life, and it doesn’t care about it either. And so, it will make demands of you that will run counter to what God has called you to. I recently read something by Pastor Tim Keller about the people he ministers to in New York City. It connected to some thoughts of mine.

You can’t just disciple people on how to be Christians in their private lives (e.g. prayer, witnessing, Bible study). Center-city people don’t have much of a “private life.” If you are in finance, or art, or acting or medicine, your vocation dominates your life and your time.

Having your vocation dominate your life and your time might be fine as long as you don’t have a family. But if you do, then it’s just plain wrong. My sense is that employers are expecting more and more of the people who work for them, and they don’t care about the other parts of life that God has called them to. You need to be aware of this kind of thing. And it’s not just the job. Satan will use whatever is available to pull you away from God’s calling. Be careful. Living well is tied to heeding God’s call for your life. Don’t be fooled.

So, it is good to ask yourself, ‘How am I doing at fulfilling God’s calling?’ Looking at the different slices of your life and finding disharmony is a clue that something is wrong. When you find that disharmony, the right response isn’t to try to figure it all out on your own. Jesus redeems by grace. What you need to do is simply discuss it with Him and be open to whatever it is that He guides you into. Remember, He holds you by your right hand. Let Him lead you.

Your God has created you for and called you to a certain kind of life. You won’t be able to perfect that life here, but you can make much progress as Jesus guides you.`