Commit to your Calling
March 12, 2023 • Shane Sikkema • Colossians 3:12—4:1
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Today, we are continuing our sermon series committed talking about the essential habits of an abundant life. I think we are eight weeks into this series and we got about three weeks left to go and then that's going to bring us up to Easter Sunday already. And so looking forward to that. And this week we are tackling what is probably the most ambitious topic in this entire sermon series. I sat down to prepare the sermon this week and I realized this really could have been like three separate sermons and so tons of editing to get it down into one. And I promise I'll talk fast. If you listen fast, we'll try to get through all of it. But this is not going to be an exhaustive sermon on this topic. But hopefully it's at least a good introduction into our topic today because our topic today is the topic of calling.
And the question before us is what is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of life? What is more specifically your purpose in life? Why are you here? I think one of the most frightening and dreadful feelings that a person can have is the sober consideration of a meaningless existence. It's contemplating the possibility that your life might have no purpose. Or even worse that it does, but you are failing to find that or to fulfill that purpose. We live in a world where we have so many options of what we could spend our lives doing, that we are oftentimes paralyzed by all of the possibilities before us. And rather than helping us come to a decision, all of the options actually seem to make the problem even more complex of finding out what is our purpose. Because now in addition to figuring that out, we have the pressure of making sure that of all of these options before us that we choose the right thing.
And what if we get that wrong? I think about the opportunity cost of getting something like that wrong. We only have one life to live. How are we supposed to live it? And that can be terrifying. Like what if we are to reach the end of our lives only to look back and see that we never truly lived, that we never truly figured out why we were here, what we were supposed to be doing. And that's a very real fear that most of us have experienced at one time or another. And the only real solution to this is something that Christians have often referred to as calling.
And John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, he wrote this. He said that, "The Lord bids each one of us in all of life's actions to look to his calling. For, he knows with what great restlessness human nature flames, with what fickleness it is born hither and thither, how its ambition longs to embrace various things at once, therefore less through our stupidity and rashness everything be turned topsy-turvy, he has appointed duties to every man in his particular way of life. And that no one may thoughtlessly transgress his limits, he has named those various kind of livings, callings. Therefore, each individual has his own kind of living assigned to him by the Lord as a sort of century post so that he may not heedlessly wander about throughout life."
As Christians, we believe that God has a plan, he has a purpose for every one of his children. And that this purpose is something that we can know, that we have a calling that we need to discern and to answer. And my hope today is that we will look to God's word together and as we do learn to discern what God is calling us to do throughout the various seasons of our life. And so if you have your Bible open, up the Colossians chapter three.
We're going to go through this entire chapter actually all the way through chapter four verse one. And I'm not going to read the entire text up here up front because it's a little bit longer. We're going to take it just section by section and work through it together. And as we do, I want us to focus on helping you to discern and to commit to four things. Number one, to commit to your general calling. That's going to be the first 17 verses. Second, commit to your seasonal calling. That's the next few. And then commit to your particular calling. And then at the end we'll look at this idea of commit to receiving an inheritance in heaven and leaving a legacy here on earth. And so I'm going to start just by reading the first 17 verses. This is Colossians chapter three, beginning in verse one.
And the Apostle Paul writes this. He says, "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you. Sexual immorality and purity, passion, evil desire and covetousness which is idolatry and account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these you two once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Here there is not Greek and Jews circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarians and slave free. But Christ is all and in all. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord is forgiving you, so also you must forgive. And above all of these, put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. In whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."
This is the reading of God's word for us this morning. Would you please join me in prayer for our sermon today? Lord, we thank you that you are a God who knows each of us individually, that you care for each of us individually and you have gifted and equipped each of us individually according to your purposes and plan. Lord, help us today to know how each of our lives can bring you the most glory, can do the most good according to the unique gifts, opportunities, and personality that you have given us both together as a church and individually as your people. Lord, help our words, our deeds, whatever we do to be done for your glory and the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and out of thankfulness in our hearts to you our God and Father. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Well, point number one today is to commit to your general calling. Before we get into the topic of discerning and committing to or your specific or your particular calling, we need to understand that God has given a general calling to all Christians, to everyone who is a follower of Christ that we need to answer. And we know that first of all, we are called to Christ, that through the call of the gospel we are called to become followers of Jesus. But then Paul shows us that in Christ we are also called to a few different things. We are called as we see in this text to live with a new identity, to live as part of a new family, the household of God, and to live in a new way, a new manner of living as well. And so first of all, we say that we're called to live with a new identity.
Verse two, Paul says, "Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God." And in verse nine he says, "Don't lie to one another saying that you've put off the old self with its practices and if you've put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator." And he says here, "There's not Greek or Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free. But Christ is in all." And the big idea here is that he wants us to see is that when you are called to Christ, that you're not just given a better life, that you are given a new life, that the old you dies and that you become a new creation in Christ. And Christ then becomes the centering principle of your life.
That this is your identity. And so your past, your reputation, your ethnicity, your job, your bank account, your education, your pedigree, none of that matters. That Christ is all and is in all, that you become a Christian period with no adjective to qualify that statement. We stand before the cross of Christ, all of us from our various backgrounds, we all come, we stand before level ground and we are all then unified, made one body in Jesus Christ. And this is our new identity that we are called to live in, to walk in. And this new identity, it leads directly to the second thing that we're called to do, which is to live and to love a new family. That we're saved out of the world and into the body of Christ, into the church. And Paul gives us instructions of how we are to behave as children in this family, as members of this body.
And in verse 12 he says, "And so therefore put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord is forgiven, you also must forgive. And above all these things put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you are called in one body and be thankful with the word of Christ dwell in you richly teaching and an admonishing one another with all wisdom and singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts." To God, this is how you are to behave and relate to one another in the church. The Jesus saved you out of the world and into this family, the God the Father, he finds us as orphans lost in our sin and he adopts us into his family by the blood of his son Jesus Christ.
And this is important because one of the reasons that I think a lot of Christians struggle with discerning God's will or sensing what he is calling them to do and perhaps therefore feel like they're lost, like they're wandering throughout life. Well, it starts because they have failed to answer this first calling, to join themselves to a local body of believers, to surround themselves by the body of Christ because scripture tells us plainly that when Christians fail to do this, that a Christian without the church, it's like a leaf being blown about in the wind or it's like a child that is stunted in its growth, that is suspended in a state of adolescence, not growing, not maturing.
And Paul talks about this in Ephesians chapter four. He's describing the church and the purpose of the church and God's vision for the church. And he says that God gave to the church, the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers in order to equip the saints, all of us, the church, the members of the body to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning and by craftiness and deceitful schemes, rather speaking the truth and love or to grow up into every way into him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body joint and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
And so before we can begin to discern our particular callings in life, we need to understand before anything else that this is God's will for you, for me, for us. His will is for us to understand, to live in this new identity that we have in Christ and in this new family to become members of a local church, to commit ourselves to a group of believers who are going to know us and can encourage us and hold us accountable and support us throughout this life of following Jesus. Because the third thing that we're going to see as we follow Jesus, as we're called to Christ, is that we're also called to learn a whole new way of life, a whole new manner of living. And we're going to need people around to help us do this. This is not going to be easy. Verse five, he says, "And so therefore put to death therefore what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passions, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry."
He says, "The wrath of God is coming and these you two once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth and do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his creator." Says, "Jesus calls us to a whole new way of life, a whole new manner of living, a new morality with new purpose, new identity, new family." And we need a proper understanding of this general calling that we all have because this is going to be like the prerequisite foundation to everything else that we're going to talk about this morning, that we can't begin building the rest of our lives and answering the rest of our callings until we have this solid foundation.
If you want to know what God is calling you to do specifically, you always need to begin with what he has already called you to do clearly and generally in his word. That God is never going to call you to do something that contradicts his will, that contradicts his word revealed to us in scripture. And so commit to your general calling. And then number two, commit to your seasonal calling. Verse 17, Paul says, "Whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." And then he shifts. He just got done saying, this is how you're going to need to live and behave. This is how you're called to be in the household of God and now this is how you're going to be called to be in your household. And so he begins giving instructions for the household.
He begins with wives. Verse 18, "Wives submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. And fathers do not provoke your children less they become discouraged." So he shows us how to relate to one another. In God's household, here He shows us how to relate to one another in our households. And obviously this is not an exhaustive teaching, like scripture has a lot more to say about these familial relationships than what we see here. But for our purposes today, I just want us to begin by seeing this, that God is going to call you, he's going to assign to you certain responsibilities throughout different seasons of your life and those things are going to change and evolve over time. And your responsibilities as a child are going to look a lot different than the responsibilities that the Lord assigns to you as an adult.
You're going to have certain things that God calls you to do when you're single that are going to be different than the things he calls you to do if and when you get married or if and when you have children. And we don't think about this here in Boston very often because we're a very young city, but someday you're going to have the responsibilities as a child again. And if you haven't experienced this yet, the day is coming where you're going to be not under your parents' care. Your parents in some ways are going to come under your care. If they get sick or as they're aging, as they're approaching the end of life. And eventually they're going to need you to be there in that season. Eventually you're going to be in that season yourself needing the help of others as you approach that season of life.
And so like our general calling, these seasonal callings, they are prerequisite considerations as we try to discern our particular callings. And we're going to get to the particular calling here in a little bit. But first I want us to take a closer look at some of these seasonal callings that Paul talks about in the text. He begins with instructions for the wives. Verse 18, it says, "Wives submit to your husband's as is fitting in the Lord." Pretty short verse, but probably one of the most famous and detailed teachings, descriptions of God's vision for a godly wife in scripture comes from Proverbs 31. You're probably familiar with Proverbs 31, the Proverbs 31:10 says, "An excellent wife who can find. She's far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not harm all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands. She's like the ships of the merchant bringing her food from afar. She rises while it's yet night and provides food for her household in portions for her maidens.
She considers a field and buys it. With the fruit of her hands, she plants a vineyard. She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night. She puts her hand to the distaff and her hands hold the spindle. She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. She's not afraid of snow for her household, for all of her household are clothed in scarlet. She makes bed coverings for herself and clothing. Her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them. She delivers sashes to the merchant. Strength and dignity are her clothing. She laughs at the time to come.
She opens her mouth with wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also and he praises her. Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain. But a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the fruit of her hands and let her works praise her in the gates."
Long passage. And obviously this is a very idealized vision of what a wife, what mother can be in God's eyes, but that's what God does. He calls us to pursue these ideals of perfection and then he gives us grace for what's real as we work our way towards those ideals. But the point here is if you're in the season of being a wife, of being a mother, and you're trying to figure out what is God calling me to do right now, this is a great place to start. Proverbs 31, it shows us a wife who supports her husband and she cultivates peace and order and beauty in her home. It shows us a mother who loves her children. She's strong, she's hardworking, she's selfless. She's nurturing and wise. It shows us a business woman who is savvy and charitable and resourceful.
Most of all, what Proverbs 31 shows us is it shows us a godly woman, a woman who is known at the city gates, not for her beauty, not for her charm. She's known for her kindness, her humility, her generosity, her wisdom. She is known for fearing the Lord. And I pray that God would raise up more strong women like this, but I also just praise God because I know that we have so many strong women like this here at Mosaic.
And the big idea here as it relates to our calling is that what scripture shows us is the primary calling of the wife, of the mother, is to create order, to create beauty, to create shalom in her home. And then as she commits herself to this good calling, we see that if God gives her the margin and the opportunity to do so, she may also be called to expand that shalom outside of the home, into the community, into the marketplace. And so the home comes first, it takes priority, but as we see the Proverbs 31 woman, she's selling in the marketplace. She's purchasing real estate, she's planting a vineyard, she's caring for the poor. She's not doing these things to build up herself or her ego or her career. She's not doing these things to escape her home, but she's doing these things to bless her home and to make her home a blessing to others.
And this is not easy. This takes hard work, humility, wisdom. And this is going to look different in every household in some ways, right? Husbands and wives need to work together, pursue the Lord together, to discern and to determine where they need to draw those boundaries, where they draw those lines and keep those priorities straight. It takes a lot of wisdom. But verse 26 says that she opens her mouth with wisdom and that the teaching of kindness is on her tongue, that she looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. And as a result, her children call her blessed, her husband praises her. And in the creation story, God's first observation of something less than good, less than perfect is the absence of Eve. That it was not good for Adam to be alone, that he needed help, he needed a support. He needed a help made to come along and to help him fulfill his calling and purpose.
And that God said creation was not good without her. He creates Eve and then he gives them the commandment for the two to become one flesh, for them to be fruitful and multiply to fill the earth and subdue it. And God establishes this family unit as the means of fulfilling his cultural mandate. And I say all this to say that motherhood is one of the highest, most vital and most noble callings that a person can have. And it's also one of the hardest. And that's why we as Christians, we need to support the mothers in our lives. Our culture has been degrading marriage, has been degrading motherhood for generations and it is tearing our world apart. And Proverbs 31 tells us that a godly wife, a godly mother, is far more precious than jewels. It's a high calling to be a wife and a mother. And as Christians, we must value and honor the mothers among us even and especially when the culture around us refuses to do so.
And so Paul addresses the wives and the mothers. And then he addresses the husbands as well. It says verse 19, he says, "Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them." Again, he doesn't give us a lot here. Just one little sentence. If Proverbs 31 is the most famous and detailed description of a godly wife, then I would I'd say that Ephesians chapter five is the most famous and detailed description of a godly husband. And this is the parallel passage that Paul gives us in Ephesians chapter five, verse 25. He starts out the same way. He says, husbands love your wives, but then he continues. He says, "Love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the words so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.
In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body. And then he quotes Genesis, "Therefore, man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I'm saying it refers to Christ in the church, however, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. If Proverbs 31 asks us an excellent woman who can find, I think what Ephesians five is telling us is this, that bro, if you find her, she's out of your league. You're not going to find the perfect, excellent Proverbs 31 woman.
And if you do, she's probably not going to be interested in you. Your job is not to find the perfect wife. Your job is to build the perfect life, to build the perfect marriage, to find a woman who fears the Lord and commit to her. To commit your life, to laying yourself down, to loving her, to cherishing her, to nourishing her with the word of God so that then the two of you can grow old and excellent together, where you're both through this relationship being sanctified into the people that God is calling you to be. Scripture calls moms to cultivate and care for the home. He calls husbands to cultivate the marriage. Husband, God is going to hold us responsible for the health of our marriages and the health of our marriages are going to dictate the health of our families. It's a high calling.
Just like Proverbs 31 seems almost unattainable, Ephesians 5, I mean, you're literally being called to love your wife the way Christ loved the church. It's an impossible calling, but God gives us grace where we fail and then he gives us more grace to get up and to keep pursuing that goal, that standard as husbands. And so your wife's calling is to cultivate shalom in the home. And she can only do this as you commit to your primary calling. And husbands your primary calling, your responsibility is that God has called you to provide, to protect, and most importantly, to pastor your wives and children well so that they are loved, so that they are led, so that they are cherished and treasured so that as you do so that they can flourish to do all that God has called them to do.
So practically husbands, as you seek to discern your more particular calling, if this is the season of life that you're in, understand that God is going to call you to sacrifice a lot of things for the sake of your marriage and for the sake of your children.
He's not going to call you to sacrifice your marriage and your children for anything else that this world has to offer. Not your job, not your ambitions, not your hobbies, not your friends that you as a husband, if this is the season of life that you're in, this is your highest and most important calling. Second only to your calling to be a disciple of Jesus and to be a child of God yourself. And so he gives instructions for husbands and wives and then he begins to talk to children and parents. Verse 20, he says, "Children obey your parents in everything for this pleases the Lord. And fathers do not provoke your children less they become discouraged." So we're all children and we will always be children. And this command, this calling as children, it's going to look different throughout our lives. But the one thing that continues is the calling that we will always be called to honor our fathers and our mothers.
And as a young child, you do this through your obedience to your mother and father. As you're an adult, you grow older, you honor your father and mother through the honorable life that you build and live. And then as your parents' age, you may find yourself in a season again where you now need to honor them by sacrificially caring for them the way they sacrificially cared for you. First Timothy 5:3 says, "Honor the widows who are truly widows, but if a widow has children or grandchildren," he says, "Let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and it makes some return to their parents. For this is pleasing in the sight of God." And then in verse eight he says, "But if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for the members of his own household, he is denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."
We live in a culture that has devalued motherhood and marriage and children. That's also a culture that devalues the aging and the elderly. And as Christians, this should not be the case. And we should honor our father and mother. And whatever season of life you're in, Paul says that it pleases the Lord when we do this and it doesn't end the day that we turn 18 and go off to college. Actually, some of you college students, you probably need to work a little harder on making sure that your Honor and mom and dad now that you're out on your own and getting that taste of freedom, but it's a commandment that stays with us. And then parents, likewise your relationship to your children, it's going to change throughout the seasons of your life. But the greatest season of influence and responsibility that you have is obviously going to be when your children are young, when they're growing up, when they're under your roof.
And so throughout scripture we see Proverbs 22:6 is parents need to train up a child in the way that they should go so that when they're old, they will not depart from it. Deuteronomy 6:4 through seven says here, "Oh, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all of your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart and you shall teach them diligently to your children." Talk with them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. Just throughout the course of everyday life, you're constantly teaching, discipling your children. Colossians 3, the parallel passage to this is Ephesians 6. And again, Paul expands on it a little bit more there.
And he says, "Honor your father and mother for this is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land." And then he says, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord." I think one of the things that we wrestle with a lot of times as parents is how do we do this? How do we strike this balance between discipline and instruction on the one hand and not provoking our children to anger? On the other hand, this is something that I've personally been trying to get better at as a father, as a dad. And what I've been learning is one of the most important things you need to do is you need to know what kind of situation you're in and what you're dealing with at every given moment.
Because getting the situation wrong is often what leads you to provoking your children to anger rather than giving them the discipline and instruction that they need. And so for example, is the situation that you're dealing with sin. Because if it's sin, then you need discipleship, right? Sin is the child has sinned against the commandment of God, and yeah, they might need discipline and correction, but with that you need to talk about the gospel. We need to talk about how God is holy and God is just and he has instructed us how we ought to live, and that when we sin against him, we need to repent and we need to confess our sins. And that when we do this and come to him, he forgives our sins, he cleanses us of unrighteousness. He takes away our guilt and shame. And he does this because Jesus Christ died on the cross and our place and we need to talk about this with them and pray about that with them.
And then when we as parents, I mean I've never done this, but maybe some of you have, when we sin, we have to go to our kids too. If we sin against our kids, say, ask for your forgiveness. I need to pray. I need to repent and model that for our kids. Sin needs discipleship, and disobedience needs discipline. And what's the difference there? Well, sin is you've sinned against God. Disobedience is you've sinned against mom and dad. So the Bible never says, thou shall not run out into the street or play in the parking lot or jump on the furniture or anything like that. But mom and dad say that. We need rules in our household to keep things orderly and peaceful, but we shouldn't confuse those rules with God's rules. And so if there's disobedience, a dishonoring of father and mother, there needs to be correction and discipline, but it's a little bit different situation than if they've sinned against God. Is the situation ignorance?
Sometimes kids are just... They're foolish. They're ignorant. They don't know what they don't know. And as parents, it's tempting in those situations to get frustrated and want to correct with discipline where actually what the child in that time needs is instruction. They need guidance. They need help seeing what they can't see. Fourthly, it could be weakness. It's not that they're ignorant, they know the right thing to do, they just aren't quite mature enough to do it or they're having... They're struggling. And again, in those situations, they need encouragement from their parents. It could be mistakes. Somebody's always going to spill the milk. Someone's always going to knock over the lamp. And as parents, it's easy for us to get frustrated and want to lash out in discipline where actually everyone makes some mistakes. And in those times as parents, we got to show sympathy.
We got to show compassion. Mistakes need compassion. Six, are they just being annoying? Because if you have kids, you understand this, sometimes they're just like, oh, you're driving me nuts. And it's not that you're doing anything naughty or wrong, it's just that you're a kid. And sometimes kids drive us nuts. They're annoying, they're loud, they're crazy, they're rambunctious. And in those times as parents, sometimes we just need to show patience. We just got to let the kids be kids. And then finally is the situation success? Because let's not forget that too often we get really focused on correcting what's wrong, we forget to celebrate what's right. And success needs celebration. When your kid does something well, they should know that you're pleased that you celebrate that with him. So Paul covers all of these seasons in life, husbands, wives, parents, children. But there is one season that he doesn't cover, and ironically, it's the season that he himself is in.
And it's a season that many here in this room today are in as well. So I feel like I should say something about this. The season of singleness in adulthood. We live in a very young city with a lot of young single adults. And so the question is how do we live? What does God call us to in that season? I think Jesus kind of anticipated this because in Matthew 19, he was teaching his disciples about God's high standard for marriage. That marriage is a covenant that is foreign between one man, one woman for a lifetime, that you are committing to one another through thick and thin, till death do you part. And he says to them in verse nine, Matthew 19:9, "Whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery." And his disciples said to him, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it's better to not marry."
They thought this seems like an impossible standard. And he said to them, "Not everyone can receive the same, but only those to whom it is given. For, there are eunuchs who have been made so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this, receive it." Now, obviously Jesus isn't talking literally here, but I think what he's getting at is that there's going to be some people who for a variety of reasons, either can't get married or won't get married, not due to no fault of their own, perhaps they even have the desire to be married, but it just doesn't happen. But then he also says there's going to be some people who choose for themselves to forego marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.
Well, Paul was one such person. In First Corinthians 7, he talks about this. First Corinthians 7:6, he says, "Now, as a concession, not a command, as a concession, I say this, that I wish that all were as I myself am speaking of his singleness, but each has his own gift from God, one of one kind, one of another." So Paul says, "I'm giving this as a concession." This is not necessarily the ideal situation, but in a fallen world, what he's saying is that while it might be ideal, it might not be ideal for a person to remain single. In a fallen world, singleness is redeemable by God's grace. And in God's grace, this concession, as Paul describes, it can also be described as a gift. And it might not be a gift that you wanted, might not be a gift that you asked for, but he goes on in verse 32 to explain why it should be viewed in that manner.
Verse 32, he says, "Because I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife." And then verse 35, just to make it clear, he says, "I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord." And so if that is the season that you're in, you're an adult and you're in the season of singleness, just a couple of things I want you to know. First, it's a unique calling and Paul says, it can be viewed as a gift and it's one that you share with the apostle Paul himself. Secondly, if you are single and you find in yourself a strong desire for a godly marriage, don't feel guilty about that.
That is a very good desire. And if you have that desire and it hasn't been fulfilled, you should persistently pray and prepare and pursue yourself for marriage unless God has made it abundantly clear to you that he is calling you to remain unmarried. And along the way, if you have that desire and there are factors outside of your control keeping you from being married as you desire to be, don't lose heart. Ultimately, no, marriage is not going to give you the ultimate satisfaction in life that you're looking for. It's not going to scratch that itch, that ultimately you can only find that in Jesus Christ and in your relationship with him. And then thirdly, in your singleness, know that you are not being sidelined. That on the one hand, God has a very good purpose in marriage and we should not undermine that. Obviously our culture is, and even some spheres of Christianity, it feels like that's being undermined and that should not be the case.
God has a very good purpose in marriage that it is a picture of the gospel and it is the means by which he ordained the cultural mandate to be fulfilled. But as we see here, God has a good redeeming purpose in singleness too. And so Paul says, what is that? He says, you're free from the anxieties of marriage and parenthood. And there there's a lot of anxieties, a lot of responsibilities that come with marriage and with parenthood. He says, you're free from those anxieties in order to be anxious about the things of the Lord, that in your singleness you have a greater bandwidth and capacity for ministry, for serving others, for building friendships in the church, for blessing and building up the household of God. And so to summarize, like unless God has clearly called you to remain single, you should pray and you should pursue marriage.
And while you're single, make sure that you steward that gift well. And then through all of it, you need to rest and find your ultimate satisfaction in Jesus Christ. So these are the seasonal callings, and these callings are going to affect the way that we approached the final calling that we're talking about today, which is point number three, committing to our particular calling because in verse 22, Paul shifts. Again, he's talked about God's household, he's talked about our household, and now he begins to talk about what we might call like the workplace career, vocation, things like that.
In verse 22, he says, "Bond servants obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye surface as people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work hardily as for the Lord and not for men. Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrong doer will be paid back for the wrong he's done. And there is no partiality. Masters treat your bond servants justly and fairly knowing that you also have a master in heaven."
And so the general principle is in the workplace, whether you are an employee, an employer, you're the boss, the manager, whatever you are, that you need to first of all be treating the people that you work with, with dignity, with honor, with respect, and you need to be working hard. You need to be working as if Jesus Christ were your boss. And Paul says actually that is the truth that you are serving the Lord when you are at work. And with this, one of the reasons that I think many Christians struggle when it comes to sensing God's calling for discerning God's will for them in this area, they get anxious about what is God's will for my life in this area.
Well, I think one of the reasons is that too often we as Christians, we start in the wrong place. We tend to want to start with this, with what is my particular specific calling in life? And then we kind of try to build our faith, our family, our church, things like that around that. And scripture tells us, you got to do the opposite. You need to seek first the kingdom of heaven and then all of these other things will be added unto you as well. And the point is not that God is unconcerned with our careers or our vocations, the point is that God is just... He is far less concerned with your career that he is with your character and with your holiness. And so before we kind of complete this discernment of our particular callings, scripture makes it very clear what God's will is for us.
First Thessalonians 4 tells us this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor. Not in the passions of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one transgress and wrongs his brother in this manner because the Lord is an adventure of all these things. As we told you beforehand and solemnly warns you, for God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards not man but God who gives his Holy Spirit to you. And he goes on in verse nine, he says, "Now, concerning brotherly love, we have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God, how to love one another for that indeed is what you're doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia.
But we urge you brothers to do this more and more and to aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands as we instructed you so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. It's a very simple view of God's will for us to just live quiet, godly lives. And we need to understand that more than anything, this is God's desire for us, is our holiness, is our sanctification. And so I picture this process, it's kind of like looking through the lenses of a telescope. And so the first lens, you begin looking through the lens of the general calling that we talked about that before anything that I know that I have been called to love the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind, strength, that I've been called to commit myself to the body of Christ, to the local church, to live a holy life, to grow in sanctification. Anything that God calls me to do in life, it needs to pass through that lens first.
And then the second lens is that seasonal calling that we talked about, that I need to ask myself, what are my commitments? What responsibilities has God assigned to me in this seasonal life? Because again, anything else that he's calling me to do, it needs to pass through that lens as well. And when you bring those two together, that's when you begin to kind of be a frame and focus God's particular calling on your life right now. And so how do you take that last step of framing, of focusing God's particular calling? What is he calling you to do right now? Well, I don't think there there's any one right thus sayeth the Lord way to do this. There's no chapter in the Bible that clearly says this is how you discern God's will. But I do think that there's many principles throughout scripture that you can bring together that are helpful.
And so I'm going to share just something that I know many people have used, that I myself have used for many years at many times to help me discern God's will, to help me discern what God has been calling me to do in particular seasons of life. Because never in my life have I heard the audible voice of God come down and say, "This is what I want you to do." But I have used this filter on several occasions to help me discern what God's been calling me to do. And it has in the past it's never let me down. I call this the diagram of discernment. So my wife made this cool graphic for us. We all love our Venn diagrams here in Boston. You get the idea. You got the five circles, and what you're looking for is that sweet spot in the middle where they all overlap and come together in agreement.
And so you see the first one there is you got to consider your convictions. You got to consider your gifting, your opportunities, your character wise counsel. And when all of those come together, well, that's what you're looking for. So first of all, consider your convictions. What has God put on your heart? Is there something that you're passionate about, something that you're burdened for, something that you feel like you ought to do, that you need to do to be faithful to the Lord? This is a good place to start. It's a good indication of God's calling. It's a good place to start. It's not a great place to finish though because scripture tells us that our hearts are deceitful and wicked, and our feelings often lead us astray. And so we can't just say, well, this is what I feel, and so this is what God's calling me to do, but our convictions, they're a good place to start.
We need to go beyond that though. So we also need to consider our gifting. If you're passionate about something, if you feel God's put something on your heart, are you skilled and equipped to do something about it? If God is calling you to sing on the praise team and you're tone deaf and you have no rhythm, well, I'm sorry, but I don't think that's the voice of the Lord. You might be called to serve in a variety of other ways. It just might not be that. And that's okay. You got to consider though, am I gifted? Is this what God's wired and gifted and equipped me to do? Maybe I can't do this. Maybe there's another way that I can find to support this thing, but consider your gifting. Third, consider your opportunities. Something you're passionate about, you feel skilled, equipped to do something about it.
The next thing you need to ask is there a legitimate need for this? Are there opportunities for me to use my gifts in a way that's going to be helpful, that's going to glorify God, that's going to help others consider your opportunities. Fourth, consider your character. Understand that God is never going to call you. He's never going to call for your ambitions or your influence to outgrow your integrity, to outgrow your character. That you might have big, big plans to do great, great things, but if your life is all tangled up in sin and you're living this double secret life of hypocrisy, well, God's going to call you to work on your heart before he calls you to go and work on anything else. And then fifth is to consider wise counsel. You're passionate about something, you're skilled and you're equipped to do something about it.
You've got opportunities. You feel like your character, your heart are in the right place. The final, and probably I'd say this is the most important step, is to bring that sense of calling. Present it to other spirit-filled godly brothers and sisters in Christ. Say, hey, what do you think about this? God's put this on my heart. This is something I've been sensing. Do you agree? Right? Does it seem good to you and to the Holy Spirit that this is what God... And if all of these things line up, well, that's a pretty good indication that this is what God is calling you to do in your life right now. If they don't, there's red flags that come up along the way. Well, maybe you need to take some more time, spend some more time considering, discerning to figure out what's next. But just that's a helpful resource that I've used.
I think it'll be helpful for you as well as you commit to your particular calling. And once you figure it out, commit to it, work hardily at it with all of your might in a way that glorifies God. Finally, point number four today is commit to receive inheritance in heaven and leave a legacy on earth. Just one more quick reminder before we wrap out. Whatever season of life you're in right now, whatever particular calling that God has placed on your life, whatever that is, whatever you do, verse 23 says, work hardily as for the Lord and not for men. Knowing that from the Lord, you'll receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. First Corinthians 7:17 says, "Only that 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 of the churches."
And so my hope and my prayer is that whatever it is that God has assigned you to do, whatever he is calling you to do, that he would make that clear. That as that becomes clear, that you would commit to do that with all of your mights, so that as you approach that day, when you're coming to the end of your life, you can do so with just a fearless confidence and hope that your life has not been wasted, that it has not been meaningless, that you have fulfilled your purpose in life, that you have done what God created and called you to do. And so that as you reach that goal, you do so, and you're able to just look back on the legacy that you are about to leave and look forward to the inheritance that you are about to receive.
And this is not just my prayer for you, it's my hope for you, but this is God's will for you as well. So I'm going to close by reading the benediction, the closing verses from the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 13 verses 20 through 21 say this. This is now. "May the God of peace who brought again from the dead, our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant equip you with everything good that you may do his will. Working in us, that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen." Let's pray.
Father, the we thank you that you have not left us to wander aimlessly through this life like sheep without a shepherd, but you have sent your son Jesus Christ, our good shepherd, to bring us into your fold, to love us, to lead us into good pastures of abundant life. Lord, I pray that you would help us to see your good purposes and plans for us, and to give our lives to those things with all of our might. Lord, if any of us lacks discernment, if any of us are uncertain of what you're calling us to do, I pray that you would fill them with wisdom, with your Holy Spirit, surround them by wise council and help them come to know your good, your pleasing, your perfect will.
And Lord, if there's anyone here today that still feels lost and wandering outside of your fold, Jesus, I pray our good shepherd, that you would lead them home, that you would seek them, that you would save them today and bring them back into the fold of God. And for all of us, Lord, we pray that you would help us to live lives that bring your name the most glory, that do others the most good, and that leave a legacy of faithfulness and godliness that will impact generations to come for the sake of your kingdom and glory. Lord, we love you, we worship you, and we just want to sing your praises together right now. In Jesus Christ's name. Amen.
