Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Dr. Paul Brand was called by God to become an expert in treating the deformed hands of lepers.

This Christian doctor has done more for restoring the hands of lepers then anyone in history.

It all began in 1947 in a leprosy sanitarium not far from Madras, India.

He was being shown around the hospital by Dr. Robert Cockrone the renowned skin specialist.

He noticed so many of the patients had twisted, gnarled and ulcerated hands with some fingers missing.

He asked how they got that way and what they were doing for them.

The answer was that they didn't know, and that nothing was being done.

Dr. Cockrone explained that not one orthopedic surgeon in the world had yet studied the deformities of the 15 million leprosy victims.

Dr. Brand was applauded.

That was more people than had been deformed by polio or in auto accidents world-wide.

Yet there was not a single surgeon to serve this desperate need.

He walked up to one of the patients and pride his fingers open.

He put his hand in his own and asked the person to squeeze as hard as you can.

He was shocked at the power, and had to ask the patient to stop for he was hurting him.

He realized that the muscles in this deformed hand were still good, but the patient could not feel the force.

At that instant he knew the Spirit of God had called him to find the answer.

With that hand shake his vocation for life was determined.

He went on to become the leading surgeon in the world for lepers hands.

Dr. Brand's call was as clear to him as was the call of Moses at the burning bush, or the call of Paul on the road to Damascus.

Dramatic calls like this are very personal, and they may mean little to others.

Paul's call was doubted, questioned, and fought by many.

He had to defend his call all his life.

The same was true for Moses.

A call from God does not mean that even godly people will recognize it as God's call.

One of the greatest missionaries to China was the little British lady named Gladys Aylward.

She was converted at a Salvation Army street meeting, and as a cleaning lady she got to reading the books of her employer who had a large section of them on China.

She felt God wanted her to go to China to share the Gospel.

When she applied to the Mission Board they gave her an intellectual test she could not pass, and they said no.

She did not measure up and could not go.

She went anyway, and she became so successful that years later a motion picture called "In Of The Sixth Happiness," was made about her ministry.

God's call is above man's approval.

We could go on endlessly telling stories of calls like this, for there are thousands of them.

But because they are amazing and dramatic they are the only calls that we hear about.

The result is that the greater call of God to all His people is obscured and terribly neglected.

The very Greek word that Paul uses in verse 1 to describe himself as called to be an Apostle is the word he uses 2 more times in his introduction to the Romans to describe the call of all Christians.

The word is kletos, and it is used in verse 6 of those called to belong to Jesus, and in verse 7 for those called to be saints.

Every Christian is called to belong to Jesus and to be saints.

This is a universal calling and one that would be more history changing than any other calls of God if God's people would heed the call.

We have so exalted the special call to the few that we have ignored the general call to the many.

This is so even though the calling of God to all His people is the primary emphasis of the New Testament.

This same word kletos is used by Paul again in Rom.

8:28 where he writes, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."

All Christians are just as called as Paul.

He does the same thing in I Cor.

He uses the word called twice as often for all Christians as for himself.

We tend to think of Paul as somewhat conceited because he is always telling people he is called to be an Apostle.

But Paul exalts all Christians, even the poor ones of Corinth, to the level of the called.

He begins I Cor.

with, "Paul, called to be an Apostle," but in the next verse he refers to the Corinthians as those called to be holy.

They are just as called of God as he is.

We do not have time to study all the related words that show that every child of God is a called one.

Let me just read the last use of this word in the New Testament from Rev. 17:14.

"...the Lamb will overcome them because he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings-and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers."

To be a Christian is to be called.

There is no special class of Christians who are called and others who are not called.

All Christians are called.

They are not all called to be Apostles, or pastors, or surgeons, but every Christian is called into the ministry.

Any Christian not in the ministry is missing their calling.

This Greek word also means invited, and some translations have it as, "You are the invited ones of Jesus Christ."

The Gospel carries with it the invitation or calling to follow Jesus and be like Him.

The goal of God is not just to save people for eternity, but to produce Christ-like people in time.

The call of Gospel is two fold: Come unto me and be saved, and then come with me and be sanctified.

We are called to be saved and then called to be saints.

This calling may not be as dramatic as a burning bush, or a blinding light and voice from heaven, but the fact is, it is just as authentic.

This universal calling means no Christian has to worry about his or her gifts and abilities, for regardless of their abundance or scarcity every Christian has a calling to be a saint.

Paul makes it clear that anybody can be a saint.

In I Cor.

1:26-29 he writes, "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called.

Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things-and the things that are not-to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him." Paul is saying that if you are a dime a dozen, no big deal, and a commonplace nobody, you qualify to be called to be a saint.

The problem is that the Christian world has so copied the secular world that we have lost this biblical truth, and instead we have magnified the super-gifted and talented Christian to the level of stardom, and we assume that only these special people are called to reach the world and accomplish God's purpose.

This is why the will of God is not done on earth as it is in heaven.

You don't have ten percent of the angels doing the will of God while the other ninety percent watch them do it.

All in heaven do the will of God, and when all of God's people on earth will recognize they are just as called as the super star Christians, then God's will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

One pastor asked another how many people in his church are willing people.

He said that all of his people are willing.

Ten percent are willing to work, and ninety percent are willing to let them.

This is very common because Christians do not realize they are called.

Paul was a super star who was called of God to write this letter to the Romans that has changed the course of history.

It has been the key influence in the conversion of other major super stars like Augustine, Luther, Wesley, and Bunyan.

This is Paul's longest and most influential letter.

Luther called it, "The true masterpiece of the New Testament."

It has been called, "The Cathedral of the Christian faith."

Ray Stedman expresses the conviction of many when he says, "It is safe to say that Romans is probably the most powerful human document every written."

Everyone agrees that to know the book of Romans is to be theologically educated.

Godet, the famous Swiss commentator, wrote, "The reformation was certainly the work of the Epistle to the Romans....and it is probable that every great spiritual renovation in the church will always be linked, both in cause and in effect, to a deeper knowledge of this book."

Everyone knows that Romans was not Paul's first letter, but it is the first one in the New Testament because it is the most important.

All of this just seems to support the idea that God's plan is to get his will done through superstars.

But we need to read the rest of the story.

How did this wondrous letter get to Rome? Paul did not take it there.

It was carried by someone , and that someone is one of histories most important mail delivery persons.

No plane; no train, no pony express rider ever carried a letter with a greater impact on history than did the carrier of this letter to the Romans.

But this obscure servant is practically unknown to all of us.

It was Paul's faithful female friend by the name of Phoebe.

She was an active member of the nearby church in Chenchrea, and Paul asker her to help him out.

She did by carrying this letter from Corinth to Rome.

Renan said that when Phoebe sailed away from Corinth she, "Carried beneath the folds of her robe the whole future of Christian theology."

Paul the superstar wrote it, but Phoebe the mere helper got it to the people it was destined for, and thus to the rest of the world.

Phoebe is only mentioned once in the whole New Testament, and Paul tells us her gift was that one everybody chooses when they feel like they have none, and that is the gift of helps.