Answering the Call

Intro: Story about employee wanting promotion to the Florida, ready to move, couldn’t go right away. He’s calling you because there is a vacancy. (mention you will allude to later), don’t mention someone else will fulfill until later.

Text: Jesus teaching here in parables and tells the story of a dinner party and Luke 14… 16b “A man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many; 17 and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, 'Come; for everything is ready now.' 18 "But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, 'I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; please consider me excused.' 19"Another one said, 'I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please consider me excused.' 20 "Another one said, 'I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.' JUMP TO VERSE 26 26"If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.

27 "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.

Prayer

Clarification of Text:

Land – Could represent ideas we have considered necessarily normal in our cultural context

Oxen – Could represent our personal desires being excused as necessities and priorities

(and the ) Wife – Is a place where we might use family as an excuse rather than managing those relationships in a healthy fashion

In each case none of these ideas are evil. Jesus just had to be clear that the call is something that is in the here and now and takes precedence and causes all of those other ideas to be seen in their rightful place. But Jesus uses the word hate here, did you see that.

Hate – He wants us to hate our families huh? Isn’t that what the Bible says? In this context Jesus is not talking about hate in the way that a child hates Brussel sprouts, or the way I hate green beans, or even the way any of us hates Michigan football. O-H, alright… No, Hate here is being used as a comparison word, in other words your love for me will be so great, it will look like you hate others. He is saying that one who truly answers the call that God has on their life will experience a tension between those that they are close to you who will see your commitment to God’s call as something that makes you disloyal to them or they may even perceive it as hate because they have to take a back seat because of your focus on Christ.

Let’s look at a few teaching points this morning that will help us understand the lesson Jesus is trying to teach here.

We create a picture of God’s will for our life that includes conditions.

We want God to show us His will through the filter of our plans which will always be distorted by our personal goals and ambitions. We place non-negotiables in front of God and then expect Him to work around us. All the while we may not realize one of our “healthy goals” is the very thing that is keeping God from moving the way that He wants to in our lives. Dave Ramsey (Sometimes the Holy Spirit speaks outside of a budget or a plan on a whiteboard, and we have to be ready to pivot).

A lot of us create goals that are healthy ideas such as time with family, responsibly handling finances, furthering education, or any other “good” thing. That’s what we see these individuals doing in Luke 14 is it not? God has no issue with us being responsible and even following scriptural principles. His frustration with us comes when our “healthy” goals get in the way of the call. It has been my experience that when we make His calling on our life the central thing, that everything else seems to fall in to place.

Transition: But rather or not we like to admit it… we aren’t so ok with trusting that process to work. Second teaching point then is…

We question God’s call when it questions our priorities.

None of us is going to say out loud that we put our priorities in front of God’s call in our life, but whether we like to admit that to be the case, our actions and our planning say otherwise. Just like our 3 contestants in the story today we say things like surely God does not want me to sacrifice time with my family? Surely God does not want me to have financial struggles? Surely God does not want me to give up on my 5,10,or20 -year plan?

Jesus knew that since the beginning of time one of humanity’s greatest issues was the need to know what only God knew. Wasn’t that the issue in Eden? Satan says to Eve, hey Eve, you try this fruit and you will know what God knows. Do we realize today that no human has the capacity to manage knowing the future? James said there is plenty evil today, why do you want to know about tomorrow’s issues as well? Tomorrow is too much to handle until you have arrived there with the daily grace that God gives you to make it through. In Deuteronomy 33 God blesses the tribe of Asher with these words… “As your days are so shall your strength me.” REPEAT People why do we keep trying to face the anxiety and challenges of tomorrow without the grace that He has promised to provide when we get there? Tell me this morning, what day has He not got you through yet? If you’re here today and He’s brought you through, put your hands together for Him. C’mon just praise Him like He’s worthy of it because He is. Pause. All my life He has been faithful, and He’s not going to stop now. Will you just receive that this morning. Moving on… (reflectively), of course…

God is ok with our planning, what He is not ok with is our possessiveness of those plans. Our need to know the details proves our lack of trusting God to handle them. Complete surrender to His control is ultimately the spiritual issue that confronts us.

Transition: Again, this is a not really a spiritual issue most of us want to deal with because we like being in control so…

We continue in our priorities because we have not made His call the most important thing.

· If we stay busy enough we can quiet the call with the noise of our agendas.

· Busyness in good, sometimes even spiritual things lets us justify our lack of sacrifice for the call. But how often do we sacrifice God’s perfect will for good yet lesser things?

· Christians we have allowed busyness to rule the day. Busyness looks a lot like something the Bible calls worldliness… getting caught up with society’s agenda, objectives, and activities to the neglect of walking with God. Be sure of this, If the enemy can’t slow you down, be sure he will try to speed you up. (REPEAT)

· All the while we forget that God wants us to freely receive from him what we are striving for. He calls us to rest in him, with the goodness of his blessings, and authentic fellowship. Imagining… (What was at the meal?) Have people call out favorites foods quickly… it’s all there.

· Transition: Then (or but) if we are not careful…

God’s plan for us will be fulfilled by others.

Surely God would not pass over me for a call and call another. He wouldn’t do that…

Let’s look back at Luke 14 in verses 21-23. 21 "And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, 'Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.'

22 "And the slave said, 'Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.'

23 "And the master said to the slave, 'Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled.

· Furthermore we see examples like Joshua and Moses

· But too often we make it about certain places, people, or opportunities. When answering the call that God has for you is about a point of surrender where you make a decision to make God’s will for your life the primary thing as soon as you possibly can. Your #1 focus should be working to expand the KOG. And everyone has a seat at the table for that mission.

· Ref from before: ANOTHER MANAGER CHOSEN Employees I would get them the job then they wouldn’t go.

· I think there has been some bad teaching over the year about God’s perfect will for our lives. Who knows maybe I’ve contributed to it at different points. But we must understand that His call on our life is always about accomplishing the will of the kingdom and while He might invite us again in the future we must understand, His kingdom will go forward, we are invited… it is we that choose rather or not we will join in the journey.

RESPONSE:

In our story today I’m sure that those that planned to follow Christ intended to use their excuses for “God’s glory.” If I develop this land, I’ll give it to God. If I sell these oxen, I’ll give the money to the church. After I raise my family I’ll be committed to the church. All the while Jesus was saying no, right here, right now follow me. Be with me. Spend time with me. Picking up your cross, means laying everything else down.

We place non-negotiables in front of God and then expect Him to work around us. What kind of kingdom gains do you suppose would be made if each of us made pressing into God through prayer a nonnegotiable part of our everyday experience?

God has a calling on your life, but perhaps we can’t pick up the cross, because we won’t stop talking about finances, activities, and accommodations.

We must also be careful not to look at every negative circumstance as a sign that we are not in God’s will, evil can still take place when we are in God’s will, not necessarily because we are outside of it. In fact, oftentimes perceived negative circumstances confirm we are doing what He has called us to do. In Matthew 5 Jesus said Blessed are you when persecuted and in John 16 he reminds us that trouble is part of living on this planet.

ANSWER THE CALL TODAY

Have you heard the invitation to answer the calling? Are we sure we even really want to hear it? Because if you do want to hear it, I’m fairly sure that you would have heard it by now. The real question then becomes when are you going to answer? I’m not talking about knowing all the specifics. I’m talking about laying our plans down so He can reveal His. Too often we want God to speak into the big plan for our life, when He is calling us to surrender the intricate details to Him. If you are not obeying God in the smaller things, you can be sure that He will not move to reveal the bigger things to you. Seek God’s calling in your life, fully surrender your will, your plans, and every area of your life to Him and see if you do not find the answers to this life as you sit at the table with Jesus.