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St Peter’s Church Bredhurst Sermons: God’s Calling |
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Notices and |
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Good Friday – |
Not a sermon but a
discussion document Divorce and our policy |
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God’s Calling
There is a pattern in the bible of God calling people, often
in quite spectacular ways, and then seemingly wandering off before coming
back years later and renewing the call.
To take just two examples, Isaiah received his amazing vision of God
in the year that King Uzziah died, and God tells him that he will be a prophet. But God then gives him nothing to say for
another 16 years till the next King has died.
Paul had that amazing experience of the risen Christ on the road to
Damascus and is appointed as God’s, and I quote, “chosen instrument to carry
my name before the Gentiles.” But, we
hear no more of Paul until years later he emerges from where he has been
hiding and begins his great missionary work. There are two stories of the calling of Peter in the
Bible. In John’s gospel, Peter is a
disciple of John the Baptist. Jesus is
pointed out to him and Peter’s following starts there. In Mark, Jesus calls Peter later on. It seems that Peter was a disciple of John
who switched allegiance to Jesus. Two
days later Jesus wanders off into the desert and Peter does what Peter always
does when Jesus turns his back – Peter goes fishing. It continues to be the experience of God’s people, and
indeed my own experience; you sense God calling you and then he goes off into
the desert and you go back to your fishing, your career, bringing up a
family, caring for a relative. Until,
one day, He’s back and calling you again.
And that’s where we find Peter in Mark 1, verse 14. And I want to go through this carefully. After John was put in prison: Peter was one of John’s
disciples. God’s call often comes in the middle of some great turmoil. For me, it was just before my teenage
daughter announced she was pregnant.
There is no easy path in Christian Ministry. It is the way of the cross. Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the Good News of
God: When I was training, my tutor
asked me “what is the church for?” The
answer he wanted was “to proclaim the good news: “The time has come, the
kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" The good news we proclaim is God centred –
The kingdom of heaven is coming. The
required response is personal – repent and believe; or change your way of
life and put your trust in God. And it
is urgent, the time is now, not tomorrow but today. Moving on, as Suresh would say: As Jesus walked beside the
Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the
lake, for they were fishermen. God
calls us from our current life whatever that may be, and in most cases the
calling comes to people who are pretty much settled in what they are
doing. Yes, there’s trouble afoot, but
Peter is a fisherman and he’s fishing.
God does not wait for us to become super spiritual; he takes us as we
are. Take the disciples, I can hear
Jesus saying PLEASE take the disciples.
A motley, unreliable, uncouth, unbelieving, illiterate rabble who
changed the course of history. There’s
no-one who is not at risk of God’s call. A second point from this section, Jesus called a group of
friends. This is not always the case,
but the majority of biblical stories involve God calling friends or members
of a family rather than one individual.
Ministry can be a lonely job and God knows that we will need
support. I can only assume that God,
in giving me not only Marilyn, but also my wardens, DCC and this congregation,
thinks I need rather a lot of support. Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you
fishers of men." Not only does
God call us from where we are, but He also calls us AS we are. He uses the skills and learning we have
acquired whilst He’s been in the desert and we’ve been fishing. Peter the fisherman becomes the preacher
who gathers up Christians as he once gathered up fish. Paul the learned debater of Jewish law
becomes Paul the learned debater of Christian grace. At once they left their nets and followed him. Jesus did not stop walking. There is a warning here. God’s call is immediate and He walks on. We need to start following. It took Jesus three years to mould the
disciples into a part way decent team but they were on the road. It took five years before I was
ordained. For Peter, there was no
debate; Jesus did not look back. Come,
follow me. After these years you’ve been fishing, are you again hearing
God calling you? If you are, drop the
nets and follow – or in modern parlance, talk to Graham, today. To those who have never heard God’s call on their life I say
listen. I was in the church yesterday
afternoon and one of the steady stream of visitors who popped in said to me
“I think I was meant to be here today.”
She was right and you are meant to be here today, because God is
calling you to come and be near to Him, to hear His voice through the
clattering noise of your life. And he
says this: “follow me”. Amen |
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