Paul, a
bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of
God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures,
concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh,
who was declared the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness
by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have
received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all
the Gentiles in behalf of His name, among whom you also are the called of Jesus
Christ; to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints: Grace to you
and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Continuing to ponder what it means to be “the
called of Jesus Christ”:
What do you see
in the following passages?
“All that the
Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly
not cast out…This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given
Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day…No one can come to Me unless
the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”
(John 6:37, 39, 44).
“…that to all
whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life…I have manifested Your name
to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them
to Me, and they have kept Your word…I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on
behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours…I
do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me
through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me
and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that
You sent Me.” (Excerpts from John 17).
There is a sense
in which, as we ponder these words of Jesus Christ, that we are invited to take
a glimpse into the eternal counsels of the Godhead, the Trinity. I don’t know
that this is analogous to walking through the front door, perhaps it is more
like standing outside a window that has been lifted up so that we can just hear
pieces of conversation and catch a few rays of light. The temptation when we
encounter the mysteries of God is to speculate on the things we don’t know
rather than meditate on the things that God has graciously revealed to us. When
we speculate we miss God’s unveiling of Himself, while if we will humble
ourselves before Him and receive what He is revealing we will find ourselves
being drawn deeper into the koinonia of the Trinity.
When we ponder
the above passages, can we see that we do not belong to ourselves? Can we see
that the genesis of our relationship with Jesus Christ is in God and not in
ourselves? Do we see that Jesus Christ holds us tightly within Himself? While
we may not understand it, can we acknowledge that the Father has given us to
the Son?
In Acts Chapter
15, when the elders in Jerusalem met to consider the ramifications of the
Gospel being preached beyond Judah and Galilee, James had this to say, “Brethren,
listen to me, Simeon has related how God first concerned Himself about taking
from among the Gentiles a people for His name” (Acts 15:13 – 14). Do we see
what James is saying? God is “taking from among the Gentiles a people.” Just as
Jesus called and took fishermen by the shore of the sea of Galilee, just as
Jesus called Matthew from his tax business; even so God was calling and taking individuals
from among the Gentiles that Peter, Paul, and Barnabas were preaching to – God was
taking them to make them “a people,” to make them one with God’s People.
We see the deliberateness
of God in His “taking from among the Gentiles” in Peter’s vision in Acts 10 and
his visit to Cornelius; we see it again in Acts 13 when the Holy Spirit says, “Set
apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” God
is ever the initiator in missions; He calls whom He wills to both engage in
mission and to respond to the Gospel in mission. In other words, we cannot go
without His grace nor can others respond to the message preached without His
grace.
If we are indeed
“the called of Jesus Christ,” then not only are we not our own, but our work
and ministry must not be our own – we must learn to bow our hearts before the eternal
counsels of God and submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ, abiding in the Vine
– convinced that without Jesus Christ, the Vine, we can do nothing (John 15:5).
Is the mark of
the ownership of Jesus Christ upon our lives and the lives of our
congregations? Do we live as people who belong to Another? A distinguishing
feature of Jesus Christ was that He lived under authority, this is what
the centurion recognized (Matthew 8:9); do people recognize this about us and
our congregations? Are we subject to the authority of Jesus Christ? Are we
living according to the will of Another? Is doing the will of our Father and
Lord Jesus our source of light, life, and joy – is it the very reason we live?
I hope we will
also see the orientation of the Biblical Christian life, that it is centered
and arranged with the Trinity at its center, as its focus, and as its purpose
and completion. Hence Paul writes, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are
all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” (Rom. 11:36).
“But by His
doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness
and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, ‘Let him
who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Cor. 1:30 – 31).
Do you think of yourself
as being “the called of Jesus Christ”? What does Christ’s calling look like in
your life today?
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