“Your Next Call Story” Matthew 17: 1-9; Exodus 24: 12-18

This was the final sermon of our "Calling All Disciples" preaching series.  In the bulletin, people were given a page with five categories to take notes:  Gifts I Have; Training I Need; What Is God Calling Me to Do; Where is God Calling Me; Obstacles to My Call.  I probably would not separate the What and the Where categories, if I did the sermon again.

It felt like a good end to the sermon series.

 “Your Next Call Story” Matthew 17: 1-9; Exodus 24: 12-18; SAPC, Denton; February 19, 2023; Calling All Disciples series Richard B. Culp 

Matthew 17: 1-9: 

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Introduction:   Moses has a story to tell, a story about God’s call for his life.

Peter, James, and John have a story to tell, a story about God’s call for their lives.

Imagine sitting around with Moses, Peter, James, or John and listening as they tell their call stories.

a.  Moses

1.  Up on Mt. Sinai.  

2.  Like I was in the clouds.

3.  40 days and 40 nights - all a blur.

4. God gave me instructions for building the tabernacle that would travel with us.

5.  Moses now has at least two call stories to tell - the story of a burning bush talking to him and now this mountaintop story.

b.  Peter, or James, or John

1.  Up on the mountain.  

2.  Jesus a dazzling white.

3.  Would you believe, I saw Moses and Elijah.

4.  Voice from the heavens - “this is my son, the Beloved”

5. Like Moses, they have at least two call stories - Jesus calling them from their boats to follow him and now this mountaintop story.

c.  Imagine your own call story this morning.

1.  Maybe your story is not quite as dramatic.

2.  You can tell the story as a historical story, about how you have felt called, but it is also a forward-looking exercise and we consider our next call story. 

this morning, I invite you to use the sheet at the back of the bulletin to write down some of your own reflections.

Because I am Presbyterian, I have provided structure for your creative thoughts, but you are not bound by the structure.  

the structure is just there to guide if you need it.

Move 1:  Consider Gifts you have that help you as you live out your calling.

a.  Notice the assumption - you have gifts.

1. Not a question of whether God has given you gifts - God has;

but of your recognizing and claiming those gifts.

2. Examine.

3. maybe your gifts show up in what you like to do.

4. maybe your gifts show up when you are challenged, and your gifts help make those challenges meaningful.

b. b.What do people tell you about yourself?

Good listener?

Excellent teacher?

Great at pastoral care?

Leadership skills?

c. Explore the gifts you have and see how they fit with your sense of call.

  1.  Friend who was a math major in college.

she went off to work on a Ph.D. in math.

I remember talking to her at that time, and she told me she was giving up the pursuit of the Ph.D.

“Why?  I thought you loved math?”

“I do.  But I just spent a semester working on a paper, and there is hardly even a number on the pages.  Just Greek letters.

I love math, but I have learned that I want to teach students and interact with students and see how math works in practical ways, not just theoretical ways”

so, she shifted gears, got a Masters in math related to teaching it, and has spent her career teaching students and mvoing into administration where she still engages with students.

2.  Gift of math ability could have been lived out in different ways.

scribble a few notes, if you want, about the gifts God has given you and see the trajectory they might give you toward your call.

Move 2:  Training you might need:  

a.  As you discern your call, you may recognize the need for training to develop a particular skill to help you live into your call.

1.  You discover your passion is for something, but you don’t have the skill set yet.

2.  you need training.

b.  we believe not only in the God who calls us, but the God who equips us for our calling.

1.  some of you may remember Dr. Jim Spivey.

2. Terrific Presbyterian minister who retired here in Denton and was engaged in the life of St. Andrew in a variety of ways for many years.

3.  I remember one Sunday morning I was visiting, Dr. Spivey was the last-minute sub to preach due to the preacher getting ill the day before. 

As he began the sermon, I thought, “well, it’s great that a retired minister has an old sermon he can pull out of his files.”  

Then, he preached a wonderful sermon with illustrations from the current state of affairs in our world - no old sermon that morning.

4.  I was home for a visit when he was close to 90 years old. 

I went over to visit him.

He told me he had to leave in a little bit.

Where are you going?

to Stephen Ministry training.

Why are you doing Stephen ministry training?

I want to improve my pastoral care skills.

5. Lesson learned for me - training and developing our skills never ends, just as following God’s call for our lives never ends.

Move 3:  What is God calling you to do?  

a.  As you put down some thoughts in this quadrant, imagine and dream.

1.  your reflections are not a contract.  You are not bound to your thoughts.

2.  Just an exploration of what God might be calling you to do.

b.  Look for signs.

1.  Are you feeling that tug toward something.

2.  Do you keep having conversations with different people, and they all lead to the same suggestion for what you should be doing with your life.

3.  Is it the dream that will not let go of you?

c.  Test the signs.  Sometimes they are hard to discern.

1. When I arrived in Mt. Sterling, KY, for the interview weekend, it was the third visit I had to different churches.

2. I was not only concerned with the interview with that particular Pastor Nominating Committee, but also with the whole process.

3. How would I know which church God was calling me to serve?

4.  it was not until the second day of the interview that I had a tour of the church.

5.  When I went into the sanctuary, a feeling came to me and I knew, this was the place where I was called to preach and minister.

6.  As so it was.

7.  Fast forward six years or so, and I am interviewing with a church in OH.

8.  I could not wait until they took me into the sanctuary because I knew that would be where I would get the sign.  

9.  I walked into the sanctuary, and it was the first sanctuary I had ever been in with a pattern on the carpet.  

A very busy pattern.  

I looked down and my first thought was not “I am called to serve here, but if I served here, I would get dizzy every Sunday leading worship!”

10.  I ended up hearing a call to serve that congregation, but the signs were very different than what I was expecting.

Move 4: Where God is calling you?   

a.  As you ponder that question, remember, it is always into the world!

1.  Moses had to come down off the mountaintop

2.  Peter, James, and John had to come down off the mountaintop

3.  the mountaintop moments are often the places we discover our dreams about our calling, but we live out our calls in the world around us.

b. No surprise, because God is the God of incarnation.

1.  God chose to live among us in the particularity of our lives in Jesus Christ.

2. God still lives among us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

3.  God calls us to live out our calling in the real world.

move 5:   Final category -  Obstacles

a. Sometimes, as we imagine our call, we see the challenges that come with it.

1. Moses knew when he came down off the mountaintop, he had to lead a group of scared people who were in the wilderness and wondering about God’s presence among them.

2. it did not change his sense of call, but he had to be ready to account for that obstacle.

3.  His leadership of the Israelites in the wilderness is shaped by the challenges he encountered.

b.  As you live into the call God has set before you, there may be obstacles you see as well.

1.  You might jot them down, not as a reason to turn away from your call, but as a way of discerning how to best move forward in your call.

2. in fact, sometimes as we work through the obstacles, we find a further definition of our calling.

3. And the God who calls you, is also the one who helps you deal with those obstacles.

Conclusion:  Reflect on God’s call for your life.

Live into your call.

tell others about it.  

I bet your next call story is going to be a terrific story to tell.

Reflections on “A Higher Calling” Deuteronomy 30: 15-30

This is the penultimate sermon in the preaching series "Calling All Disciples."  It felt like it worked.  

 “A Higher Calling” Deuteronomy 30: 15-30; SAPC, Denton; February 5, 2023; Calling All Disciples series Richard B. Culp 

 See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. ¹⁶If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. ¹⁷But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, ¹⁸I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. ¹⁹I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, ²⁰loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

Introduction:   We continue our preaching series “Calling All Disciples” and the invitation to reflect on our own sense of what God is calling us to do.

Two weeks left. 

Move 1:  To follow your call means to make a decision about that next step.

a.  the story we read in Deuteronomy is about making decisions.

1. Part of Moses’ farewell address.

2.  he is looking at the future for God’s people as they are about to enter the Promised land, knowing he will not go with them.

3.  and he is looking back over his life and the history of the Israelite people and recognizes that his life has been a series of decisions he makes about following his calling.

4.  Remember, Moses was an Israelite baby saved by his sister and mother from being killed as an infant and then raised by Pharaoh’s daughter.  

5.  AS his life unfolds from that point, Moses has to make a series of decisions. 

As a young man, he has to decide if his loyalty was with his Israelite people or with his adopted Egyptian upbringing and stature.

then, when Moses encounters the burning bush with God’s request that he go back and lead god’s people, Moses has to make a choice - go back and lead God’s people out of Egypt or do something else.

Throughout the journey in the wilderness, Moses has multiple moments in which he can choose to follow God’s leading, or turn away.

  3.  Likewise, Mose can look over the history of God’s people and see where they have made decisions to follow God’s calling and other times when they have ignored God and chosen a different path.

b.  As we read this story, we are reminded that following God’s call for our lives means making particular choices at particular times in our lives.

1.  As we move down our life’s journey, decision points come along the way.

3.  interesting point about this story we read in Deuteronomy - it describes a time in the life of the Israelites when they had to make a big decision, it was a story that was told often in the 6th C BCE when the Israelites were in Babylonian captivity.

In both settings the shape of Israel’s future was uncertain and this word from God was intended to assure God’s people that a future of life in the land of promise was certainly in view. At the same time, how the people responded to the word of God would shape the nature of that future.(https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-23-3/commentary-on-deuteronomy-3015-20-3; Terence E. Fretheim)

4.  The point being made is that the Israelites’ journey as God’s people will have multiple decision points about how they follow their calling.

5.  Like the Israelites in the wilderness, we may misread our calling at times or like Moses try to avoid God’s call for our lives,  but the good news is that God is ever before us, giving us opportunities to change directions again or finding ways to redeem the call we have chosen.

4.  Answering God’s call for your life is not a one-time event, but a series of decisions we make as our lives change and the world around us changes.

move 2: The story from Deuteronomy also gives us the important reminder that We do not choose our call as a way of earning God’s love or our salvation.

a. Scholars point out that when Moses sets up this moment of decision-making, the people had already been redeemed by God (see Deuteronomy 7:7-8). 

1.  God has already chosen them.

2. they do not have to answer God’s call correctly to earn God’s love.

3.  Instead, making decisions about their calling is a response to their experiencing God’s saving grace.

b.  As you consider how to answer God’s call for your life, it is not about you having to do something to earn God’s love

1. God has already chosen to love you.

2. Following God’s call is your response to God’s gracious love.

move 3:  the story we read from the Gospel of Matthew also reminds us to think about our call in aspirational terms.

a.  Notice how Jesus talks to the gathered crowd.

1. this passage follows up Jesus’ teaching that we know s the Beatitudes, sort of his instructions for how we are to approach our lives.

2.  in a series of comments, he takes the letter of the law and pushes it to a higher standard.

3. We are not called to act in ways that settle for the lowest standard we can get by with, but to push for ways that reveal God’s grace and god’s love.  

b.  As you ponder where God is calling you in your life, do not settle for the easiest things that come along that may or may not fit what you are sensing God is calling you to do.

1. Be aspirational.

2.  Consider how and where God is sending you that pushes you and calls you to give of yourself in meaningful ways.

Move 4:  Final thought - as you consider your calling, remember  Moses’ words - choose life

a.  Interestingly enough, the way Moses uses this phrase is very unique in the Old Testament.

1.  This is the only time in the Old Testament that this Hebrew word for “choose” (behar) has human beings as subject.

2.   (usually God “chooses”). 

3. Perhaps this emphasizes the importance of choosing to follow God and how in doing so it is life-giving.

b. years ago as I contemplated my own sense of call, one of the pivotal moments was listening to a sermon.

1.  I still remember the sermon title: “I’d Rather Be Fishing.’

2.  I actually heard it twice - Friday night at the final worship service at Synod Youth Workshop, where I was an adult leader,  and then again two days later in Houston where I was about to start law school and decided to worship at the church where the keynoter from Synod Youth Workshop served as pastor.

3.  He didn’t write a new sermon. 

 he preached his Friday night sermon again.

i guess I needed to hear it twice to get it.

4. the preacher’s main illustration that led to the sermon’s title was a bumper sticker that adorned many cars at the time that said, “I’d rather be fishing.”

5. The minister suggested that too many people chose to do those things that we thought we were supposed to do, or that the world told us to do, or that we thought we should do because of all the rewards that might come with doing it,  instead of listening for and then following God’s call for their lives.

6. He suggested if you follow God’s call, you will never need

 a bumper sticker that says, “I’d rather be fishing!”

c. As I responded to that sermon then and have reflected on it through the years, it seems to me that he was saying follow your call that is life-giving to you.

1.  sometimes the call we choose to follow may be difficult;  

2.  sometimes, it may feel like the wheels have been greased because everything flows so nicely.

3. either way, our calling should be life-giving to us and bring opportunities for us to give life and meaning to others.

4. the God who gives us life by blowing the breath of life into the mud calls us to places and tasks that breathe life into us and others.  

5. That is who God is; that is what God desires for us.

Conclusion:   The Israelites are at a place where they know their world is about to change drastically as they enter the Promised Land.

Moses reminds them at this critical moment: “follow God’s call and choose the path that is life-giving.”

You may not be at such a critical moment in your life’s journey, but Moses’ words still ring true:   “follow God’s call and choose the path that is life-giving.”