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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The first stanza of that sermon hymn, please allow me to read it to you again. Listen.
O Christ, who called the twelve to rise and follow you, forsaking old familiar ways, for ventures bold and new, grant us to hear your call to risk security. Amen. And bound in heart and will to you, find perfect liberty. That is a prayer.
That prayer was reflected in what the choir sang after the Old Testament reading. This morning’s theme is about thankful service bestowed.
And you see in the Gospel reading and in the Old Testament reading a thankful service being bestowed upon some specific individuals. Their calling before the service even began. You heard Elise being called to faith and being called as one of God’s servants.
Now the calling in the Gospel reading and the calling in the Old Testament reading is a very narrow calling. Jonah was called to be a prophet. Peter, Andrew, James, and John were called not only to be believers in Christ, as Jonah was, but also to be apostles of Christ.
But the broader call, of which all of us have received, of which you saw Elise receive… It’s the call not only to faith, but also to be a part of a family known as the church, and to imitate and to proclaim what the church has been given.
You see, as she grows up, just like you and like your children, she learns to speak by imitating the sounds that she hears from you, her family. In the faith, it is the same way. Children learn the faith from their parents. Yes. From the family known as the parish family who is surrounding them and nurturing them in words that they themselves have received.
It is the same with us. And the service that Elise has been baptized into, of which all of us have been baptized into, is a life of service that you and I have seen others serve us first and foremost. Amen. Faithful teachers and pastors, faithful aunts and uncles, grandparents who served us with the Word of God, imitating what they have been given to us, and then we pass that on to our children. And they, by God’s grace, to their children after them.
That’s the broad calling into the thankful service of which the theme for this day is about. But let’s look at the faithful or thankful service that those apostles were called into. And that the prophet Jonah was called into. Because being called into this thankful service, there are lots of landmines. Some of you have already stepped on them. Some of you have laid them down for someone else to step on.
Just think, if Peter, when he was asked by Jesus to follow him, and then before he said yes, Jesus said, “Peter, before you say yes, I want you to know what’s involved here. You’re going to hurt a lot of people’s feelings, and you’re going to crush people with your words, because you’re a fiery man, Peter. And yet you’re going to bless many people, because God’s going to use you and your fieriness to proclaim me. You’re going to be scorned and ridiculed, just like I’m going to be scorned and ridiculed. And you’re going to die, by the way, also like I died, crucified as a martyr.”
Now that you kind of know a basic outline of what it means to be called into thankful service as God’s child, follow me? I don’t think so. I think Peter would have been like you and me and said, “Let me think about this one first.” Peter had no idea what was in store for him. Neither did his brother Andrew. Neither did James and John. And you know what? Neither did you.
When God called you to faith, you had no idea of the landmines you would step upon and the landmines you will lay for others to step upon by your own actions. We had no idea. And had we known, I don’t think we would have allowed ourselves to get wrapped up into this group.
But it’s not by what we think is why we are wrapped up into this family. It is because of what Christ did in you and through you. Had Jonah been warned of what he was going to do, would he have really taken that? Well, you know he didn’t, and that’s why God had to have him kicked off a ship, swallowed by a great fish, vomited up on the shore, and then he was ready.
And when he went to Nineveh, he did not just go to specific places that he had pre-planned. He just went and he just proclaimed. And God used Jonah in spite of Jonah, just like God used Peter, Andrew, James, and John in spite of their pride and their false thinking of themselves, just like he has used you.
This is the great service unto which we have been brought by God’s grace. Now, if you think, “Well, but God, this era that we’re in right now is such a difficult era.” It really isn’t. Jonah would have loved to have preached to Austin rather than Nineveh. At least in the city of Austin, there are fellow believers. In Nineveh, there were none.
God did that miracle not because of Jonah’s great zeal and ability, but because of his great message. Jonah told the people what he had first been told. No different than Peter, Andrew, James, and John proclaimed what they first had had proclaimed to them.
So you… And Elise and all of us who have been baptized into Christ can do nothing more than proclaim what has first been proclaimed to us, that Christ was born for us, that Christ did live that life that we cannot live, that Christ did die the death that we will never have to die, and that Christ will be the one who alone, separated by our sins from the Father, we will never have to face that separation.
Therefore… Continue to be friendly. That’s probably the easiest thing that you can do as one in the thankful service of our Lord is to be friendly. Not because they’re going to be friendly back to you, but because that is what God did to you in Christ Jesus. He befriended you when you were not so friendly to Him.
That is what Elise has been baptized into and so have you. To share something that is other than you and me. That was given to you and me. That was handed to you and me. That’s been a part of this family into which we have been baptized—the body of Christ.
Because there are people out there who need what we have. What you’ve been given by grace. And you can say anything you want to about, “Well, I haven’t been befriended by some people,” or “I have been misused by some people.” We can cry in our beer all we want to. At the end of the day, we still have to face Christ, and He alone forgives us for our stubbornness.
Keep being friendly. Keep being inviting. But, Pastor, you don’t realize, I’ve invited people for years, and they never come. That’s exactly how Peter, Andrew, James, and John came. That’s how the people of Nineveh came. That’s how you came.
Lest you think it was because of a specific family into which you were born, lest you think it was because of a specific region that you were born in, it’s still by grace, right? Because of all those people whom you can count and say, “Well, it’s because of my mother, my father, my sister, my brother.” Yes, it is, but it was because Christ worked through them in you.
Because you can also name a whole bunch of people who sat with you in the pew that aren’t here in the pew anymore. It’s grace, brothers and sisters. Keep inviting. Keep inviting. Keep introducing yourself because there’s a lot of people whom you do not know yet. Amen.
One of the great gifts that many pastors would give their eye teeth for is as friendly of a congregation as you are. Reaching out to people whom you see, whom you don’t know. Yeah, it’s a little nervous. Yeah, it’s a little unnerving to do it. But do it. It’s what someone did to you when you came into a church that wasn’t where you grew up either.
And you were welcomed, and you were introduced, and you began to know people. That’s what God does through you. That’s the service into which we’ve been baptized. Keep encouraging one another. We all get very tired. We all step on landmines that we’ve had laid for us by others.
Keep encouraging one another not to grow weary. That’s what they need out there, and you and I have it here. That’s what they crave out there, and you and I have it here. Oh, by no means is it perfect here. But we sure have something that transcends you and me and our imperfection.
Which is what’s in your heart and in your mind. Christ. There was a recent article sent to me by a brother in Christ who’s a member here. And it’s done by a research group that’s been doing research within the church for nearly 30 years. A research group called Barna.
They’ve researched and have said that 60% of all 15 to 29-year-olds have exited the church. 60%. Of all, 15 to 29-year-olds have washed their hands of the church. And they’ve given some interesting reasons as to why. One of them, because they find many churches to be shallow and lacking substance.
Brothers and sisters, that’s what these people, as well as other people of different age groups, need. Substance. Not cream-filled donuts, but substance. That’s what you’ve been given since you were brought up in the church. Substance.
The other thing that they have said is that they feel like God is missing from their services that they’ve been attending. They feel like it’s too hip, too watered down, and too entertaining. That’s not what we have, brothers and sisters. We have something to offer.
Now the next one is kind of an interesting one, and it’s one that we have to wrestle with. It is that they don’t feel too safe to express doubt. Right? Differencing of opinions and belief. My experience with that same age group of non-Christians overseas in Iraq for those two tours is that they don’t mind having someone disagree with them as long as it’s disagreed in kindness and gentleness and as long as the argument has substance and isn’t just washing our hands of wanting to discuss it with them.
You’ve been given such a gift. You’ve been given such a gift. Finally, these young people that are attending, the 40%, most of them are attending traditional and conservative services and churches. Brothers and sisters, we have what they need. You’ve been given what they need. You have had that need fulfilled within you.
Now, if you want to talk about another one called to faith, whose father was never around him much at all, he was given the faith because of a faithful mother and a faithful grandmother. His name? Timothy.
And this young pastor, Timothy, was given a great exhortation of comfort by the older Paul, who would have to die also a martyr’s death. Paul wrote to him and said this, “Listen carefully. Knowing from whom you received it.” Those faithful people, Sunday school teachers and parochial teachers and pastors and moms and dads and aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents and friends, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you’ve been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation.
And it has made you this way so that you may be competent and equipped… For every good work, having been called to faith in your baptism, having heard the Word of God that has been given to you, not just by the newcomers, pastor and I, in your life, but other faithful ones who have been a part of your life, you have been thoroughly equipped and you are competent enough to imitate what’s been given to you by these loved ones of the church around whom you’ve been surrounded all your life, around whom new people are being surrounded.
Follow that example that they have served. Are they perfect? By no means. Have they been filled with foibles and problems? Absolutely. Have they been faithful to that word that has been given to them? That is really what we are imitating.
That’s the thankful service unto which we’ve been given, and we know not where it’s going to lead us. No different than when your mother and father brought you to be baptized. They had no idea of some of the pain that you would endure in your life, and yet they brought you to be baptized, knowing full well that the God in whose name you were to be baptized would carry you through those things in your life.
It is the same for you and me today. In the name of Jesus, amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
