“Majestic” Series: A Majestic Calling
1st Peter 2:9
Introduction:
By God’s grace we’re continuing with the “Majestic” series this morning. It’s a series that talks about the majestic life you have in Christ. And it focuses on the calling, the commitment, the consecration, and the completeness, of the life God has brought you into via the New Birth.
The series is based on 1st Peter 2:9…and prayerfully, it’ll help you understand more fully what you are saved to be.
Why don’t you stand with me, and let’s read that text aloud together now.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Let’s pray together now…that our hearts will be open to what we’re going to hear in the next few minutes.
What is “salvation”? That’s the question I’d like to pose to you here at the start. I’m not looking for you to answer it for me…I just want you to think about it for a moment. “What is salvation?” If someone were to ask you that question, what would you say?
There are probably answers immediately springing to mind, like, “Salvation is a gift.” Or, “Salvation is a life transforming experience.” Maybe you thought about salvation being the way you go to heaven when you die and avoid hell. Or maybe you thought about salvation being the way you go up in the rapture.
While all those answers are true enough, none of them get to the root of what salvation really is. To understand what salvation really is, I want you to engage your imagination with me for a few moments.
Imagine that you’re living in a country that’s under the oppressive rule of a foreign power. At one time in the distant past, this dark power conquered your people…and for generations it has worked to crush your native language, culture, religion…everything that identified you as a people.
Through oppression, insinuation, and corruption, this foreign power has wrought its havoc. Everything good about your people, everything that was lovely, everything that was wonderful…every holiday, observance, and custom…
…everything that brought joy…has been either torn to pieces or corrupted to the point of being virtually unrecognizable.
The point of all this has been your complete and utter subjugation. It’s been to make you forget who your people were. It’s been to destroy your identity. And it’s largely worked.
Your language is filled with the oppressors’ words, thoughts, and spoken with the oppressors’ accent. You live like the oppressors. You observe their holidays. And what ancient customs of your people that you retain are but shreds, mingled with the customs of the oppressors.
Yet…even after all the generations of being under the heel of this dark power…there is still the faintest spark of who you really are, of who you are really supposed to be. And from time to time that spark flares up and reaches out in hope that one day you will be free…even if you’re not sure what freedom would mean.
Now imagine that…after generations of this oppression…you hear that the land has been invaded. It seems that another power has risen, and this power claims to be one of you. And as he leads his army through the land, taking town after town, village after village, he restores the ancient ways of your people.
He restores it all! The language, the culture, the religion, the customs…all of it! Town after town raises his flag and goes out to meet him, and the oppressors’ forces flee before him.
And finally he comes to your town, and it’s as if the sun is shining for the first time in a thousand years! People line the streets, waving his banner, throwing flowers in front of him! They dance and sing the good & joyful songs of your people! They shout themselves hoarse! They feast, they celebrate, and rejoice…
…and rightly so. Because after generations of foreign oppression, of darkness, and corruption, your people are finally free. You’re going to be ruled in justice by one of your own now, by one who understands you, who knows your value, by one who loves you. You are his people, and he is of your people.
You’ve been delivered.
And at its root, and its very core, that’s what “salvation” is; it’s deliverance. It’s when you are delivered from your bondage to the darkness of sin and are brought to live in the light under the loving, just, transforming rule of your rightful King, Jesus.
I. Salvation Is a Calling
But how does this salvation begin? You might think that it starts with faith, but it doesn’t. Faith is something that God has built into the human heart, and we can place that faith in anything. We can invest it wisely, or we can squander it and use it up until we have no more faith left. No…salvation doesn’t start with faith.
It starts with a calling…with God calling to your heart to a different life, to a different way of being. It’s not really an invitation…at least, not as we think of an invitation. It’s more of a summons. You’re bidden. It’s as if the King from our story sends his herald to your home, and the herald calls aloud for you to come out to the King.
So, salvation starts with a calling…but conditions have to be right in order for you to be aware of that calling. If your life is too noisy, too busy, too preoccupied with all the things that make up your life as it is, you may not hear it. It usually takes an interruption of some sort, something that forces the life you’re living to pause.
It could be tragedy. It could be loss of a job. It could be relationship issues. It could be sickness. It really could be anything at all that interrupts your life and grants a moment of stillness…and you become aware of God’s call for you to draw near.
That interruption…that stillness…could come when you lay your head on your pillow at night. Or it could happen in a Sunday Worship service…it could be anything or anytime that interrupts the hectic busyness of your life, that turns your heart from the fullness of its own desires, and grants you a moment of spiritual stillness…and you become aware of the voice of God calling you to His salvation.
Of course, once you become aware of the calling, you must answer. And the answer is simple; it’s either yes or no. You can’t ignore God’s calling or pretend you didn’t hear.
Ignoring or pretending you didn’t hear are both the same as answering “no” to God’s call to salvation. And you can’t put it off by saying, “Call me again later, when it’s a more convenient time.” That’s also a “no”. When God calls you, you must answer “yes” or “no”.
A “yes” answer requires something of you…and this is where faith comes in. Answering “yes” to the call to salvation requires you to place your faith in Jesus.
God knows you’ve placed enough of your faith in other people and other things. You’ve placed faith in family, in friends, in educators, in coaches, and leaders. You’ve placed faith in companies, in political systems, & medical treatments.
But now…when you’ve heard God’s calling…you need to take whatever faith you have left and place it in Jesus. You’ve got to believe that He can do better with your life than you’ve done with it, than anyone else has done with it. And then you’ve got to step out of that old life, and begin walking toward Jesus.
That’s called repentance. It’s when you turn away from life as you know it, and turn toward Jesus. It’s when you turn away from sin, wickedness, and misery, and turn toward God’s righteousness, peace, and joy. Answering God’s call requires faith, and true faith brings repentance.
Then repentance will lead you to the waters of baptism. In water baptism, your life, your soul, your heart…they’re all cleansed. Your sins are forgiven. And you take on the name of Jesus…you identify publicly with Jesus, with His Kingdom, with His ways, and pledge your loyalty and faithfulness to Him.
That’s why we actually say Jesus’ name over you when you’re baptized; you’re taking on His name and all that His name means and holds.
You’ve answered God’s call, and now you rise from the waters of baptism to a brand-new life, a brand-new start. And God promises that He will fill you with His own Holy Spirit. You may receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit when you’re coming up out of the water…many have! Or you may receive it at some point later on.
But in either case, the Holy Spirit is God’s gift and promise to you…to empower you to live in your new life, and to do His work in the world.
II. The Nature of the Call: Contrast
Now that you perhaps understand a bit about what God’s call to salvation is, you need to understand something about the nature of that call.
First, God’s call is enlightening. That’s what Peter means when he said in our text that God has “called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
Before you answer “yes” to God’s call to salvation, you’re living in the dark. You’re trying to see in the dark, you’re trying to make your way in the dark, you’re trying to understand life from a place of darkness.
But after you answer “yes”, the light begins to dawn and you begin to live in the light. You start to understand what you didn’t understand before. You start to see the path of your life more clearly than you did before. You begin to see everything differently because now there’s light.
Walking in God’s light will affect how you understand everything. It’ll change your understanding of the power systems of this world. It’ll change the way you view your relationships and the way you engage them.
It’ll change your motivations. It’ll change the way you work, and your sense of who you’re working for. It’ll change the way you approach education and learning. God’s call is enlightening, and it’ll change the way you see everything.
Then, God’s call to salvation is confounding…which means it dishonors and puts to shame the values and priorities of the unredeemed world.
How does that happen? The Apostle Paul said in 1st Corinthians that God does this by calling those the world considers foolish, and weak, and low, and despised. God calls them…those the world rejects, those the world devalues…and transforms them, and uses them for His glory.
In 1st Corinthians Paul said it plainly; there aren’t many wise, powerful, or blue-bloods who are called. Most of them already think they’re something special. No…God calls the ordinary, and the less-than ordinary. And then He makes them into something special. And He does this so that no human beings can boast in His presence.
So if you’re here and you don’t think very much of yourself…if you’re here and you don’t feel like you’re something special…if you’re here and you feel yourself to have little value…then understand this; God’s call is for you, and He’s a creative, transforming God! He’s ready, willing, and able to take the low and despised and devalued of this world and transform them through His salvation.
Finally, God’s call to salvation is sanctifying. That means God takes sinners and makes them saints. God takes the vile and makes them pure. God takes the unholy and makes them holy. God takes the unrighteous and makes them righteous. God takes the wicked and makes them good.
Listen; when I say that God’s call is sanctifying, I mean that it separates. It separates you from your darkened past to a brighter future. It separates you from a life dominated by sorrow to a life filled with joy. It separates you from a heart disturbed by trouble to a heart ruled by His peace.
And all this…all this enlightenment, this transforming, this sanctifying…all this is about contrast.
It shows that through salvation there’s a contrast between the unredeemed mind and the mind of the saved. It shows that there’s a contrast between those great in the world’s eyes and those great in God’s eyes. It shows that there’s a contrast between the sinner and the saint.
These things are not the same, and its salvation that makes them different.
III. Called, Chosen, & Faithful
God’s call to salvation requires something of those who say “yes”, of those who step forward, who turn toward Jesus, who open the door of their heart when He calls.
It requires discipline. And, I don’t mean “discipline” as typically thought to mean today, with connotations of harsh structure, conformity, and punishment. I mean “discipline” in its most basic meaning: discipline as a course of learning.
God’s call to salvation requires that you invest yourself in learning…in learning all you can about Jesus, in learning all you can about the Scriptures and from the Scriptures. It requires learning new values, new vocabulary, new practices, new priorities, habits, and customs.
Some of that learning will come almost instinctively, and other aspects of it may require you to crack your brain. But you’ll find it worth it. And you know what? Those who are saved love it!
God’s call to salvation requires diligence. The life of the saved can’t be lived haphazardly; one must exert conscious, thoughtful effort toward being the kind of person that brings glory to God.
In 2nd Peter, the Bible teaches that there are things you have to prayerfully add to your life…things like virtue, knowledge, & self-control. You have to develop endurance, godliness, and the ability to show kindness to your brothers & sisters in Christ. You’ve got to work at becoming the kind of person who loves people as God loves them.
But first of all…and I guess most importantly…God’s call to salvation requires a decision. You have to decide to answer “yes” to His call. You’ve got to decide that He offers something better than the life you’re living.
You have to decide to answer “yes”…to step forward, to step out, and start walking in His direction. You’ve got to decide that the difference Jesus makes, the way of Jesus…that the transformation of everything…the total transformation He promises…is what you want.
God’s call to salvation is the beginning of a life that makes you one of the chosen, the royal, the holy, and the precious in His sight; it’s a life of eternal consequence that has eternal value. It’s a majestic life, and it all starts when you say, “Yes.”
Closing:
I close now with this reading from Ephesians 2:4-10…
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
This is the Word of the Lord! And let all the people say, “Amen!”
