I would like to introduce the subject that I want to talk about here this afternoon by reading to you just a short quote from a publication that not too many of us, I think, would be readily familiar with. I don’t know if you can see from where you are the masthead, but it says, "Our Co-Workers’ Bulletin". It says, "Published Every Little While". This is 1947 and it is one of our early co-worker letters that Mr. Armstrong used to write. The date is February 9, 1947, so this was published just a couple of weeks after I was born. I am tempted to ask, is there anybody here who recognizes this from the time it was published? I wouldn’t do that.
Mr. Armstrong says here in one particular section under the heading "Solemn Tremendous Import of Our Mission". He says, "Co-workers, we have come to the time when you must realize the overwhelming solemn import of the mission to which God has called us, you and I, in his great Work. For this is no ordinary religious work, but something entirely different. Time grows short. We are nearing the end of this world. Not the end of the earth but of this world and age, this civilization. Time is fast running out. It is later than we think. Thank God, it is still day. We still can work, but the night draws swiftly near when no man can work for God. The time has come when our co-workers, all a vital part of this work, must realize that our calling is something vastly different, no ordinary church work. But the most serious, momentous, important work on earth today. We must all take it just that seriously, solemnly, reverently. God give us eyes to see. God grant us understanding now."
And that is a rather timeless statement, which is why I introduce my subject with that. Because it has been a long time I believe since we have focused on a very important aspect of our lives, and that is our calling. Our calling. Do we appreciate our calling? Do we know what it is? What does being called mean to our everyday lives? What impact does it have upon us?
I would like to begin by giving a personal example. When I was 18 years of age I was living what could have been called a normal life for a teenager for that day and age. Now in case you’re beginning to think you might get some juicy tidbits here, my children are present so you are not going to hear certain things about what I was doing at 18 years of age. We have got to maintain a certain image here. You see to be an ordinary or average teenager of that time you have to understand that I went all the way through high school and graduated from high school and never knew of one single person who did drugs. Nor did I know of one single person who had illicit sexual activity. Was it going on? I suppose it was, but it wasn’t obvious in the peer group that I hung out with at that time. Now time has moved on and times have changed. But I was living a happy life. I had a good job. I had a job that I thoroughly enjoyed in the civil engineering, surveying field, with the interests that I had in life. I am a little more mechanically minded that way, I suppose, in that way, and I was very much enjoying what I was doing. I was surfing. I would often get up at four in the morning and drive down to the beach, surf for an hour or two, come back and go to work. I was involved in sports in my local community, local teams that I played with. And these were sports that were real sports, not some of the stuff that you see today. It was cricket. Not this swing and miss stuff that you see on television today. And the football was real football that men played, not merely these crash helmets and all this padding and stuff that they wear. So life was pretty good.
What I mean by this is I didn’t have a void in my life that I felt I needed to fill. Right? Life was going on pretty well at that period of time. But around age 18, and I can’t put an exact timing on it but it had to be around 18 years of age, I began to read literature from the Church of God. My mother had begun to attend. My brother had begun to attend. And I thought they just accidentally left literature laying around the house. I found out later that they deliberately left it laying around the house that I might pick it up. I’ll get even with them in eternity. But I began to read things and my mind was absolutely blown away by some of the stuff I read. Because it was information I had never heard before. And it was information that could be substantiated by turning to the Bible and beginning to read it. And that was a brand new experience for me. Something very specific happened in my life at that time.
As I look back on it and think about it, essentially what I was involved with at that time at age 18, 19, and so on, was knowledge. Because I was learning things that were unknown to me. Now, you may not have had this experience, but because as I said, I had more of a technical background and interest, there were certain subjects I just didn’t bother to get involved with going through school. When I started to read the literature from the church, I had to go away from the church literature to other literature to read and find out what it was that they were saying was wrong. For example, evolution. Now of course you grew up with certain concepts of evolution, not knowing exactly where you got it all. I had to go away and study evolution to find out what was wrong about evolution, right? And I had grown up in the Anglican church, and I had been taken to church every Sunday by my parents up until I was, well when I started work, about 16 years of age. And suddenly I’m reading that I wasn’t going to heaven or hell when I die. But I had to go and study the doctrines of heaven and hell to find out what it was I wasn’t going to be doing when I died, see? So this was all information for me as a young person, developing.
This focus on knowledge led me towards Ambassador College, because it was an educational institution where you could gain an education based on the word of God, but a rounded out education. This sounded very appealing to me as I was learning all of these new things. This sounded great. Now I didn’t think for one minute that I could ever go to Ambassador College, because only good people went to Ambassador College. I came into the church thirty years ago; Ambassador College was one step under heaven. Only good people went so I knew there was no way I could go to Ambassador College. Well, my minister talked me into applying and they accepted me. And so I went to college to gain an education, a special education based on the word of God. I suppose that after that I was going to go back home and resume my previous career.
Well, during the process of four years of education at Ambassador College I grew in the realization that this education that I was receiving was not just for knowledge sake. It was for a purpose. And I was involved through this four years in various activities such as letter answering as a student. I headed up a letter reading section -- the African and European reading section of the mail for a certain period of time. So I began to see that this education could be put to use in God’s work and I began to formulate a desire to be a part of God’s work.
And so I’ve gone from this broader scope of just gaining education, gaining knowledge, down to well, maybe I could use this knowledge to help out in God’s work. And I was thinking maybe in some regional office somewhere, an international office, and just going back and getting involved in some way. I have to confess to you that during the four years at Ambassador College there was one very strong thing that I was certainly very sure of in my mind. Absolutely sure. I did not want to be a minister. Still not too sure about it today, but I was certainly sure about it then.
What was happening was a process from the time I began to read the first piece of literature. A process began to take place in my life that began to focus me toward something. I would like to read from a second letter. Now this has no date on it but by context I think it has to be 1946 when Mr. Armstrong was feeling that there was a need (we only had one college at that point in time, that was Pasadena) there was a need or it beginning to be formed in Pasadena, he knew we were going to need to take the senior students outside of the environment of the United States for a period of time to gain a broader focus. So he was looking at Switzerland. He found a chalet in Switzerland that he thought was ideal and he was going to have a European finishing school where the senior students would be taken over to Switzerland for a year and they would learn a foreign language and learn to have a broader outlook on life. And at that period of time he wrote this:
"Now a most important commission of Ambassador College is to teach foreign languages. While it is not to be just a Bible college or ministerial college but rather a new type general liberal arts institution, yet I do have faith that out of it will come ministers, evangelists, and assistance for this great expanding work. Christ’s mission is not preach the gospel in your own neighborhood or even just to your own country, but he commanded go you into all the world. This gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations before the end of this age.
And so Mr. Armstrong as far as I can perceive from reading this and other material that I have been able to get my hands on recently, understood a process. I am implying that it is a part of the calling process. Where if he had started a seminary or if he had started a Bible school then people would have said, "I want to be a minister. I will go to Ambassador College and I will be trained to be a minister." In other words they would make that choice of vocation. Whereas Mr. Armstrong understood if you had a broader based education based on the word of God through four years you would see by the fruits of the individuals’ lives whether or not they were going to be suited for this, that or the other thing. And it was while I was at Ambassador College that we reached the cutoff point as far as saturation was concerned of employing all of the graduates into the work. It was 1970, I remember it very clearly when we were told that upon graduation we would not be able to be all employed by the work because there weren’t that many positions. We had reached the point where they just had to say, that is enough.
But Mr. Armstrong knew that by this process God would call people to the ministry rather than have people opt to be ministers or opt to be this or that. It was part of the whole process of being called. And so I went to Ambassador College with an intent of simply gaining an education and through this whole process it focused down to one day I was as a senior student towards the end of my senior year sitting in a forum in the gymnasium and Mr. Raymond McNair who was the chancellor at the time simply got up and announced these list of people will be trainees. Nobody asked. No forewarning. I went along very innocent. Lamb to the slaughter type of approach. My name was read out and I was assigned as a ministerial trainee. And so the whole focus from picking up that first Good News magazine to being in the ministry was part of the process that I am calling, no pun intended, being called.
You see today a very commonly held perspective is that you shop around for the church of your choice. Now I take Christianity Today magazine. It’s interesting to see what trends and thoughts and so on are going on around us. And it is an accepted approach in the evangelical world to shop around for the church of your choice. Because different churches have different strengths, different programs. You might have a church that is more traditional. You might have a church that is more modern, more reformed, or more geared to teens, or more geared to marrieds or families, you know. So you are encouraged, and there are many books out there on this particular subject. In other words, you decide how you want to worship God and you shop for the church that suits and fits your needs.
But with God’s church it is different. It is very, very different. We have used an expression in the past, and I will borrow it to use here today, and you have probably read it yourselves. We are not volunteers. We are draftees. We are not volunteers.
Romans 9:7. There is an illustration of this point here, this is why I use this section now. It is a little wordy and perhaps I shouldn’t read it all. But just to get the flow of it, it is talking about Abraham and the promises made to Abraham and his seed that followed on after him. Verse 7. Neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children, but in Isaac shall your seed be called. That is, they which are the children of flesh, these are not the children of God. So he’s making a differentiation between the physical and spiritual aspects of Israel. But the children of the promise are counted for seed. And it talks about what the promise was, that Sarah would have a son, and that was a direct promise from God. And not only this, (verse 10) but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac, and now notice verse 11, for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calls. But of Him that calls. In other words, God called Abraham in this instance, and from that initial calling a seed followed on. People didn’t opt to be of the seed of Israel. You were born being a part of the seed of Israel. So God initiated this process by a calling, a calling given to Abraham. And it is not dissimilar to the way it works within families today, a call being given to an adult, and if that adult marries. becomes a parent, produces children, that seed the calling flows on to the seed. So it is a process, again, that is initiated by God.
But I would like to ask this question. What is the basis for our being drafted? If we are not volunteers, then we are draftees. Why? What is the basis for this? And I think this is something very important for us to review.
Matthew 1:21 Just to pick up a statement here referring to Jesus Christ. It is a statement being made to Mary about the fact that she was going to bear a child. Verse 21 of Matthew 1. And she shall bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. Jesus Christ was born to Mary, and Jesus Christ was born a human being. Mary produced a human. Now there is a need in some circumstances to get into the discussion that Christ was both man and God. But the point I am making here, that I want to make today, is that Jesus was born a human , a human that experienced and felt everything just the way you experience and feel it as a human being for a very important reason. There was a purpose that he was born in the flesh.
Isaiah 9:6 There is a prophecy, hopefully a very familiar prophecy to us, but let us remind ourselves of this prophecy. It tells us, For unto us (unto Israel) a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder. It is very specific. The government is going to be upon his shoulder. His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Various name descriptions. In verse 7 it tells us of a government and of a throne and of a kingdom. Of the increase of His government and Peace there shall be no end.
Now we don’t have to spend too much time reminding ourselves that this did not refer to Christ’s first coming. Because this did not happen. Upon the throne of David and upon His kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and justice from henceforth even forever. This is referring to a time when Jesus Christ will return again. But he is going to return as a king. He was born to be a king and a king to rule over a kingdom. Now the kingdom was not established at that time. We can clearly say that with hindsight. Those who didn’t have hindsight, who lived at the time of Christ, thought he was going to establish a kingdom and they looked for it at that time. That was a part of the disillusionment that it didn’t happen.
Christ came to a world that was separated from God by sin, touching on what has already been mentioned in the sermonette. We do need to clearly understand that the choice made there by Adam and Eve cut man off from God. They were driven out of the garden of Eden. They were cut off from the tree of life. They were not allowed access to the tree. Therefore they were denied access to the Spirit of God, to God’s Holy Spirit and all that that can and could do for a human mind.
And so from that period time and up until today, but certainly up until the time that Jesus Christ walked on this earth, there has been a being that has in fact been king of this world. And I use that term loosely. I don’t know how true it is to refer to Lucifer or Satan as a king, but he is over the kingdoms of this world and so I refer to him from that perspective. When Jesus Christ came as a human being, his birth was the beginning of the transition of kingship, from the one who was in charge or is in charge, to the one who will be in charge, as from this prophecy that we have just read.
Matthew 4:1 Remember as we start this particular chapter that Jesus Christ was human and able to feel and experience everything that we do as humans. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. When he had fasted forty days and forty nights he was afterwards extremely hungry. Obviously we would understand and appreciate an intense hunger, an intense physical drive and feeling that he was experiencing. And it was under those conditions that Satan went to him, when the tempter went to him. So he went into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. He was in a situation where Satan could take advantage of it. So he came to him in this extremely hungry condition and presented a test, a trial, a difficulty. Turn these stones into bread. And the driving physical aspect of the hunger made it a very real test.
Dropping down, I don’t want to read every single word of these sections, you are familiar with them, but again come down to verse 8. Again, the devil took Him up onto an exceedingly high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them and said to him, "All these things will I give you." That’s why I use that term king. He had the kingdoms to offer to Christ. "I will give you if you will just fall down and worship me." And Christ told him to get lost, get out of here Satan. Verse 11. The devil left him and behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
In this very short eleven verse account is the turning point as far as rulership of this earth is concerned. Jesus Christ qualified to replace Satan. Now it didn’t happen, as I have already intimated, at that time, but he has qualified now to take Satan’s kingdoms and to replace them with the kingdom of God. In qualifying to be king he now began to structure his kingdom. Even though it wasn’t to be instituted at that time he began a work, a work of preparation for the time when the kingdom would come. And we drop down to verse 17. From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." He had now qualified to be king of that kingdom and he began to give a message of that kingdom. Of what it was, what it would be, to talk about the kingdom of God. Now there are other aspects of Christ’s life on earth, but they would be tangents to the subject at hand. So please understand I am leaving aspects of his death and his resurrection out at this particular point in time.
In line with being king he began to establish the foundation for the kingdom that would come. In verse 18, And Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishers. And He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." They straightway left their nets and followed Him. Then he saw two others (in verse 21) and he called them, and they immediately left the ship and their father and followed him. Until he had twelve students to teach and to work with and to train and to given understanding and appreciation of what this message was that he was giving, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
And we see in verse 23 that Jesus, with these people in tow, went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all manner of sicknesses and all manner of diseases among the people.
Just as a personal side point here, for many, many years, this is not a new thought to me, for many years I have felt that as we get down to the point of getting very close to the time when Christ will return that we will once again see the performing of miraculous healings take place from within the church. Now I don’t mean just people in the church being sick, but these will be miracles of such proportion that it will gain attention. See, as he moved around and did these things it says in verse 24, His fame went throughout all Syria. Well, if they heard about Christ and they wanted to come and see somebody healed or be healed, they were going to get an earful about the kingdom of God. Right? It was a way to proclaim the message and spread the message, and I will not be the least bit surprised if we see that happen again in the future. It can’t happen too soon or otherwise the whole aspect of healing would swamp out and crush out the gospel message. People would just want to be attached for healing purposes and get well and get cancer and things out. And when these healings happen the spotlight will be the gospel of the kingdom of God.
Matthew 16:13. We are taking this development of the establishment of the foundation of the kingdom another step further beyond just the twelve individuals. So when they were talking on the coast of Caesarea Philippi, verse 13 of Matthew 16, Christ just simply asked his disciples, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" And they said, "Well, some say you are John the Baptist, some think you’re Elijah, and some think you are Jeremiah or just one of the prophets." He said, "Well, who do you think that I am?" And Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God."
Now that is an incredible statement for a human being to make when he is walking day in and day out with another human being. That is an incredible statement to be made.
And Jesus answered and said unto him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this unto you, but My Father who is in heaven." In other words, Peter had come to an understanding of something that was outside the realm of the human intellect alone. This is something that God the Father had shown Peter about this other human being that he was walking around with day in and day out. He came to understand something.
Christ is using a play on words as far as the word "rock" is concerned. I say unto you, you are Peter. But upon this rock (referring to himself) I will build my church. I will build my church. Now up until this period in time he was wandering around with twelve students, teaching them. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. That church was going to continue to exist. Death, as it refers to here the gates of hell, the grave, is not going to see the end of the church. It won’t die out in a generational change, from one generation to the next. And I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And I don’t want to take a long time to develop the aspect of the keys of the kingdom of heaven. But here we see the development, if you like, of this foundation beyond the twelve. Now it is going to include other people, because a church, ecclesia, is simply a group of people, "called out ones". So other people are going to be called and brought to these students who then become teachers and then expand the instruction and understanding of the knowledge that Christ was giving them.
John 6:44. And you knew with a subject such as this we would get there. John 6:44 What I find interesting with this and we don’t focus perhaps on it, and that’s not a problem, is where Jesus drew the understanding from for this statement. In
John 6:44 Christ made the statement, "No man can come to me except the Father which sent me draws him."
Now there are some things in my life in the church from that time of age 18 or so when I began to understand new knowledge, there are some things that stand out in my mind and I guess they will stay with me until the day I die and be with me for eternity, I don’t know. But one is this verse and its understanding and its implications. And this is something, how could a human being come to this? This is so contrary to love, so contrary to tolerance, and so on as we understand in context of this day and age in which we live. I don’t mean love as in context to God. The concept that no man can come to me. You have got to go back to the Garden of Eden. And you have got to understand that no man has had the opportunity, because they were driven out of the Garden of Eden and have had no access to the tree of life. And that is still an existing condition. That still exists to this very day. And unless God the Father, not Jesus Christ, God the Father draws somebody, calls somebody, they can pound their head against the wall day in and day out for the rest of their life and they won’t see the things that, for example, Peter saw because the Father showed him that. And that’s the only place that could come from.
It is written in the prophets, it is where Christ is drawing from, "They shall be all taught of God." There is going to be a time in the future, and he is referring now to when that kingdom, of which he will be king, is structured and set up on earth. Then everybody will know and have access to this understanding of this knowledge. Every man therefore that has heard and learned of the Father comes therefore unto me. Not that any man has seen the Father, save He which is of God; He has seen the Father. So Christ is referring to the future when God will reveal himself to all of mankind. And that is the great news about the gospel of the kingdom of God.
So why would God selectively reveal himself at this time? Let’s go to John 3. We know that it is selective simply by the ministry of Jesus Christ. All of the people that came to him weren’t called. They came to him by the thousands, sat around and listened to what he had to say, but didn’t believe or follow through on what he said. So it was selective in his time as well.
But here we come to Nicodemus and a discussion that he has with Christ. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said unto him, "Rabbi we know that you are a teacher come from God because no man can do these miracles that you do except God be with him." Then Jesus answered him and he said, "Verily, verily I say unto you, except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Something has to happen. There is a process that must be implemented before a person can see the kingdom of God. And he took it one step further to say, "You cannot enter into the kingdom of God unless that process has happened. Verse 5. "Verily, verily I say unto you, except a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.
And what is being referred to here is conversion. Unless a person has the Holy Spirit of God as an active part of his mind, outside of the realm of the human intellect, it is a part of his mind, it is a part of the reasoning process, the thinking process, you cannot see the kingdom of God. It is something that is hidden from the normal eyes of humanity. And that is not a put-down of humanity. That’s just a simple statement of the way God has designed it.
But when a man is born of the water and of the Spirit, (when one is baptized and has hands laid on them and is begotten by the Spirit of God, they become converted and the Spirit is a part of them, they can see and they can go on into the kingdom of God. Not at that literal time, you understand that. But they become a part of a group of people who understand this fantastic information, this fantastic knowledge that there is a king coming, and that there will be a kingdom set up on this earth. Quite literally on this earth. That can be understood.
Luke 24:45 Building on what we just said, in verse 45, Then opened he their understanding that they might understand the scriptures. He gave them the ability to perceive and understand. Thus it is written and thus it behoove Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name in all nations beginning at Jerusalem.
And so here we see a furtherance of the foundation for this kingdom being established. And through this process of being begotten by God’s Holy Spirit now an individual can come to repentance. Through the Holy Spirit working through an individual they can come to repentance, remission of sins, they can change their lives, they can begin to develop the characteristics that will be necessary to be a part of the kingdom when it comes. We will get to that scripture in a second.
And you are witnesses of these things. And initially they were witnesses. They were witnesses of his crucifixion and of his resurrection, and they were able to go out and say, "I saw, I walked with, I heard him say," and they could go out as firsthand witnesses. But as we also read, the gates of the grave would not prevail against the church, so there had to be following generations that did not see firsthand the crucifixion of Christ, did not see firsthand his resurrection. But they had to have a vision that was just as clear and concise in their minds as those who literally saw it. That’s what the Spirit does. It allows people in following generations to be two thousand years removed from the actual event and have a crystal clear vision of what that death, resurrection and message was all about.
Behold, (verse 49), I send the promise of my Father upon you, that you wait here in Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high, referring to the Holy Spirit of God.
Romans 11:25 Here we see the word "mystery" being used. And it should be clear to us why it is a mystery. The human mind just can’t understand it of its own. For I would not brethren that you should be ignorant of this mystery. The church is not to be ignorant of the mystery. Lest you should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part is happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so, there will only be a few who will understand. And we put other scriptures, I am not going to take the time now, together with this. The whole knowledge of the kingdom is simply not available yet to mankind, and the reason for that is, in verse 26, so all Israel shall be saved.
It is God’s desire for the maximum amount of humanity to be a part of his kingdom, to have eternal life. God is not willing that any should perish. That does not refer to only the church. That is mankind. That is God’s desire, that everybody has a chance for salvation. And it only takes just a moment for you to sit and contemplate sometime, what would happen if in this day and age, in this world with everything that is going on in this world today, God simply quickly and automatically opened the minds of everybody in the world to understand the mystery of the kingdom of God? They could understand it as clear as a bell, as you can. What do you think would happen? You know there are so many factors I don’t want to take the time to talk about. Once you get everybody you have got this great group psychology working, you have all kinds of things working, I feel personally that many would not make it. And God in his mercy has left them in darkness until such a time that he has got the foundation of his kingdom established. He has got people trained and ready to work with the king when the king returns. And that is going to be to the maximum advantage of humanity to make it into the kingdom of God. This is a God of love. This is not a harsh, cruel God. He wants people to be a part of his kingdom.
As it is written there shall come out of Zion the deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. So this is when the king returns. And this is my covenant unto them when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sakes at this point in time. But as touching the election they have loved for the father’s sake. And they will have their opportunity. But in verse 29 it says, For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. When God called Abraham he put into action a process that was going to run to its completion. These promises were going to be fulfilled with no repentances, no change. It is going to follow through to its completion. With the calling process, it will follow through to its completion as well. There will be people prepared, trained, ready to go, to operate within the realm of the kingdom of God when it is brought to this earth.
And we’ll go to Rev. 5:10 which, although it is very familiar, it is the capstone that needs to be put on here at this time. The Father is drawing a team to Christ to prepare the way for this kingdom. In verse 9 we talk about the Lamb that was slain, and You have redeemed us to God by your blood, out of every kindred, tongue, people, and nation. And verse 10, And has made them unto our God kings and priests; and we shall reign on the earth. And that is not an elevation of self, the kings and priests aspect. That is a service opportunity to work with the king, Jesus Christ, when he returns to implement the kingdom of God and to allow the maximum amount of humanity to have a chance at salvation.
Brethren, the word "called" as far as the noun is concerned, means invitation. Invitation. And I think every young person in God’s church needs to understand that and appreciate what that means. It is an invitation. An invitation extended to us.
Go to Ephesians 1:16. And an invitation is just that. It doesn’t force you to do anything. It is just simply an invitation extended to you which you may choose to take or you may choose to ignore. Ephesians 1:16. Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom, and revelation, in the knowledge of him; and that your eyes of your understanding, being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling.
This is an invitation. And if you choose to pick that invitation up and go with it and work with it, and like I tried to start this sermon by giving that personal example of a process of refinement of this calling, if you choose to do that then these things are available to you. Your eyes opened to understanding, being enlightened. And what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. This kingdom is future. This kingdom is not here now. The kingdom of God is not on earth at the moment other than in a very small, embryonic form within the church. We all understand that. But when we talk about the kingdom in its fullness we are not talking about the church. We are in preparation for that. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power (anything that exists on this earth, any government, any form of government that exists on this earth, far above that) dominion, every name that is named, not only in this world but also in that which is to come. And he has put all things under his feet, gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that fills all in all.
This is not the church of your choice. Jesus Christ is the living, dynamic head of this church, but it is not a church that we shopped around for and decided that, well this has got the programs that I think are pretty good, I think I’ll start to be a part of this church. We have been offered a very fantastic and privileged opportunity, through invitation, to be a part of this.
What I would like to do now is simply break it down into some components, and look at different components of our calling. I think that will help us gain a deeper appreciation perhaps of it. And I have got seven points I would like to present to you about our calling.
The first one is one I would have to just simply say, I have got to sit and think about this a little bit and I will present it to you and maybe at your leisure you would like to think about it. Our calling is an expression of the will of God. And if you are a young person, and I know we don’t have too many young ones here today because the children’s choir was out at Canoga Park, but if you are a young person in God’s church, you really need to think of the implications of this. Our calling is an expression of the will of God.
Romans 8:28 We know Romans 8:28 very well. It is a very encouraging scripture, the first part of the verse. I am going to focus on the second part of the verse right now. Romans 8:28 We know that all things work together for good to them that love God. That is the great encouragement. To them that are called, according to His purpose. And formation of the church was part of His purpose. That’s what we have already read. Whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate, to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified.
It was predetermined a long time ago that there would be a church. The lamb was slain before the foundation of the world. And that that church would persist in taking that message of the kingdom of God to the world. And that at some point in time the Father, and you just sit and think about your own circumstances, the Father who created everything that exists, and it is beyond our comprehension to know just exactly what does exist, sat down and possibly talking to His Son, said, "Have you considered so and so?" and put your name right in there. They had to have thought, and the Father in particular, had to have thought of you as an individual, looked at you, knowing the number of hairs on your head, knowing the intent of your heart, knowing every molecule and cell of your body, knowing exactly everything about you, and that Creator God, who is over everything that exists, said, "I am going to give an invitation to you." It had to be that personal. This is not a random lottery drawing in heaven. They had to have considered us as individuals in a singular fashion and looked at us and the Father made the decision that I will give this person an invitation. If that doesn’t make the hair stand up on the back of your neck I don’t know what would. That puts a great price on, if that is the right expression, on what it means to be called. That the Father considered you personally.
Now if you want to ask me, "Why me as an individual?", I don’t know an answer in the Bible that I can turn to say, "Why me?" I have asked that question many times. There are different inflections you can give that question. Why me? I don’t know the answer exactly except for this overall plan that He is putting into practice here. We can know that it was the result of a personal decision on behalf of the Eternal God..
Which leads us into my second point. In Gal. 1:6 there is a statement made about grace, that we are called by grace. Gal. 1:6 where the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Galatia said, "I marvel that you are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel. I am not getting into the subject of the other gospel, but the calling aspect, called into the grace of Christ. And this is a very powerful understanding as far as our calling in concerned, because coming off the first point, there is nothing that we are, there is nothing that we have done, to deserve the invitation. Not a single thing. In fact, everything that we have done in our lives deserves us not to receive an invitation because of the sin. We have all sinned, as the Bible said, and the penalty for sin is death. All we deserve as human beings is to die, and that’s it. But God has accepted grace, called us in grace or by grace, totally unmerited pardon. Undeserved, we have been removed from under the government of Satan, from under the kingship of this world, and we have been given freedom to be under a different king at this point in time, through God’s mercy and God’s love. It needs to be understood and certainly to be reiterated from time to time, that there is nothing that we can focus on as individuals as contributing to our calling. There just isn’t, and anytime we get past that point and we begin to think that we might have some special attributes or traits or capabilities better than anybody else that we can throw into the pot here, we are walking on thin ice. That’s not a part of the calling. God didn’t look down the list and say, "Wow, what an outstanding individual? How could we overlook this one?" Except in your case. He didn’t in my case. That’s not part of it. That’s not in the equation of being called and we need to be very careful to understand that.
Colossians 3:15 brings us to the third point, and this is an important point as well. Col. 3:15 Let the peace of God rule in your hearts to which also you are called in one body. And be you thankful. Now the third point I have written down is, our calling involves peace. Now initially we can read that and I think we can have some very appreciative understanding that we have peace of mind. And that is, again, written in the scripture. We do have peace of mind.
Because we can now see the kingdom we have a context in which to address the problems of the world. And we look around the world and see the incredible suffering and the hurt and the agony of human life in many places around the earth. And many people agonize with that because they have no context within which to place it. There is supposed to be a loving God, and yet look at all the misery on the face of this earth. And people get turned off, people get frustrated, people think religion is nothing but a bunch of junk because they are taught one thing and look at the reality of the world out there. We know that this is not God’s world, that He’s not in a contest as we heard in the sermonette with Satan. We know His timing. We understand there is peace coming. There is a government coming that will solve man’s problems. It is just not here yet, but it is coming. And this gives us a peace of mind.
But that doesn’t completely fit the scripture that we just read. To the which you are also called in one body. We are called. Part of our calling is for there to be peace in the body. We already read which body we are referring to, the body of Jesus Christ, the church. Now when we come to the subject of peace, and this will have to be developed another time, not today. And I do want to do this soon. Most of us today because of our lifestyles and stresses and strains and things that are going on, we think of peace in the sense of an absence of a problem. Boy, if only this would go away then I would have peace! If only somebody would take this debt off and pay that, then I would have peace. If only somebody would get rid of the neighbor’s barking dog, then we would have peace. Sorry, I slipped in a bit of personal information there. If somebody would just, you know, get rid of something then we would have peace. An absence. That is not what the Bible means when it talks about peace. Now it can involve that. But that is not what the Bible is talking about when it talks about peace. Peace is something that has to be produced. Peace is proactive. Peace is not simply having somebody take something away from us, then we are at peace.
Come back to James 4:1. James asks the question to the church, he is not asking this to a bunch of people that he doesn’t know. This is addressed to the church of God. He says, "From whence come wars and fighting among you?" That’s a pathetic question. Or at least it’s a question that underlines a pathetic condition of the church at that time, that there were conditions existing in God’s church where there were fightings and wars and disagreements and factionalism. He says, where does this come from? Come they
not hence even of your lusts that war in your members? Now excuse the King James English here. When we use the word "lust" probably people think of a sexual context. But that is not the context for lust. Lust is an inordinate desire for anything. It can be power, it can be control, it can be any number of things, but it is something internal, it is something deep inside the carnal human mind. And when that is not controlled and allowed to come to the surface and come to the fore, then we have wars and fightings within the church. We have a lack of peace in the church.
And if we as individuals don’t put a hold on that and take it as the old man and bury it so to speak, there are going to be wars and fightings in the church, because that is an aspect of carnality. Look at the disciples -- who is going to be top, who is going to be number one, who is the greatest, who is going to run this show? I can do it better than you! I should be number one! And then division and factionalism splinters out from that.
Peace has got to be put into the church through each single one of us. It is not a wish. It is not a hope. It’s a directive from the Eternal God. And it’s a part of our calling and we had better be thinking deep in our hearts about whether we are putting peace into the church, into the body, or whether we are adding to the wars and the fightings that are among us. You lust and have not. You kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you have not because you ask not. You ask and receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your selfish desires. You adulterers and adulteresses! Know you not that the friendship with the world is enmity with God.
We are being called to peace, which means we leave the baggage of the world behind. There isn’t peace in the world. There can’t be peace in the world in an overall sense because they can’t see the kingdom. They can’t understand the things that bring peace. We can. And we are to bring those into the church. We are not to bring the things of the world into the church. We are not to politicize the process. We are not to bring our concepts of what’s out there, what’s familiar to us, and bring them into the church of God. Because they don’t work. Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is an enemy of God. Do you think the Scripture says in vain, The Spirit who dwells in us lusts to envy?
Who is the god of this world? What is his attitude, the prince of the power of the air? What does he want us all to think? He wants every single one of us to think that we have got something to add here. That we are pretty good. My idea is the right idea and I have just got to get that injected at this particular point in time. It is much better than what his idea is, etc., etc. But He gives more grace. Wherefore He says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. And part of our calling is to submit ourselves to God and resist the devil. That’s a calling to peace. And there should be peace within the church.
The fourth point is simply fellowship. Our calling is associated with fellowship. And that might sound simple to start with, but I think you will see that it can become quite complex. In 1 Cor. 1:9 we are told that our fellowship is with Jesus Christ. And that is certainly the starting point. The Father calls, draws us to Christ. God is faithful (1 Cor. 1:9) by whom you were called unto the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. If we just leave it there it sounds nice. We come into a relationship with Christ and Christ lives His life in us, and so on, and so forth.
But let’s add something to that. John 17:21 Where Christ in the last hours of His life, praying to His Father, very concerned about the ones that the Father had called and brought to Him, and what might happen beyond His death. He said, verse 21, that they all may be one as You Father are in Me and I in You, that they also may be one is Us, that the world may believe that you have sent me. So if we have fellowship with Jesus Christ, by extension we have fellowship with the Father, and by extension we have fellowship with each other. And as each one of us has that relationship with Christ, and that relationship with the Father, it flows out to each other and it builds a bond, it builds a relationship that the world can see
It is an unusual relationship as far as the world is concerned. It is a relationship of love and concern. It is a relationship of honesty. It is a relationship of trust, of values, of morality, etc., etc. It flows on out. And that is what our relationship should be. We should come in here, and just using here as a literal rubbing of the shoulders at Sabbath services each week, and be refreshed. Be refueled to go back out. We should talk to our friends (we should all be friends), we talk to everybody around here, you especially talk to your friends, and you should be recharged by that. Your morale should be boosted. You should be encouraged. And we go out and face whatever it is we have got to face for the coming week. That is a part of our calling, to recharge each other’s batteries through the fellowship we have with Christ and with the Father.
So our fellowship, the time with have together, is important. But the thrust today is to back off and to isolate. That is the way we handle stress any more. And if there are wars and things amongst us as James talks about, there is a very strong tendency to handle that by withdrawing. Picking up our ball and going home. It is much calmer at home with the dog. (This time I am not using a personal example.) We have got to have fellowship. We have got to work with each other. We have got to rub shoulders. And if there are difficulties, those problems have got to be addressed. That is a part of the calling, which is a part of the preparation for the kingdom of God. If we can’t get on now, how do we operate as kings and priests for eternity, or at least for the first thousand years, describing to other people, "This is the way of life, this is how you do it folks" -- when we haven’t done it ourselves? That’s why it is a part of our calling.
The fifth point -- our calling involves freedom. And this, again, I would certainly like to make a point that the young people might appreciate. Our calling involves freedom, and I am basing this on Gal. 5:13. For brethren, you have been called unto liberty. You have been called to freedom.
I would like to refer back, if you will allow me the grace to do so, to my own personal example. When I was called at age 18 and I began to understand knowledge it wasn’t too long before I began to understand that that knowledge meant some incredible changes in my life. As I said, I was heavily involved in sports, had a good social life, loved work, all those types of things. And of course, here I come and I understand Sabbath. And it’s Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. That’s prime time, folks. That’s sports time, that’s going out to dances Friday night. This is maximum time of the week. In one sense you work all week to get to Saturday. Because this is where your social life really hits high gear. And now I read, can’t do this, can’t do that, gotta do this, gotta do that. And I have to admit, for a period of two years in my life, I saw freedom as being the world and my lifestyle. And I saw the opposite of freedom as what I was learning as God’s way of life.
How many youngsters in the church view it that way? They see the way of life of God as taught and upheld by the church as being restrictive, being bondage. Whereas the way of the world where you can go out and do your own thing and make your own decisions, that’s freedom.
I’ve been there. I did it. I did it for two years, two solid years. I knew exactly what I was doing at the time. When I left Australia to go to Ambassador College, I had a girlfriend. (This is no revelation to my family, so it’s OK). Now I came into the church, into the context of the church, with this particular girl as a girlfriend, and she tried very, very had to accept the church, to be a part of the church. I at that point it time in my life believed that she also was being called. She began to study, get the Correspondence Course, began to do all the things that I was doing. And it looked pretty good. But I went to Ambassador College and very, very quickly I learned a great lesson. She was not being called. She was doing it for me, to be with me and she wanted us to get married, and so on, and so forth.
You know, I went back after college, went back with my wife and visited some of these acquaintances. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God called me to freedom, and had he not called me my life would have been bondage. I would have been a divorce statistic. And believe me, divorce is bondage, with the scars that it leaves. It is a terrible situation. I now appreciate with hindsight what real freedom is. And I just would love to be able to climb inside the heart and mind of every young person in God’s church, very young person, and get that point across, of what true freedom is. We have been called to freedom. That invitation that is right in your face, young person, is an invitation to freedom. And if you pick that up and you are brave enough to confront it, and you do have to confront it because the world looks pretty good out there, you will find down the road that that is true freedom. The freedom that doesn’t leave the scars and the hurts and the things you have to deal with for the rest of your life. And our calling is a calling to freedom.
The sixth point, a wonderful aspect of our calling is that it provides hope. And that cannot be overstated. To have hope in this day and age is a wonderful and precious gift. Eph. 4:4 There is one body, one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling. Brethren, that is the fuel that drives the engine. That is what keeps us going. Life is difficult, life is hard. God hasn’t taken us out of the world. We are in the world. We have to deal with the world. We have got to deal with all of these situations and it’s a grind. But that fire in the belly comes from the hope that we have. We know that if we do this and if we strive and endure and work with it, that the wonderful world tomorrow, the kingdom of God, is coming and we can be a part of the solution instead of being a part of the problem. Doesn’t that fire you up every day? Well, most days. Some days we don’t have hopeful days, but mostly we recapture them. And yes, we do it because we have this hope, and this calling has given us that. It is something God has given us, nothing that we generate of ourselves. That’s what keeps us going; that’s what keeps the smile on the face. That’s what keeps us doing these things that are such a grind sometimes and so difficult and so hard.
And my last point is right here in the same chapter, Eph. 4:1, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. I can find no better way to wrap this whole thing up than to simply say that our calling is a way of life. It is not something we do on Saturday afternoons. It is not something we do one day a week. It is not something we do when we are in the company of other people. It is not something we do when we are just in the privacy of our own home. It is a twenty-four-hour a day duty. It is a way of life, because in itself our life is a witness of the kingdom of God. And we have been called to a way of life. And I have already read in James about being a friend of the world, and so on. We are asked to come away from those things.
Let me go back to one of these articles that I used at the beginning. Here’s the February 19, 1947 co-worker letter where Mr. Armstrong says, "Frankly, I’m afraid most of you have not fully and clearly recognized just what this work is, precisely what really is our calling and our mission." This has been in my heart for a long time, and what I am saying to you today is not something just new or something I decided to put together. This is something that has been deep within me for a long time. And it is something that brought me to the United Church of God. I came to the United Church of God because I saw the hope of the doctrines being put back, doctrinal truth being restored. Knowing that if we restore doctrinal truth, it must, it can do no other thing than lead us to the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom of God. If all of the doctrines of the church are clearly restored and put into place, the focus becomes the work that we are called to do. And with all my heart I wanted to see the preaching of the gospel restored. And that is part of the motivation that brought me to the United Church of God. It is an organization. But I will just be right up front and tell you that if the organization ever stops preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, then my options are open. Because my calling, I have loyalty to the United Church of God, don’t misread me, I am loyal to the United Church of God, but my allegiance is to my calling,. and my calling is to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God, and that I will do.
It says here, "recognized just what this work is, precisely what really is our calling and our mission. We are called and functioning as the advanced agents of the coming world government, the kingdom of God, which shall destroy all of this world’s organizations and rule in their stead forever. Prophecies in Daniel make that perfectly clear. We are ambassadors for Christ. Ambassadors of his coming government, working as strangers and pilgrims in a foreign land." (You’ll get your chance a bit later. I’m doing mine right now.) "This work to which God has called us is therefore a preliminary and advanced function of the world-ruling, everlasting kingdom of God. And what is our tremendous mission? Do you know? Do you grasp it? Listen. Our mission first of all is to preach Christ’s gospel, the message he brought to earth from God, the message he commissioned to all his true ministers to preach throughout this dispensation of grace. The very message the organized church denominations reject. The only true gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of the coming world ruling government of God." And a little later he goes on to say, "Our calling, too, is to warn America, Britain, and the democracies, modern Israel, of the impending national destruction and captivity to be visited upon our people unless we heed the warning and repent. Because we have strayed far from God and his laws and his ways and our sins are fast increasing. And deeply as I regret and deplore the fact, I know of no denomination, organization, movement or person carrying this warning of invasion, destruction and captivity to America and Britain, except this work and mission which God is carrying on with constantly increasing power and blessing through us. This work you co-workers actually carry on by your prayers, tithes and offerings"
And I believe with all of my heart, brethren, that that is our calling. To prepare for the kingdom of God. To prepare ourselves, certainly, to be kings and priests and do what we need to do as individuals. But to carry this message that Jesus Christ began to preach immediately after he qualified to be king to replace Satan over this earth. We are to pick up that message and we are to carry it forward. There is no way that you should devalue in any way the calling that you have. It is priceless, it is above words to describe, and I hope today that we have revisited your calling and you can be greatly encouraged by it.