Our Gifts, Our Calling But God’s Plan.

This sermon was delivered to St Oswald’s in Maybole,

Ayrshire, Scotland on the 10th August 2014

(a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries).

Summary: We all have been given certain gifts by god. We are all giving a calling by him, but ultimately we use these to complete his plan for himself, but where we also find and develop ourselves, to his glory. Read on!

Genesis 45:1-15 Psalm 133 Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32 Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28

“Please join me in my prayer.” Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen. (Ps. 19:14)

Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.

For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.

Introduction:

My sermon last week as your know was on Salvation, and today we continue knowing that in God’s eyes, we are saved. But do you know what the best thing about being saved is? … That no one can take it away from us!

It doesn’t matter if in the world’s eyes, we are the world’s biggest failure; in God’s eyes we are still saved; because we now belong to him, because of what Jesus achieved on the cross; ... he died to save us, and so our salvation is permanent.

The book of Job.

Today we start with a trivia question, what is the oldest book in the bible? … It is the book of Job of course, although no one knows for sure who wrote it ... or when. In that book, Satan afflicts Job with many terrible disasters, and diseases ... and also the death of his loved ones; all in the attempt to get Job to renounce God and worship him.

I mean it was absolutely horrendous what Job had to endure, and during his suffering, his friends advised him what to do. It was a bit like what happened to us when we were saved, everything seemed to go wrong, and I for one did blame God at some stages, not realising it was it was Satan attacking me; that may have happened to you as well.

We are also being developed and changed by God into something that he wants us to be, but what I remember is that like Job, I too had friends advising me what to do ... friends who had never had a hard day in their lives ... and who were suddenly an expert on my troubles.

... And I am sure that we all have friends like that ... they are expects on everything, yet have you noticed that the first time they received a minor blow or trial they receive, their world crumbles, not, having answers to their own problems. … But it wasn’t any different in Job’s time; as a matter of fact, Job’s wife told him in Job 2:9, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Why don’t you simply curse God and die!” How is that for advice? “Curse God and die!”

Now in contrast, the apostle Paul, also gives us some advice into where the answers for our problems lie, but unlike Job’s adviser, Paul speaks from experience which as you know, makes all the difference. … Paul tells us that the direction and the focus for our lives can only be found in God himself, and through the Holy Spirit … and that we should learn to listen to him, and answer only to him … and not through any great human expert. Take advice yes, but we are not accountable to them, we are only accountable to God.

And Paul says in verse 29, that “God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable”; which means that they cannot be taken back. So what gifts are these that are irrevocable, may you ask … well we need to go to 1 Corinthians, to see Paul using the same word in Greek for ‘gifts’, to see what he is talking about, … 1 Corinthians 12:3 … and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Verse 4, Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.

Both of these words for "gifts" are the same in Greek, which is the word, "charisma", from which we get the term "charismatic" ... and the root word (charis) basically means "grace". This tells us that these spiritual gifts are things characterized by the Holy Spirit ... and are in fact gifts of God's grace which means that they are not something we earn or deserve.