God’s Amazing Grace
I Corinthians 12:1-10
January 15, 2006
My grandma and grandpa Lovell lived on a farm just over the Indiana/Michigan line north of Orland. They moved off the farm when I was just five years old, but I still remember great times that we had there. My grandpa died about seven years later, but my grandmother continued to live in a nursing home for several more years. I remember an incident that happened between her and my mom when she was in her mid-eighties that still causes me to smile.
There was some event of some kind for which grandma needed a new dress, so my mom took her shopping. They shopped and shopped and shopped and shopped. Grandma just couldn’t find anything she liked. Finally, my mom was getting so frustrated that she was just about ready to call it a day. She asked grandma what she was looking for and why she couldn’t find a dress she liked. My grandma said, “All the dresses we’ve looked at are for old women.”
Age is so often a state of mind more than a physical reality. Toni and I led a group of folks to a pilgrimage to Israel back in 1992. There was a ninety-one year woman who accompanied us on the trip. One day, Toni took some pre-trip materials over to her house. She knocked on her door and didn’t get an answer, but hearing noise in the backyard, she walked around the side of the house. She finally found Edna up on her roof replacing shingles!
We are learning that age doesn’t necessarily determine one’s energy level, physical state, or mental sharpness. But we ought to know that this is nothing new. Just remember Abraham. When Abraham was seventy-five years old, God told him to leave his home and travel to a new land in order to become the father of a whole new nation. Just as he should have been settling down to a life of easy retirement, God told him to go someplace else. And if that wasn’t enough, twenty-five years later, at age 100, he became a father. He’s a better man than I am.
Dominique saw an article in the paper about families adopting infant girls from China. Girls in that culture are not as valued as are boys and so are often subjected to a more difficult life. Dominique thought that Toni and I ought to adopt one. I quickly laid out my excuses. I am fifty-two years old. It is not uncommon for an adoption like this to take three years or so. I would be fifty-five when we finally received this baby. Number two, I’m not sure adoption agencies would look too kindly on such an old guy becoming a father of a new born. Number three, I will be seventy-three when she graduates from high school. Number four, I’m not sure I have the energy anymore to follow a toddler around the house. And finally, I’ve changed enough diapers with the first three kids.
I’m pretty sure that Abraham had some of those same thoughts. In fact, I know he did. When God told him that he would become a father, his wife Sarah laughed (Genesis 18:12). I am sure that Abraham laughed right along. I have a feeling that this laugh was more than just a snicker. I’m sure that it was a knee-slapping, eye-watering, shooting-your-soft-drink-through-your-nose, belly laugh. What an absurd idea this was. But Abraham and Sarah both learned, with the birth of Isaac, that age doesn’t matter to God.
Now, you may think that Abraham was old, but Noah was five hundred years old when he had sons (Genesis 5:32) and six hundred years old when God told him to build an ark (Genesis 7:6). Age doesn’t matter much to God.
At the other end of the scale, when God was looking for a new King of Israel, he chose David, the youngest of the sons of Jesse (I Samuel 16:1-16). God needed a prophet, and he called this young kid named Jeremiah. Jeremiah told God that he wasn’t up to this because he was so young, but God answered him that age wasn’t the issue (Jeremiah 1:4-8). The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy and told him not to let anyone look down on him because he was so young (I Timothy 4:12). When God decides to use someone to advance the agenda of the Kingdom, not only does age not matter, but also God doesn’t care too much about physical condition, wealth, poverty, or any of the other stuff that we think is important either.
The Apostle Paul, if you remember, was afflicted with a physical ailment that he called his “thorn in the flesh” (II Corinthians 12:7-10). We don’t know what that was, perhaps epilepsy. Moses was not only an old guy, but he didn’t speak very well. Many scholars today think that he stuttered (Exodus 6:30). Joseph was a slave in Egypt when God worked in his life to save the people of Israel from famine (Genesis 47).
The prophet Amos’ occupation was that of a “dresser of sycamore trees.” In common language, he was a fig-picker. But God used him to bring a needed word to the nation (Amos 7:14-15). The Apostle Peter was just an uneducated fisherman when Jesus called him to be a disciple, no doubt living from hand to mouth (Matthew 4:18-20). Priscilla was one of the leaders of the early church despite being a woman in a culture that had a tendency to treat women like chattel (Romans 16:3).
Sometimes, God works through unexpected people in unexpected circumstance. Back in the summer of 1972, between my freshman and sophomore years in college, I attended License to Preach School down at DePauw University. This was to enable me to get a student appointment while I was in college, even before I went to seminary. One of my classmates was a guy named Ken Vance. Ken was a pilot and went on, following seminary graduation, to become a missionary in Zaire with the Wings of the Morning project.
He has an incredible story to tell. Several times, he has been forced to flee the country, which is now taken its old name back – Congo. He tells about soldiers bursting into his house in the night, holding automatic weapons at the heads of his wife and children, and ordering him to fly them where they wanted to go. They have lost their house several times. Once they fled in their airplane as soldiers were coming down the road with a warrant for their execution. In addition, his wife was bitten by a poisonous snake and almost died. It took her a number of months to fully recover.
Several years ago, he and I had the opportunity to sit and chat for a while. I thanked him for doing what he was doing on my behalf because I certainly was not called to be a missionary. He told me something that I will never forget.
He said that he, Debbie, and their kids get all of the credit for going to places where the bullets are flying and ugliness is the norm. But he said that he is continually aware that they couldn’t do what they do without hundreds of others at home in their prayer closets. He told me that he firmly believes that they would not be alive today if it were not for the protective wall built around them by all of the prayer warriors at home. Everyone of us has our own part to play.
As we stand here today in the first couple weeks of a new year, I don’t know what God is calling you to do, or will call you to do in the next few months. Maybe God will call you to engage in some high-profile ministry or some attention-getting activity, but maybe not. After all, we aren’t all Abraham’s or Noah’s or Ken Vance’s.
At the same time, don’t ever be surprised at God’s call, by that inner stirring within your heart. I am convinced that some of the greatest work ever done for the kingdom, has been accomplished by people who did not expect the call of God or who did not think they had what they needed to get the job done or and who were scared out of their wits.
And don’t underestimate your part to play. We are all part of the team, all part of the body. Paul says in I Corinthians 12 that we are all necessary for the smooth functioning of the body of Christ. Your ear isn’t any less important than your left leg. Your foot is no less important than your hand. So whatever you are called to do, understand that you play a vital role in the kingdom. Without your particular job, there would be a hole in the work of the Kingdom.
The question then is, how do you know what God is calling you to do. There is no way to know that except by listening to hear what God is saying. There is no way to listen to God other than by intentional prayer, discernment, study, worship, and service. I don’t know what God is calling you to do this year. That is something you have to discern for yourself.
But I do have a feeling that I know what will happen when you get your call and embark on your journey of faith and service. I know for certain, that when you accept your call to be a disciple, whatever that call may be, your path will be marked by bumps in the road. God never promises that there will be smooth sailing all the way. God never promises a pain-free life of discipleship. If you expect an easy life, being a Christian is not the way to get it.
Abraham answered the call of God to go to the new land that he would be shown. When he arrived and settled in, he found a great famine. Can you imagine? He followed where God led, but instead of finding the easy life, he discovered a time of severe testing. I can almost imagine Abraham calling out to God, “How long, O Lord?” He had done all that God has asked of him, but now found himself at death’s door.
But nowhere in the Bible can you find evidence that things will always move smoothly along when one answers the call to discipleship. The prophet Elijah answered the call of God and faced the wrath of Queen Jezebel. She didn’t like his message and put out a contract on his life. He hid out in a cave, afraid for his very life and wondering why God would allow this to happen to him (I Kings 19:14). Things are not always easy for the one who answers the call of God.
Jeremiah was thrown into a cistern because the people didn’t like his message that they were going to have to pay the price for their disobedience against God (Jeremiah 38). Jonah didn’t like the way things worked out in the city of Nineveh. He went there to preach their destruction, but witnessed instead their repentance. Angry because God did not destroy these hated foreigners, Jonah went and sat under a bush and wished he were dead (Jonah 4).
In the New Testament, Stephen was stoned to death because of his gospel preaching. Paul was eventually to meet his death at the hands of a Roman executioner (Acts 7). John was exiled to the island of Patmos (Revelation 1:9).
As we stand here in January and look forward to the year to come, who knows what God will call us to do? Who knows where God will call us to go? Who knows the people to whom God will send us? Who knows where we will be found this time next year?
But I do know a few things. First, age or condition is never a pre-requisite for being called and used by God. Never underestimate what God can do with you. Second, God never calls us to an unimportant job. Some jobs might be more glamorous than others, but none are any less important. Third, to understand that job to which we are called, we have to spend time with God in prayer and listening. Fourth, there never has been an instance when a follower of God hasn’t had some sort of trouble. The world doesn’t always take kindly to God’s way of doing things. They don’t always appreciate God’s intentions. God’s people are often maligned, misunderstood, ignored, shunned, and threatened. But finally, and most importantly, God’s grace is sufficient to keep us, no matter our age or station in life, or the task to which we are called. As Paul reports in II Corinthians 1:9, God told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Abraham, Noah, Jeremiah, Elijah, Paul, John, Priscilla, and all of the other personalities in the Bible came to understand that God could be trusted. They came to know that God’s grace would see them through easy times as well as the tough times. They came to understand that even when things looked bleak, they were never left alone.
God’s grace is amazing. When we are faithful to God, God is faithful to us. God’s amazing grace will keep us, transform us, reclaim us, and save us. That is the good news for the beginning of the new year. Thanks be to God.
