After
arriving home from my last day of first grade, I announced to my parents how
glad I was that school was finally over, and that I did not have to go back
ever again. My parents’ expressions waxed blank. It took at least thirty
seconds before one of them, my father I think, broke the news that I would have
to go back that fall, after the summer was over. My joy had instantly turned to
mourning.
“For
how long?” I asked.
“For
another year,” he said.
As
difficult as that sounded, another year might not be too bad. I had made it
through one. I could do it again. And then it would be all over. . . .
A
thought came that nearly knocked the wind out of me.
“What
about after that? Was there any more school after that?”
“Yes,”
came the hesitant reply.
“Well,
how long?”
“Twelve
years. . . in all.”
“TWELVE!”
I bellowed.
To
a six year old (I started when I was five), that was like saying it would be a
zillion millennia.
As
one may correctly guess, when I approached graduation in my senior year, I did
so with great joy and gladness. The word that was on everyone’s mind in my
class was vocation. What were you
going to do the rest of your life? This was 1966, and the Vietnam War was
raging. Many in my class went off to war. As far as I can tell, only two died
there (my graduating class was over eight-hundred), one of them ten days after
he arrived. I went off to college. . . Bible college, in fact. In those days,
unless you were in college, you were drafted. Many went off to college for that
very reason, to avoid the draft. I did not. I went to Bible college because I
had aspirations of becoming involved in the ministry. That trumped everything
else in the world, and I had no guilt in being there. Looking back on it today,
I know what I did was right, but I sometimes grieve deeply over the thought
that others did go and paid dearly. They were not able to follow their
vocational goals as I did.
The
word vocation literally means, calling. When you talk about vocation
you are talking about your calling in life, that is, What have you been called
to do for a living? It is fascinating to me that the idea of a calling is
bandied about by all men, believing and unbelieving, Christian and pagan,
alike. They use the word to refer to what they want to do, are doing, or have
done as their professional career. But they never stop to think that if one has
a calling, it means he has been called, and if called, there is a caller. I
wonder if the atheist Richard Dawkins ever considered who it was that called
him to be a biologist. Perhaps he sees a danger in that and avoids the word
vocation. I really do not know.
Several
years ago, I taught a series of Adult Sunday School lessons through Philippians
that took a year to complete. Looking back at my notes I saw that I spent some
time on the phrase, “to all the saints in Christ Jesus,” recorded in Paul’s
greeting (Phil 1:1). The concept of sainthood spurred me on to discuss the
biblical notion of calling, for those who are saints are such because they are called
to be saints (Romans 1:7; I Corinthians 1:1). A number of New Testament
texts can be laid out to give us a rather clear idea of what it means for us
who are ‘called to be saints,’ and over the next few weeks, we will consider
these.
Today,
consider 1 Cor 1:9 wherein we are told that we are ‘called into the fellowship of his (God’s) Son.’ To understand this
fully would require a good deal of time on the meaning of fellowship. Suffice
it to say that fellowship here and elsewhere has the etymological notion of
sharing something in common, and semantically conveys the idea that two or more
people are enjoying each other’s company because they are not at odds with each
other, they are in agreement and harmony. They like the same things, have the
same outlook, or to put it philosophically, they hold fervently to the same
world-and-life view.
Light
and darkness, righteousness and lawlessness do not have the same interests in
mind; they are polar spheres, exact opposites; therefore, Paul asks
rhetorically, What fellowship do they have? (2 Cor 6:14 ) There is none. John tells us that God is
light and there is not even one particle of darkness in him. If we say that we
have fellowship with God and walk in darkness we lie and are not doing (let
alone not telling) the truth, 1 John 1:4, 5. Hence to be called into fellowship
with Jesus Christ means to be called into a way of life that typifies the kind
of life Christ lived, who exercised all the fruits of the Spirit in great
measure, Luke 2:40, 52. Christ was sinless, perfect, and holy without measure.
To be called into fellowship with him is to share in that freedom from sin and
to walk in the light as he is in the light.
So,
we must take a hard look at ourselves. Are we walking in freedom from sin? (Rom
6:1-14) Are we walking in his likeness? (1 John 2:6) Are we pursuing holiness
without which no man will see the Lord? (Heb 12:14) This is not a calling to sinless
perfection in the present evil age. Rather, it is a calling to make a conscious
and continuous effort to be holy; and when we sin, to repent quickly and
gladly, looking to our Advocate before the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous
who is the sacrifice that satisfies God’s justice for our sins, 1 John 2:1, 2.
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