Three Things God's Will Calls Us Into

1 Corinthians 1:1-2

I think these are very important verses for us to better understand what the focus of our faith should be about. There are very important questions that are quieted by very important truths in Paul’s opening lines in the letter to the church in Corinth; questions with truths that should always dictate the direction of God’s holy and divine design for our faith in Jesus Christ. I feel that these questions are confirmed, not by mere, little, flesh-fulfilling, worldly-wise answers, but backboned by Spirit-saturated, Cross-centered, God-groaning truths that the inerrancy of Scripture and the infallibility of The Father call us to stand in when our legs are giving way to the weakness of the world. It would be criminal of us as children of Christ to appoint these truths as Paul’s alone and not ours to be shared. What Paul writes applies not just to him or to the intended people or church he writes to, but to us- to the whole body that has been bonded together by the blood of Christ; we are the audience Paul appoints his letters to; we are to search these scriptures and share in the truths of the faith told long ago. This is where we stand. This is where we start. This is what we share. Let’s break this baby down.

1. The children of God are the chosen children of God. And the chosen children of God are unconditionally chosen by the infinitely wise will of God for the sole purpose of discipleship in Christ Jesus.

Paul says, in the very first line of the letter, that he has been called by the will of God. He wants to make crystal clear that it’s because of the will of God that he’s been called to be an apostle of Christ. This tells Corinth that Paul is parading no person’s preaching for his salvation; nothing, other than the sovereign will of God, has secured his salvation. This is how Paul starts his letter. Not with hello. Not with “how ya doing“. Not with “how’s the church doing?” Not with “did we get the money to build the new children’s building?” No. Paul starts the letter off with giving credit to the King. And to what sake does he give credit? To what purpose has the will of God called him? To be an apostle of Christ Jesus. To do life like Christ. To follow and glorify the Son. The purpose to which we have been called by God is to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. God calls us to be children of Christ so that we can do life like he did it. To line up our lives behind love on the narrow road to making more of Him and less of us. This is the means to which the children of God are chosen to be children of God. The chosen children of God are chosen for the specific and single, all soul-embracing calling of becoming like Christ. So Paul points the power of his conversion to the infallible will of God for the sake of moonlighting the Messiah. This is the will of God- to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. When we are called by God, we are called into the wonderful mission of mirroring the blinding rays of the Son. We cannot separate the Son shining through us from the concrete, genius decisions of The Creator; God has set this as His will and we can do nothing to change it. God’s set design for man, after that man has been called by God’s holy will, is to follow the same steps of Christ. To bear the Cross. To take on Golgotha. To share in his sufferings. This is what apostleship to Jesus Christ looks like. And this is what the will of God calls us into.

2. The will of God and apostleship in Christ gives Paul (and us) a new identity.

There is a second truth in verse one that we can borrow from Paul. Paul understands exactly how he has become exactly who he is. He has become an apostle of Christ, not because of anything he did; not because he took the right road to Damascus that certain day; not because he preached some pretty bangarang sermons back in the book of Acts; not because he’s been getting beat for the gospel lately; or not even because he’s getting thrown in jail . Paul doesn’t say, “Paul, an apostle of Christ because I wrote Romans.” No. Paul says, “Paul, called by the will of God.“ In other words, “My name is Paul. I know exactly who I am. I have a name. It belongs to me because I have been called by the will of God. I’m not Saul anymore; the will of God has called me Paul.” This is evidence of Paul’s new birth in Christ; resounding evidence of Paul’s resurrection from sin, redemption from death, and rescue from the world because of God’s will and ravished apostleship because of the light of Christ. What if we could echo the same understanding as Paul does? What would it look like if we truly rooted our redemption in the supreme will of God for the sole sake of making more of the magnificence of Jesus Christ as Lord? When we are called by God to be the reflection of Jesus Christ, we are given new names, new identities, new hearts, and a new responsibility. This resurgence from the old, world-absorbed, flesh-feasting, sin-starving self comes from the call of God alone; it comes from nothing we do or nothing anyone or anything else does- it comes from the will of God alone. We don’t earn our new name and new soul. We don’t earn rescue. Paul didn’t work for redemption; he got it freely and responded with out-right obedience in the boastings of Christ. Paul didn’t take the road to Damascus that day with the intentions of being blinded by the glory of God did he? He didn’t wake up that day hoping to get converted. I take it meeting Jesus wasn’t on the agenda that day. Paul recognizes this and lives in it. He gives all the glory of his conversion, his rebirth, his new name to the excellent and wise will of Holy God. What if we recognized and lived in this too? How great would we make God look in the eyes of the lost if we understood where our rescue was rooted? Or how beautiful and inviting would we make the life of Jesus Christ if we actually started doing life like he did it and stopped doing it like the Pharisees? I think we might raise some eyebrows. Might get some questions asked. I don’t know, maybe even someone that’s interested in this new identity we’ve been given in Jesus Christ. God-forbid we ever dare walk that road though, but I guess that’s why Jesus called it narrow.

3. The calling of God calls us to all be saints together in Jesus Christ. Not saints stuck in sin. Not saints picking sides.

Our sanctification and our dependency in Jesus Christ binds all our broken hearts back together; we share the same sisters and the same brothers in the supremacy of Jesus Christ in all things. I think this is an extremely beautiful truth for us as redeemed children of God through the grace and love of Christ by the unmistakable power and persistence of the Holy Spirit working through our sinful hearts to get close to, breath in, and fill our lungs with. Paul’s writing 1 Corinthians to a church, a church that is made up of human beings, and human beings are made up of sin- human beings are sinners- we are naturally not saints; our instinctive inclination towards sin surrenders our sainthood. Adam compromised the sainthood of humanity when he chose to cower down beside Eve and watch her get deceived by the snake. So we lost our sainthood because of one man, but we have been washed back into it through our sanctification in Jesus Christ- through the mutual, shared, and active work of the Holy Spirit’s grace in our hearts and our awakened faith and focus on the beauty and boasting of Jesus Christ as LORD. The two things simultaneously collaborate, work together, and regenerate the dead heart. This is what Paul means when he says “sanctified.” And this is what happens to a body of sinners who call upon the name of Christ- they are sanctified back into sainthood. In other words, that body of broken, sin-drenched human beings are given exactly what Paul was given- a new identity in Jesus Christ by way of the will of God. So I think Paul gives us a pretty accurate and amazing picture of what the church is or what the church should look like- a body of sin-bruised human beings, who have been cut off from knowing Christ as Lord because of that sin, but, who by the holy and merciful will of God, have been rescued from the depths of their sin, returned to their full sanctification in sainthood, and redeemed and resurged in their new identities gained through the death, resurrection, and personhood of Jesus Christ.
When I read this verse, there’s another blow to the gut that I feel, another bullet in the chest that makes me step back, gasp for air, find my footing, and check the condition of my own heart. The statement, “called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours,” really convicts me and leaves me down on my knees begging, both for my own heart and the condition of today’s church. There’s an obvious war that’s going on every Sunday morning. And I’m not talking about the one between demons and angels or God and the Devil or the secular world and the so-called “Christian” world. These are not the wars I’m talking about, or for that matter, even concerned about. I’m talking about the war that’s going on between brothers in Christ- about the war between Baptists and Methodists, Relevants and Reformed Relevents, Calvinists and Lutherans, Catholics and Protestants, Emergent and Emerging, Liberal theology and Conservative theology. This is the war I’m talking about, the war I’m torn and broken-hearted over. If you don’t think that this is of any concern then do me a favor and just go drive around a few blocks and pay attention to all the churches you drive by. Look at their signs. Most of them will have some sort of denomination associated with them. Like “First Baptist” or “First United Methodist.” Some crap like that. And I don’t really understand the whole “first” thing. Are they trying to say that since they’re first they’re better? Isn’t that like saying all the other Baptist churches suck because they weren’t the first one to be Baptist in that area? Because they were the “second” Baptist church in Dallas? Since when did establishing churches become a race? Something you placed in? Or this whole “United” card that the Methodists throw out. What does that even mean? Are you really united with anybody if you have to start your own denomination? Aren’t there all these different denominations slapping associations onto God’s house because no one could agree with one another? Because some sinner believed something to be different than some other sinner did? Aren’t there all these different denominations because our hearts are ruled by this stupid, pride-drenched idea of I’M RIGHT AND YOUR WRONG? Aren’t the lines of the church today painted by hideous shades of pride? Come on. The last thing any of us are are united. The American church is more divided than Jews and Palestinians. If we were united we wouldn’t separate ourselves. But I guess religion is the result of sin, isn’t it? Paul’s going to say that the will of God has called us all to be saints together, not sinners set apart from one another. He’s going to say that Jesus is Lord of both Baptists and Methodists, your church and the Presbyterian guy’s church. Hasn’t God shown all of us grace and mercy and love and forgiveness and invited us into unity under the banner of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Isn’t Jesus Christ supposed to bring us all back together? To make the body of all that believe one? United? First? I mean, Jesus didn’t come to Earth waving the Catholic flag, wearing a “Relevants Rule!” t-shirt, or preaching “Be a Baptist or Burn!” sermons. Jesus never once mentioned religion while he was here on Earth. I remember him coming to ruin it; to shake it up; to tear all the religion of the Pharisees down and then reestablish the faith and unity of the body back on Him. He came preaching His own name for the sake of His Father’s Glory. And then when He left, He commanded all the disciples to do the same. Not split up. Not to be a Methodist. Not to be conservative or liberal. He commanded them to stick to the Scriptures and to stick together for the salvation of all and the greatening of God’s glory. We all share in the salvation of Jesus Christ. The Beloved belongs to us all, regardless of denomination. Christ doesn’t care what church we belong to, He only cares that we, all His baby boys and girls, belong to Him. About us being sanctified in Him. About us being saints together with all the others out there that He's called into the company of His wonderful companionship. About us enlightening the blind to His beautiful majesty. About us exhausting the self for the sake of His exaltation. Isn’t this exactly what Paul tells us we’ve all been called into by the will of God? Maybe I’m wrong about this though. Maybe God just called us to be “first.”