WE ARE CALLED
ACTS 16: 9-15
JOHN 14: 23-29
MAY 25, 2025
I heard someone talking about the olden days … and shockingly those “olden days” are part of my life. Then a cartoon showed up on my Instagram with an image of a television set that had these strange poles sticking out from behind the set with aluminum foil on them and the caption read do you remember when you had only three channels … and I remembered those days; 2,4, and 7 up in Buffalo. And, yesterday … a meme featuring Woody Woodpecker had the caption “going to bed in the ‘80’s … no internet, no mobile phone” and there was just a radio next to his bed. I not only remember the ‘80’s but I can do the Woody Woodpecker sound, but I will keep that to myself this morning.
Last Sunday I attended the Annual Conference of the Greater New Jersey United Methodist Church for the 23rd time … and I wonder where does time go. So many times the words ‘it seems like only yesterday’ cross my mind as I realize that I once was sitting in my living room when my dad rushed in from work and sat down next to me to watch Bill Mazeroski’s walk on home run, which defeated the New York Yankees and I saw amazing joy on my dad’s face …. Actually, if I remember it right dad stood up and cheered. Now my brother was only 2 years old … he does not remember that moment. Where does time go … olden days. I stayed up to see Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon and I am sure some of you did too … I remember being baptized well it was a renewal of my baptism as a child … when Pastor Stanley Lewis took me under the waters at Randall Memorial Baptist Church and held me under for an extra second smiling and saying softly “got you.” Maybe he knew that God had me … that one day Stan would send me his books on ministry perhaps one of which he read the week he baptized me.
Do you remember your baptism? Do you remember when God “got you?” Where does time go? Do you remember when your faith became real and you got Jesus?
This wooden baptismal font has touched so many lives through the years … you see it here in the front of the church on Sunday’s. This week one of those FACEBOOK memories popped up and it was during the COVID years when we were only able to worship out in the parking lot … when I wore a mask and you wore masks and yet a family wanted their child baptized into a relationship with God and Jesus Christ so they brought him in a wagon … Nancy and Mike provided me with a large palm leaf … I dipped the leaf into the water of this font and baptized the child and sprayed some water on some of you before taking him around in the wagon for all to see. Those parents called by God … for baptism. Christ mattered … at least in those moments.
So church, this morning do you remember your baptism or were you just a baby in those days? Have you ever considered what it means to have Jesus or what you should be doing because God has you in God’s loving arms each day. Have you sensed how God is calling you to live out your days for God … for Christ? Do your friends and family members notice the things you do out of faith in God or do you keep those to yourself?
I ask these questions because I believe that we are called by God… God is even calling those without faith but each of us who has made the decision to identity in Christ… God is calling us. Perhaps not called in the manner in which those individuals who were ordained and commissioned last Sunday night in Wildwood were. They were called to rearrange their lives into the ministry of the church … to become pastors and deacons focused on building up Christ’s church through their faith and their call.
But, we … WE ARE called because faith is an operative word … stepping up to be a Christian is not merely as easy as calling yourself a Phillies’ fan or being someone who enjoys Humphrey Bogart movies … I guess if you relate to Bogie and Bacall you are living in the old days … frankly I can’t name many new stars but I do know those great film actors from those long ago days. Even though I treasure Casablanca and know that story I am not a believer in Rick Blaine nor in Ilsa but I can always enjoy having Sam play it again in Rick’s Café Americain. I know their story backwards and forwards.
Faith in God is a call … Faith in Christ is an obligation … Faith is an activism in our lives led by the Holy Spirit that goes beyond saying we like hearing the Christmas story of Jesus Christ. Faith is more than us acknowledging what happened to Saul on the Damascus Road that transformed him into the namesake of this church … a man who suffered for his faith … a man who wrote letters that captured the essence of what it means to be a Christian.
James, one of those early faith leaders who wrote one of Pastor Lewis’ favorite Bible books, pushes the concept of being people of action … people called by God … connecting the dots of our baptism to those movements when we actually claim Jesus as ours and then living as the one of the faithful out in the world … he wrote, “those who only hear the Word of God but don’t DO the word of God are like those who look at their faces in the mirror … they look at themselves, walk away and immediately forget what they were like. You must be doers of the WORD of God not only hearers who mislead themselves. If those who claim devotion to God DO NOT control what they say and do, they only mislead themselves. True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God, is to care for orphans and widows in their difficulties and to KEEP the WORLD from contaminating us.”
Yes, we are CALLED to live different lives from those who do not believe and definitely from those who use the name of Jesus for their personal advantages while rejecting everything that Jesus teaches. We can easily find the Jesus lessons in the Gospels and those Gospels … the Scriptures make sure that we receive the final words of Jesus Christ before He ascended into heaven … we are to make DISCIPLES for GOD … DISCIPLES for JESUS … we are called to live out our faith in whatever way we can.
Paul writes from prison “live as people worthy of the CALL you received from God. Conduct yourselves with all humility, gentleness, and patience. Accept each other with love, and make an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit with the PEACE that ties you together. You are one body and one spirit just as God also called you into ONE hope. There is one Lord, one faith and one baptism.”
So, church do you remember your baptism? Do you remember your faith? Are you willing or even interested in determining how God is calling you to live out your faith in the light of Jesus Christ. How does God want you to act to build up God’s church … to make new disciples … to care for the orphans, the widows, the poor, the strangers, the prisoners and every other individual Jesus calls us to step up to be difference makers for in this world?
We heard in today’s lesson from the Acts about Paul’s vision to go to Macedonia, which is where he and those with him found a place along a riverbank to pray. I love how Paul decided that it was along the still waters that they should pray. It is a reminder to me that for us to sense God’s call to us … to sense Christ in us … to start to hold onto the Holy Spirit … we need those still waters … we need to have our souls restored we need to lie down in green pastures .. friends to sense your call … you need to be led in the paths of righteousness for God’s sake and for your connection to God to reflect that baptism from so many years ago when God’s love rained down upon you and your family.
Paul went to the river and even though he and his friends were not from Macedonia they began to talk with the women who were there. We heard how Lydia experienced God and Jesus Christ in those moments … there along the riverbank we can reasonable assume that she and her household were baptized … they sensed God … they came to know Jesus Christ … Paul had been with them … and then she felt called … she was changed … she invited Paul and his friends to stay at her house. A simple thing … but perhaps an out of the ordinary moment … a faith moment and although Paul and friends were initially reluctant this woman of faith persuaded them to stay in her house.
Our calling in faith does not have to be complicated … our calling from God does not place expectations beyond our control on us … but our calling from God … our faith in God … needs to be reflected in our lives.
In responding to one of His disciples in that Upper Room Jesus answered, “Whoever loves me will keep my word. My Father will love them and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever doesn’t love me doesn’t keep my words. The Word that you hear isn’t mine, it is the word of the Father who sent me.”
We are called to notice what Jesus taught … we are called to live lives that reflect our faith even in our own personal imperfection we still are called. Paul writes to the church in Rome, “If you confess with your mouth “Jesus is Lord” and in your heart you have faith you will be saved. Trusting with the heart leads to righteousness and confessing with your mouth leads to salvation. Faith comes from listening but its listening by means of Christ’s message.”
We move on from the olden days into the days that are ahead. We are in worship today … baptized individuals who call ourselves Christians.
God’s love is there for us … God’s peace is readily available for us … it is what Jesus provides to those who believe … true faith … real faith … Andrew Murray, a well known early 20th century pastor and author, wrote, “God graciously uses our simple needs to train us and prepare us for something much higher than we were thinking of. We were seeking gifts: He, the Giver, longs to give us Himself.” I pray that you are hearing God’s call to action … that you are allowing God to live in and through you … and that together we can make new disciples for Jesus Christ in this world while strengthening and growing his church beginning here in West Deptford. AMEN