{Collected
Sermons, First Draft}
The Whole Man
Do you suppose that God would ever call a man to be a lawyer, or perhaps a banker? This is a story about two men who were called, not to be a lawyers or bankers, but men called to a surprising vocation nonetheless.
There was a man named Jacob who had twelve sons, all of them born to him while out of his native country. The next to last of these boys was born of the wife Jacob greatly loved, a son of his old age. In Genesis 37 we learn something of the children of Jacob:
...Joseph being seventeen years old was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s other wives: and Joseph brought to his father a bad report about what these boys were doing.
He was a snitch, I suppose but after all, he did owe loyalty to his father and so he told his father what they did.
Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colors, a special coat to wear.
I can’t think of very many things more calculated to create jealousy in the other boys than a special gift for only one of them but he loved this boy and he did what he wanted to do.
When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and they couldn’t bring themselves to speak peaceably to this boy.
So Joseph suffered isolation in his own family and it only got worse.
And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told his brethren and they hated him all the more. He said to them, hear I pray you this dream I have dreamed for behold, we were binding sheaves in the field and lo my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and behold, your sheaves stood round about and made obeisance to my sheaf. His brethren said, "Shall you indeed reign over us"? Do you think you are going to be in charge of us, or do you think you are going to have dominion over us? And they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.
I suppose Joseph was naive to have told them that dream but he did tell them.
He had another dream and he told it to his brothers again. Behold I dreamed a dream more. Behold the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father and his father rebuked him and said, what are you talking about, "Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to you to the earth"? And his brothers envied him; but his father took note of the saying.
Though his father rebuked him, nevertheless, he was a godly man and he realized that his boy really had these dreams. He wasn’t making them up. Joseph probably should have said nothing about the dreams but Jacob suspected there was something to them.
Now what’s interesting is at this early stage of Joseph’s life, age seventeen, God had placed a call on this boy; we know that because of the dreams. Otherwise, God wouldn’t have bothered giving him the dreams, so it’s easy to pick the time when he was actually called by God for what he ultimately was going to do.
Now let me draw a distinction here, and it may not be easy to grasp. Historically, Christian people think of the gifts and the calling of God in a limited way. We think of spiritual gifts along the lines of a calling to be a preacher or a teacher or something to serve the church. For a long time, we have been taught that our spiritual life is separate from our vocation, so we go to church on the weekend, but our other life, the life where we earn a living, is separated somehow from the religious side of our life. There is a kind of dualism that has shaped our thinking, to such an extent that we are unaware of it.
This man Joseph is going to present a major corrective to that idea. At age seventeen Joseph was called by God in a dream. He was not notified of the precise nature of the calling and not told where he is going to go. All he was told in these dreams is that God had somehow taken an interest in him and had a purpose for his life. All Joseph knew was that he had a calling and it would have the results that he had seen in the dreams.
Being as young as he was, Joseph serves as an example of one of the preferences of God that is easily overlooked: often the older serves the younger. Joseph was a little cocky about this but his cockiness was soon to be corrected. What follows is one of the great stories of the bible and chances are that you all ready know the story very well. If you went to Sabbath school or Sunday school while growing up you ran across this sooner or later.
Joseph was sent off by his father to see his brothers and bring back a report about how things really were. He was the one of the whole gang that Jacob really had confidence in. It was a fateful decision. When the brothers saw him far off, before he ever got close to them, with his coat of many colors he was wearing, they conspired together to kill him. They said,” Here comes the dreamer; nobody around here has a coat like that.” They said, “Let’s get together and kill him and cast him into a pit and we will say that some evil beast devoured him and we will see what shall become of his dreams then.”
Reuben had a more a sober head and when he heard this, he began to think how he could deliver Joseph. “Don’t kill him,” He said, “just cast him into the pit and lay no hand upon him.” He wanted to get him out of their hands and to come back later and deliver him to his father. Reuben had good intentions but fate intervened, as some might say. Actually God intervened.
It came to pass they stripped Joseph out of his coat of many colors, and they took him and cast him into the pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it. And they sat down to eat bread and lifted up their eyes and behold a company of Ishmaelites, (Arabs), came down on their way from Gilead towards Egypt with camels bearing spicery, balm and myrrh. They were traveling down to Egypt to trade it off. Judah came to his brothers and said,” There is no profit in killing our brother and concealing his blood, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites; don’t let our hand be upon him, he is our brother and our flesh and we shouldn’t be killing our brother.”
So his brothers agreed, and they lifted Joseph out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver and Joseph was taken into Egypt. Twenty pieces of silver was the price of a man.
Now, this had to happen. This event had to take place for the plan God to be completed. God was taking the long view, and laying the groundwork for what was to follow.
This is something to ponder. Someone once wrote that “to be discontent is to covet against God.” When I first read that I closed my eyes and stopped for a minute and thought, what does he mean by that? It doesn’t make sense to me, how can you covet against God? As I read on, it became clearer. The point was that God has a plan for us. And with Joseph he had embarked upon a plan.
Wherever we happen to be and whatever we have to do, we are urged to be content to be in God’s plan, working toward his calling, whatever that calling may turn out to be. To indulge ourselves in complaining and groaning about our lot is to covet something other than what God has in store for us.
I think of Joseph. He went out there, favorite of his father, in his coat of many colors, with his dreams of glory. Then his brothers strip his coat off him, throw him into a pit with every intention of leaving him there. This is a place where a man might find himself in discontent. Joseph might have found a complaint justified.
Then, he was sold to the Ishmaelites. On the way to Egypt he had plenty of time to grumble, moan or be discontent. We don’t know anything about his state of mind during this period of time. All I can tell you is that he was where he had to be to get to where he needed to be. To complain about it would have been pointless and as this writer had said, it would have been to covet against God. Joseph had every reason to think God had deserted him, but that was not the case.
He was now a slave. He had been brought down to Egypt, as it says in Genesis 39 verse 1:
Now Joseph was brought down to Egypt. And Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him down there. The LORD was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian. And his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD made everything he did to prosper in his hand.
Now this is crucial; his master saw that God was with Joseph. How? Did Joseph preach to him? Is there any indication that Joseph engaged in deep theological discussions with him? Did he argue with him? Did he evangelize the man? There is not a hint of any of that. How did the captain see that God was with him? He saw it in the way that Joseph prosecuted his work, the way he went about doing the things he was given to do.
Now we are not dealing with spiritual things. We are dealing managing the affairs of Pharaoh’s palace guard. What does that involve? Well, logistics, economics, personnel, were all military issues, and there was nothing spiritual about it. Not only that, Joseph was managing the affairs of the captain of the guard of Pharaoh, a pagan. But Joseph worked hard, he did his job, and I think what is important to know is that he applied the law of God as he knew it in every single aspect of his life. The law was his guiding light, his guiding principle and was a part of all that he did.
It was not a matter of private prayer over here, private worship of God opposed to everything else. Everything was together with Joseph. Now we may wonder why God would call a man to manage things such as these? What was his objective? We do know that Joseph went far beyond this to manage the entire country before he was done, but the road from where we are now in the narrative will be a very tough road indeed.
So Joseph found grace in his sight, and served him. Then he made him overseer of his house, and all that he had he put under his hand. So it was, from the time that he had made him overseer of his house and all that he had, that the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; and the blessing of the LORD was upon everything that he had in the house and in the field.
The presence of a man of God, doing what today is considered secular work made all the difference in this man’s house. This is something of a new idea to many and even counter to all we have been asked to do or think.
For a Christian, nothing we do is secular. When we are called of God, when we are placed in a position by God, we are to apply all the principles of God’s law and his way to everything we do. Everything should be together. We should live the way of God in all we do all the time. This is not a matter of talk, religious arguments, overt religious acts. It is that in all we do and think, we are directed by the law of God, the law of Jesus Christ, the principles of the Bible that order our lives. This is how we conduct our business and follow through on everything we put our hand to.
Thus he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand, and he got to the place he didn’t even know what he had except for the bread that he ate.
He didn’t know what kind of crops he had, what kind of animals, even what the guys in the captain’s guard were doing because our boy Joseph was handling all that in spite of the fact that he was likely still a very young man. But now, the plot thickens.
Joseph was not only a good man, he was very good-looking, even handsome. And so it was that his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph, and she said, “Lie with me.” But he said to his master’s wife, “No way, I’m not going to do that with my master’s wife. My master trusts me entirely, he does not know what is going on in this household because I take care of it for him, and he has committed everything that he has to my hand. And he hasn’t kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. Now how can I do this and sin against God”?
For him it would have been totally out of character, contrary to everything he believed and stood for. He could no more sleep with her than he could fly without wings. It was contrary to who he was. His life was not divided into the moral and the secular, the spiritual and the material; it was all in one piece. So he stuck to his guns and never broke faith with God even under the greatest of temptations that could be thrown his way.
But the woman didn’t give up. She was after him everyday. He wouldn’t listen to or lie with her; he wouldn’t even be with her, which is very smart by itself:
So it was, as she spoke to Joseph day by day, that he did not heed her, to lie with her or to be with her. But it happened about this time, when Joseph went into the house to do his work it happened that none of the men of the house were inside, that she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in her hand, and fled and got him out of there.
You know I have very little doubt in my mind, that a gentlemen who is now in the process of retiring from the ministry, Mr. Billy Graham, thought about this message when he made a decision many years ago to never be alone with a woman other than his wife. He carried that out year after year after year and why not? He knew the bible, and here is a man who does his best to use the bible as his guide.
And so it was, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and fled outside,
It must have been a terrible insult. Shakespeare no doubt had read this when he wrote, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
So she called the men of her house and spoke to them, saying, “See, he has brought in to us a Hebrew to mock us. He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice. And it came to pass when he heard my cry that he left his garment here and ran like the coward he is.”
Well it’s a rough thing for the husband when he comes home and finds the man he trusts, by the evidence he had and the allegations made, had betrayed him. He couldn’t very well deny what his wife was saying so he put Joseph in prison.
So, once again there was an opportunity, perhaps even a reason, for Joseph to break faith with God and to “covet against God.” It would have been understandable to not want this particular decision and to complain to God that it wasn’t fair. Apparently he didn’t. He continued to be a man of God in all of his affairs, even in the slammer.
But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him mercy, and He gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.
The next thing we know Joseph is running the jail. What kind of a man was this? First he was bought as a slave and the next thing we know he is running the whole household and affairs of the captain of the guard himself. Then, he gets in trouble, gets thrown into prison and next he is running the prison. This was a charismatic man. He was a very gifted person.
The Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison committed into Joseph’s hand all the prisoners. Whatever they did there he was the doer of it. The keeper of the prison didn’t bother looking at anything that was under his responsibility because the Lord was with him and whatever they did the Lord made it work.
You know that’s the way it goes. This man was called by God and was on his way down the trail doing what God called him to do. And when he was in that calling, when he was using his gifts that God gave him in that calling, the blessings of God followed him wherever he went; it’s a law. Now through a series of strange dreams Joseph was brought out of prison. At last he would arrive at his calling but even then Joseph would have no idea of the consequences of his calling and how far out into the future they were going to reach. (Genesis 41:14 ff.)
Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him quickly out of the dungeon; and he shaved, changed his clothing, and came to Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I have dreamed a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it. But I have heard it said of you that you can understand a dream, to interpret it.
I think by now Joseph’s cockiness is cooled somewhat from the experiences he has been through.
”So Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, “It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace.” Then Pharaoh said to Joseph: “In my dream I stood on the bank of the river and there came up out of the river seven cattle, fat fleshed and well favored; and they fed in the meadow. Then behold, seven other kine came up after them, poor and ill favored and lean fleshed so that I never saw in the land of Egypt for badness.
They were like the worst cattle you ever laid eyes on in your life.
And the lean and ill-favored kine did eat up the first seven fat kine. When they had eaten them up, it could not be known they had eaten them, they were still ill favored as at the beginning.
They were as ugly as they had been at the first.
And I saw in my dream, seven ears came up on one stalk, fat and good. And behold, seven ears, withered, thin, and blasted with the east wind, sprang up after them. And the thin ears devoured the good ears. So I told this to the magicians, but there was no one who could explain it to me.” Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, “The dreams of Pharaoh are one; God has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do:
Now I think this is interesting and for several reasons it is important. God has shown Pharaoh what he is going to do in Egypt. But why should he care about Egypt? Well, God takes a longer view and had an objective in mind. Joseph had a calling and at this point he is on the cusp of that calling and fulfilling it. Joseph next said:
“The seven good kine are seven years, and the seven good ears are seven years; the dream is one. And the seven thin and ill-favored cattle that came up after them are seven years, and the seven empty ears blasted by the east wind which shall be seven years of famine. This is the thing that I have spoken to Pharaoh, what God is about to do He shows to Pharaoh. There is coming seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt; we are going to have so much stuff we won’t know what to do with it in seven years. And there shall arise after them seven years of famine so bad that all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine will consume the land. The plenty shall not be known by reason of the famine following it is going to be so bad. And the dream that was told to Pharaoh twice is because the thing is established by God and also because it is coming soon. So here is my advice: let Pharaoh look out a wise man, a discreet man, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint officers over the land, to take up a-fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plentiful years.”
Twenty percent of a huge crop that was coming for seven years, you can do the math to get an idea of what they would have.
“And let them gather all the food of those good years to come and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities. Then that food shall be as a store for the land against the seven years of famine which shall be in the land of Egypt, that the land perish not through the famine.” So the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of all his servants.
Now what is fascinating about this is that you can’t depend on people to look ahead and save for the hard times. If you give them seven years of loads and loads of good things to eat they will eat it now. That’s just the way people are. They can’t look ahead, they have to have instant breakfast, instant gratification, therefore in order for people to survive, someone has to be in charge, someone has to take a firm hand to make sure that doesn’t happen.
And Pharaoh said to his servants, “Where can we look to find such a man as this one standing before me that has the Spirit of God?” Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Inasmuch as God has shown you all this, there is no one as discerning and wise as you. You shall be over my house, and according to you your word shall all my people shall be ruled only in the throne itself I be greater than you are.” And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.”
Think about this: the pattern of Joseph’s life is unchanged. He is doing what he has always done. He has lived actively, he has lived diligently, he has applied what he knew about the ways of the law, and of God in everything he did seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day; that’s the way the man lived his life. And as far as I can tell he never “coveted against God,” he never resented where he was, never complained about what he was given to do. Everything here had to happen because how do you get from being a younger son of a Palestinian nomad, to ruling over Egypt?
The next question follows: Why was Joseph over Egypt? Now we come to the important part of the story. Later when Joseph was viceroy of Egypt and Egypt was pagan to the core, there is no indication that it was anything but pagan. It was perhaps the most powerful nation on the planet at that time. It was a big powerful country, pagan from one end to the other and there is not a hint of evangelism in what Joseph did. There is no record of him preaching to anyone. If he does it isn’t a significant enough event for it to be recorded in the bible; that isn’t why Joseph was there.
Why was he there? He was there to save Egypt so that Egypt could be a sanctuary for people, including his family. Just as in the dream, his brothers and his father did come before Joseph and did bow before him but they didn’t come before him as before a younger son of Jacob. They bowed before him as the viceroy of Egypt who had the power of life and death over them. They came and they flourished there until the times changed and later his people were made slaves.
Try to grasp the big picture. Joseph saved the economy of Egypt making Egypt even stronger than before. He centralized the power in a way that had not been before. The economy after that continued to be built on slave labor making the Israelites serve in very hard bondage but a funny thing happened over that period of time; the Israelites got stronger and the Egyptians got weaker. So when the time came to bring Israel out again, God took away from Egypt everything that Joseph and Israel had built. He had built them a strong economy, made them powerful and rich, built great cities, great treasure cities and pyramids all built with slave labor.
But when all was said and done, every firstborn male in Egypt was dead, the economy was in shambles, the cattle were dead, the fields and everything was a wreck when Israel left. It didn’t have to be that way. But God gave it all to them and they turned right around and enslaved God’s people and killed all of their male children and threw them into the river.
That was something so abhorrent to God that it transcends our imagination. They had to pay. Justice had to be done. It was Joseph who laid a foundation to make all this possible and he was able to do this because he did not compartmentalize his life. He did not split up his life into one part over here as a man of God and the other part over there a businessman. That is not the way this man was. Everything about Joseph was united in his person. As he worked everyone saw what he did. He was a “whole man” in everything he did from managing a division of infantry, the palace guard, to running a prison, to running a country. And everyone knew why he succeeded at it. They knew he succeeded because he was a man of God, not just any God but The God; that’s what they knew about Joseph and that was his strongest evangelistic work.
I mentioned to begin with two men like this in the bible. The other one is a man named Daniel. Daniel like Joseph was carried away captive. And Daniel, like Joseph, was sorely tempted to compromise with what he knew was right; he didn’t do it. Daniel Chapter 1 verse 3:
Then the king instructed Ashpenaz, the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel and of the king’s seed and some of the princes. He wanted to have those in whom there was no blemish, well favored, skillful in wisdom, but cunning in knowledge, understanding science, and such as had the ability in them to stand in the king’s palace and whom they might teach the language and learning of the Chaldeans.
This is fascinating; the king didn’t want to oppress these people. He saw there was value in them, and he wanted to make the most of those people. Well, the story is told in Sabbath schools and Sunday schools about how some of the Hebrew children refused to eat the king’s food and strictly stayed with a vegetarian kind of diet. It was a very simple, very clean diet and it worked well. They were probably healthier because of the difference in diet and their avoidance of some of the junk that the king was probably eating for Daniel knew better than that.
Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat or with the wine, which he drank;
You can discuss for hours exactly what that meant but it is basically irrelevant. Daniel was being asked to compromise about who he was in his life and on this occasion he decided he was not going to do it.
He requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Now God had brought Daniel into the favor and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs.
How does this sort of thing happen? How does it happen that a kid brought in from slavery from captives of Israel finds himself in favor with one of the most powerful men in the palace? It was simply because of the kind of person he was. It involved God’s favor but it also had to do with something more mudane. It was because of God’s blessing and a miracle but it was also worked out this way because of the kind of men they were. They were shaped by a sense of calling and a sense of destiny to where God was taking them. They knew it would be painful at times but they didn’t worry about that. They decided to handle each challenge and difficulty that came their way as men of God, front-to-front, side-to-side back-to-back, solid in their commitment. Some people are veneer all the way through but these men weren’t veneer, they were solid gold, and they did not complain about their lot. They never coveted against God but they were humble and repentant for what they had done wrong. The ninth chapter of Daniel’s book is a marvelous prayer and it shows why he is listed as one of the most righteous men in the bible. A paraphrase of that basically is:
We have sinned and done evil in your sight and you didn’t do anything wrong by bringing us here, we deserve every bit of it.
But back to Daniel 1 verse 18:
Now at the end of the days, when the king had said that they should be brought in, the prince of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. Then the king communed with them, and no one was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah; they stood before the king. And in all matters of wisdom and understanding that the king asked of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers who were in all his realm.
People wonder why the Jewish people are so successful, why they are in the higher levels of accomplishment and have higher I.Q.’s? The only way others can hold them down is through persecution such as that by the Germans, the Russians and others through time. It is because from the time they are little children they are taught the law of God and it is ingrained into their character. They study, and teachers invest time with them so they blossom like flowers in intelligence. They also become charismatic people who others like to be around because of the way they are brought up and because, at the core of their upbringing, is God. Their wisdom comes from his Word, the bible. And, like Joseph, Daniel goes through a series of events similar to those of Joseph and has an ability to reveal the dreams of the king. In Daniel 2:46:
And then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and worshiped Daniel. And the king commanded they should offer an oblations and sweet odors and the king answered Daniel and said, It’s true, your God is a God of Gods and a lord of kings, a revealer of secrets seeing you could reveal this secret. The king made Daniel a great man; he gave him many great gifts and made him ruler over the whole providence of Babylon, chief of governors, over all the wise men of Babylon.
Here’s another man who went from the bottom right to the top of the heap, a captive, promoted to running a “pagan” nation. Once again, this state was one of the most powerful in the world and there was Daniel running the affairs of the country, the most powerful nation anywhere. And once again, like Joseph, his role is not that of an evangelist. His role wasn’t about arguing or teaching doctrines or belief systems; it was as a governor.
God called both Joseph and Daniel to be governors of pagan nations for His own purposes. People came to know about God not through the preaching or the evangelistic arguments of these men but from their example. Their lives as lived before God fulfilled the calling from God, which goes to show that the calling from God is not restricted to church work. It’s not just a matter of what we are going to do in a church building, and we should have known that if we have been studying our bibles and thinking about what we are reading.
There is an example from the time of building the tabernacle that God gave a special gift of craftsmanship to a particular person in order to work in gold and silver and putting things together. He lived that gift in God’s service. These men did not divide themselves between God and their jobs. They were whole; they were single minded in the biblical sense. It brought to mind some statements in the New Testament that we seem to take only one way. Perhaps we should take a second look.
For God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. (Romans 11:29)
God won’t go back on his gifts; he won’t take them away. God’s gifts and his calling are two different things but closely related. What are the gifts given? In Joseph’s case it was administration. He was able to take control of, administer and manage everything he came in contact with, the same with Daniel. They were remarkable men in the sense of what their gifts were and what their call was. The gifts and calling matched. I have no doubt that Joseph and Daniel were very charismatic men. If you had walked in the room with them you would have known you were in the presence of someone very special.
You see your calling brethren, how not many wise men after the flesh, not many noble are called. (I Corinthians 1:26)
We always think of that as being called in the faith and that’s fine. But, if you look back at Joseph and Daniel, I don’t know that they were particularly wise or mighty or noble. They were what they were because they were men of God, called of God and gifted by God to do what it was that he wanted them to do. There is no reason for anyone to feel that, just because they pursue a career that is not converting people directly, that they are not operating within the calling of God for their lives.
God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound those that are mighty, and the base things of the world, and things which are despised, has God chosen and yea, all things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are….
Why is he doing that?
…so that no flesh would glory in his presence. (Verse 29)
Later in the same letter:
Let everyman abide in the same calling wherein he was called. Were you called being a servant? Don’t worry about it. If you can be freed by all means do. For he that is called in the Lord being a servant is the Lord’s freeman. Likewise he who is called being free is Christ’s servant. You are bought with a price don’t become servants of men. Brethren, let every man wherein he is called therein abide with God. (1 Corinthians 7:20)
As I see the people sitting before me today, I realize the wide range of abilities and professions and things that are done. You don’t need to walk away from your calling thinking it is something inferior because it is not a “spiritual job.” The truth is that for far too long people have drawn this false dichotomy between things spiritual and things physical. I’ve got news for you; you’re physical all the way through. You can also be spiritual, all the way through. You can’t be half and half; that doesn’t work.
Therefore brethren give diligence to make your calling and election sure. If you do these things you shall never fail for an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:10)
We are not wrong to think of the calling of God as a call to salvation, but there can be other calls and there can be other gifts. Those gifts are in no way inferior to one another in what each person is called to do. I feel that I’ve been called to teach the bible so I try to do my best in my calling. It’s pointless for someone who is called, as a builder for example, to leave his calling and take up mine. If someone has a particular set of skills in construction management and can bring together crews of men to build homes, houses, businesses, it would be foolish for someone like that to leave his calling to take up mine, if that’s not what he is gifted for doing.
Each of us has a call and the gifts to go with that call. It may or may not be something having to do with the church. Whether we are on the job or in the church, we should be the same person at all times. But like Christians have been doing for two thousand years we have fallen into error in dividing our lives. We separate our thoughts into two channels having to do with the physical and the spiritual. Our approach has been to try and get physical things out of the way in order to be more spiritual.
We need to start re-training ourselves to be whole men and women. To be one person, not two, so that everything we do it is to the glory of God whether it be cleaning out a sewage pipe or teaching children in church. All that we do needs to be to the honor and glory of God in the way we carry out that duty. God has given us a call and our concern should be to do everything the way God would want it done.
We must not be divided inside ourselves. When we sing the lyrics from Onward Christian Soldiers: We are not divided, all one body we… the place to start is inside. A person who is divided inside his or her own heart will find it impossible to not be divided in the faith. James says as much when he says, “a double minded man is unstable in all of his ways. (James 1:8)
All his ways are unstable, not just some of them. What I said today is not complete for I feel we have gone a long way done the wrong road. We have allowed ourselves to be affected by the dualism in our society, the secular versus sacred split that we find everywhere in our society. We have allowed ourselves to be split down the middle of our own hearts in much the same way. Getting from where we are to where we ought to be is going to be a long, difficult, challenging road. But we have to walk that road.