For the Sake of the Call

This past Monday night I drove home alone from Nocona, TX where our Jr. High students ran in a track meet. I met my great friend Eric for dinner and he loaned me a cd to listen to on the drive home. One song ministered to my heart and served as the catalyst for the message I preached this morning from [Matt 4:18-21].

The song is sung by Steven Curtis Chapman called "For the Sake of the Call." Here are the words. "Nobody stood and applauded them - so they knew from the start this road would not lead to fame. All they really knew for sure was Jesus called to them - He said, 'Come follow Me,' and they came with reckless abandon they came. Empty nets at the water's edge told a story few could believe and none could explain. How some crazy fishermen agreed to go where Jesus lead with no thought of what they would gain for Jesus called them by name."

Those words bore into my soul so much I listened to that song over and over on my drive home. It made me think back to when I first met Jesus and started following Him as a high school student back in 1983. For twenty-nine years I have been following. I followed Him to Howard Payne University where I met Brenda. I followed Him to Weatherford, TX where I served a great group of students for two years. I followed Him to east Texas where I served as a pastor first and then vocational evangelist for a decade.

I continued to follow the Lord to Paradise where we gave four years of our lives to the wonderful flock of First Baptist Church. We followed Jesus to Seminole, TX where we met and served some of the greatest people on the face of the earth. While there experienced close to one month of real revival; the kind you read about in history books.

While listening to that song over and over again in my truck driving home the words continue to hit home. It all felt eerily similar to how the Lord called my family to leave the comfort and secure life in Seminole for the grand adventure of starting Faith Community Church. Nobody applauded. We new we would not get famous. All we knew is for months Jesus called us to follow Him. Our starting this church came only in response to call of Jesus to follow Him. Though not an easy road it has already been a road filled with adventure.

I preached this morning recounting Jesus' declaration He would make His followers fishers of men. As I looked out over the congregation in the high school cafeteria I locked eyes with two men who trusted Christ and several teenagers that have been saved since Faith Community Church began. That is what this is all about. It is about praying, loving, sharing, witnessing, and celebrating when Jesus saves someone and calls them to follow Him.

I don't know many people who follow Jesus with reckless abandon. We like our safety nets and following Jesus often defies logic. We love to read the success stories of the athlete, author, business owner who becomes both famous and wealthy. This would not be the case for Simon, Andrew, James or John. Following Jesus proved to be very costly.

Simon, later named Peter, died crucified upside down in Rome. Andrew is reported to have been crucified and preached from his cross to his last breath to those watching. A tyrant had James beheaded in Jerusalem. People cast John into a caldron of boiling oil. Miraculously he survived. He lived out his last days banished on the island of Patmos.

Anne Askew suffered torture on the rack and died by being burned at a stake in 1545. At twenty-five her last words were mature beyond her age. She said, "I am not come hither to deny my Lord and Master."

John Huss believed in the infallible and authoritative scriptures. That belief cost him his life. Before he was killed he said, "What I taught from my lips I now seal with my blood."

People have done all sorts of things for the sake of the call of God on their lives. They have taught a Sunday morning Bible study though scared out of their wits. They have given away vast sums of money though it meant sacrifice, gotten passports to go on a mission trips though nervous and unsure, loved the most unlovely people though uncomfortable, moved to new communities though scared and unsure, believed God for impossible things though impossible, and have overcome every imaginable adversity all for the sake of the call.

I think of a high school football coach who trusted God for the money and took his whole family to Africa for two weeks for the sake of the call. I am thinking of a school administrator who has his whole family in Honduras on a mission trip at the time of this writing. I am thinking of a senior adult lady who still teaches a young boys and girls Sunday School class when others her age have surrendered this task to the younger generation. Then there is the farmer who gave $10,000 for a mission project though the he is not rich by any means. I recall the single mother who gave $1,000 to missions sacrificially after working two different jobs. There is the man who followed the Lord who serves the Lord through his computer skills updating his church website and serving in the audio/visual needs for the church as well as teaching students. All these serve for the sake of the call.

Nobody applauds them and they are not famous. They are normal men and women who follow Jesus where He leads for the sake of the call. I want to be counted in their number. Whether that means writing a new book or blog, serving as a church planter or pastor, or sharing Christ with some new man or woman, I want to keep following. All for the sake of the call.