Living into your calling

A few years ago, I was helping out with a campus ministry at a community college I attended.  The speaker that night was a guy I knew. He had played football at the junior college, went off to LSU, then transferred to Southern Miss where I went. The campus ministry had plenty of football players that attended the speakers and Bible studies. He and one of the current football players who was being recruited by various universities to play football were talking. As I overheard them talking, the question of regret came up. The speaker told the young football player if he could do it all over again, he wouldn't have went to USM. He would have went to a larger school where he could have had a better chance at being drafted. Now aside from my obvious disappointment at his disregard for our alma mater, I was struck by this statement in another way.Here was this guy who had a college degree, a beautiful wife (who he had dated as long as I had known them), got a chance to play college football, and knew the love of God. It began to dawn on me that he like many of us was not "happy" with his lot in life. He desired more than what he had been given. From listening to him speak, he was obviously successful in the career he had chosen and it allowed him to speak to students and make an impact on their life. I have no doubt he was exactly where he was called to be. The problem is many of us, myself included fail to live into our calling. For my friend, he would have been happier being a pro football player because to him it offered more value than what he was doing. Inversely there is my friend Catherine. As we were talking over facebook tonight, it dawned on me that Catherine was most definitely living into her calling. I'd only known Catherine about two years, but she had always been kind of quiet and reserved. The fact I'm overbearing and talk to much probably doesn't help encourage others to speak but it's my curse. However recently God has been doing amazing things in her life. She has shared ideas for outreach at the campus ministry I was a part of at Southern Miss. She volunteered to give her testimony to the youth group she is an intern with and is genuinely happy about both. She is living into her calling. She is making the most of life and speaking for God and about God in an unashamed way. Our calls change, but hers right now is to reach out to people and share how Christ has worked in her life and how God can work in theirs. She is experiencing the pure joy of how we feel when we live into our calling and are exactly where God wants us to be. As you go forward, look around and see the impact you making. Are you where God is calling you to be right now? Are you where you are supposed to be but not reaching out to who you are supposed to? I hope that anyone who reads this, can come to know the pure joy of the moment you realize that you are right where God has called you to be at that very moment in your life. The joy of realizing that we have the free will to choose the direction our life takes and we have chosen a path that is pleasing to God and allows us to work and build His kingdom.

-Shawn

Sermon: John 13,15 and Mark 10

A few people have missed the two times I've preached before so as I prepare to preach for the third time, I've decided to give my friends a sneak peek at my sermon. It's not final yet but it's below.

No greater love is this than a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13). What is love? What if we redefined love from an emotion to an action? Actually we don't have to. Jesus already did that for us. I really love the Greek language. One of the reasons I love it, is because understanding greek better really brings the New Testament to life. The sermon tonight started with John 15:13. In this very verse Jesus takes love from simply an emotion to an action. Obviously Jesus is foreshadowing his sacrificing his life for ours on the cross but there's more to in than that. John is a poet so everything he writes is always deeper than it seems at surface level. The word John uses here tithahmi means to lay down but also means to put aside or place behind. Jesus is not only talking about his own physical sacrifice but offering a message to his disciples. He's telling them that laying down your life is not only physical but also means putting others before yourself or putting yourself behind. For us Jesus was a living breathing example of both. He would give His life for those who didn't deserve it, but also would lower himself to the lowest of low to serve others. In the 10^th chapter of Mark James and John are asking Jesus to make them His top guys. Jesus tells them before they can lead they must serve. Jesus follows that message by delivering a bomb to James and John telling them “even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Jesus is tying sacrifice, love, and service and making them one with each other. I talked about Greek earlier to say this. Greek has several words for love. We think we know what love is but the Greeks can't simply define it at love. The word Jesus uses in John 15:13 is agape. Agape is the Greek word for sacrificial unconditional love. John and Jesus then begin to weave this beautiful tapestry of how laying down our life physically might now be our call but we are called to lay down our lives and desires to help and serve those of others. Jesus was the ultimate example of this. In Biblical times the feet washer was the lowest of low. He was what we would call the low man on the totem pole, but Jesus lowered himself to this level and washed the feet of his disciples. The greatest man to ever grace the face of the earth has lowered himself to do the job least desirable in serving his disciples. As Christians we commit ourselves to following Christ by being baptized. We remember the ultimate sacrifice Christ gave for us by partaking in communion. No greater way can we remind ourselves that we are called to be sacrificial and serve others. Christ was and is our example to follow and we must remind ourselves to remain humble and not be to proud to serve those we feel below us because Jesus was greater than we can ever be and felt no shame but pride in lowering himself to serve those who were below him.